Canadian Stage opened a production of Amy Herzog’s adaptation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House at the Bluma Appel Theatre on Wednesday evening.  It’s directed by Brendan Healey and stars Hailey Gillis and Gray Powell as Nora and Thorvald.  It runs two hours without a break and it’s mesmerizing from start to finish.  Direction, acting and designs are all of the highest quality and Gillis gives one of the best performances I have ever experienced.

It’s surprising really that a play so constrained by the realities of a minor Norwegian town in the 1800s can still resonate but Nora’s search for meaning in her marriage to the supremely self centred Thorvald still stirs the emotions and the intellect and it’s so cleverly portrayed here.  Sets and costumes (Gillian Gallow) have that depressing heaviness that characterises the Victorian era bourgeoisie made worse by the claustrophobic confinement of a Nordic winter.  When we first see Nora though she is dressed in bright red and flits about as if she hasn’t a care in the world.  The sense that she is a bird in a cage is palpable.

As the consequences of each of their pasts unravel Nora and Thorvald transform.  She grows as danger and adversity loom.  Gillis develops her character brilliantly and by the somewhat surprising and, no doubt in its day shocking, denouement we are seeing a woman, now clad in severe black, who has found an unexpected sense of purpose.  It’s also a really good physical performance.  It’s not just that she can dance when she has to but that her whole body language evolves as her situation changes.  For Thorvald though each threat or opportunity just becomes another reason why he is always right and properly the centre of attention.  It’s in some ways a more subtle transformation than Nora’s because he isn’t learning but somehow Powell manages to fully inhabit that “stuckness”.

There are fine supporting performances too.  David Collins is quite charming as the chorus like Dr. Rank and Jamie Robinson as Thorvald’s teenage nemesis and now, perhaps, Nora’s is wonderfully ambiguous.  Laura Candlin as Nora’s childhood friend Kristine, too is a disturbing presence.  Elizabeth Saunders is a quietly efficient Anne-Marie and there are very cute cameos from Athan Giazitzidis and Vera Deodata as the children.  There’s really not a weak link in the cast.

I’m not sure what else to say.  This is classic theatre at its finest.  It’s a “must see”.

A Doll’s House continues at the Bluma Appel Theatre until February 1st.

Photo credits: Dahlia Katz