Photos © Bob Seary
Following in the footsteps of Aaron Posner’s take on Chekov’s The Seagull, Stupid Fucking Bird, and Gary Owen’s Welsh version of The Cherry Orchard, Samuel Adamson’s WIFE dives into Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and delivers an epic epoch jumping exploration and interrogation of the hypocrisies of official morality and their destructive effect on personal relationships.
WIFE begins in 1959. Esteemed actress, Suzannah, is spearheading a successful season of A Doll’s House, playing the leading role of Nora. After a particular performance she is visited in her dressing room by Daisy accompanied by her oafish and overbearing husband, Robert.
Daisy has had a dalliance with Suzannah but has buckled to normative heterosexual pressure from her papa, his expectations of her future are unequivocally wife and mother. Suzannah is disgusted at Daisy’s forced pregnancy and dismisses her. “Don’t come back.”, she commands.
Flash forward to 1988, but the future not taking leave of the past. Ivar, the bad seed of Robert and spoiled fruit of Daisy’s womb and Eric, his swain, in a pub after having just attended a performance of A Doll’s House. They speak in smut, Ivar becoming erratically, dangerously flagrant. He rails against his parents’ sham relationship, “Screw marriage, screw the conformity and tyranny of it.”
Eric is Daisy’s carer and sustains a better relationship with her than she does with her son. Things get complicated as Eric morphs into Cas and 1988 turns into 2019. Cas is starring in a gender bending A Doll’s House. He is squired by the now older Ivar who is looking for investors to float his production company. They meet two likely investors in a pub, Clare and Finn. Clare is there on pretence. Things get complicated.
WIFE is written by a determined homilist, a proselytising playwright who clearly relishes the meta theatricality of his creation. Under the direction of Darrin Redgate, a cast of six sweep through this comedy of eras in multiples roles, characterising the Ibsen factor.
David Marshall-Martin’s set adds to the meta theatricality, a colourful magic box doll’s house that opens out to compartmentalise a dressing room and a pub. Costumes by Avie Stokes and Burley Stokes are also impressive.
