THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Ibsen's penultimate drama is an old man's play about three curmudgeonly characters stewing in regret. It's a curiously monotone piece which is seldom revived. When it is, it's because it supplies three splendid and, importantly, equal parts for triumvirates of theatre Dames and Knights to show off their command of the stage. Famously Peggy Ashcroft-Wendy Hiller-Ralph Richardson did it in the '70s and Paul Scofield-Vanessa Redgrave-Eileen Atkins in the '90s at the National Theatre. Here, Nick Hytner has cast, to great effect, three of our current greats: Simon Russell Beale plays Borkman, Clare Higgins his wife Gunhild and Lia Williams her sister Ella Rentheim, in a solid and compelling revival.
Beale's trademark in jaded grumpiness is perfect for Borkman. Once a respected banker, he has been brought low by a Bernie Madoff type scandal where he defrauded everyone except, crucially, his sister in law, for whom he held some affection. Out of one prison, he's moved into another of his own making, hiding out from family and society and pacing the floor in a corner of his grand mansion, which is now in Ella's name.
Ella's been supporting the Borkmans' son Erhart (Sebastian De Souza) to the point of being a foster mother and proposes both leaving her estate to him and asking that he adopt her surname. She's ill with a terminal diagnosis and here Williams' unfortunate recent real life foot injury is employed so that Ella has a special boot and walks with a cane. Williams presents a gaunt and fragile figure, and the actress brings great poignancy to the scenes where she accuses Borkman of killing the love she had for him, which in turn destroyed all around him. Needless to say, the reception from the Borkmans is frosty, and Clare Higgins (one of our most underrated stars) does wonders in humanising an angry woman, desperate to keep her son and restore the family's reputation.
The play is great on the psyche of swindlers and Beale perfectly captures both the casual disregard and the bitter self-pity of such Alpha Males. Borkman is laid low, displaying no remorse and dreaming of a comeback, and doesn't that sound familiar?
The one false note by Hytner is staging it in modern dress, which really adds nothing. The characters are imprisoned in so many ways that having them trussed up in Victorian garb would just enhance this. Their horror at the prospect of public shame, too, is not a familiar modern trait.
The modern setting does give designer Anna Fleischle licence to give us another stunning design. Here the vast grey Scandi-chic house, of the kind drooled over in Channel 4's Grand Designs, anchors it in modern Norway. There's even a grand piano on a mezzanine, where a friend's daughter practices, bashing out Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre and neatly ramping up the tension and covering scene changes. The sight of the mist-covered, snowy blanket outside adds to the claustrophobia.
Supporting characters are great, with Ony Uhiara as Fanny, a spirited, earthy, young woman with whom Erhart is eloping and Michael Simkins, suitable morose as Foldal, a crony who listens to Borkman's self-pity.
The symbolist ending, with the characters facing a wintry demise, signalled Ibsen's move beyond naturalism which he developed further in his final dreamlike play We Dead Awaken.
