Rosmersholm

In Mike Poulton’s highly accessible version, colloquial yet subtle, the complex political and psychological themes of this dark drama are considerably illuminated. And under Anthony Page’s beautifully modulated direction the cast give wonderfully nuanced performances, so that this tragic depiction of unfulfilled potential and wasted lives does not feel too portentous or melodramatic, with shafts of wry humour relieving the gloom.

The small town of Rosmersholm is one of Ibsen’s typically claustrophobic communities, full of seething resentments and repressed guilt, where rumours of adultery and even incest run rife. The last representative of the local aristocratic family, Rosmer, has been living with his housekeeper Rebecca West for over a year since the suicidal drowning of his mentally unbalanced wife. A former pastor, he has recently left the Church after losing his faith, and now intends to go into politics as a liberal reformer with enlightened views on the way Norwegian society should move forward.

However, after he rejects the advances of both the staunchly conservative Dr Kroll, who is head of the local school and brother of his dead wife, and the radical newspaper publisher Peder Mortensgaard Rosmer finds himself under attack. The political conflict becomes personal as character assassination is used to undermine Rosmer, with allegations about his relationship with Rebecca, but as revelations unfold it emerges that her behaviour has by no means been blameless, with spirits from the past coming back to haunt them.

There are aspects of Rosmersholm which evoke better-known works by Ibsen, especially the Freudian buried secrets of Ghosts and the persecuted flawed idealist of An Enemy of the People, but this play packs a powerful punch of its own. The political turmoil of late-nineteenth-century Norway is a potent background presence, while the protagonists also wrestle with their own private demons. Society and individuals alike must come to terms with the problems of their past if they are to progress to a brighter future.

Paul Hilton gives a strong performance as the weak-willed if well-intentioned Rosmer, struggling to escape the dead weight of his family history as he flounders for certainty but lacks the courage of his convictions. The first of Ibsen’s ‘New Women’, Helen McCrory’s Rebecca is a much more determined even manipulative character, knowing exactly what she wants but dependent on the men around her, which makes her vulnerable.

Malcolm Sinclair’s seemingly urbane Kroll masks a right-wing bigot who is prepared to resort to underhand means to defend his values, yet this a rounded portrait of a traditionalist who feels betrayed by his friend Rosmer’s conversion. Peter Sullivan gives Mortensgaard a cynically calculating quality of a campaigning journalist who is happy to twist the truth to further his goals. Paul Moriarty is highly entertaining as Rosmer’s old university tutor Ulrik Brendel, a hard-up left-wing intellectual who has poured away his ideas with drinking. And Veronica Quilligan’s sharp-eyed servant Mrs Helseth misses nothing that is going on in the Rosmer household.

Hildegard Bechtler’s muted design, inspired by the paintings of interiors by Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershoi, a contemporary of Ibsen, lends a suitably melancholy introspection to proceedings, with the Rosmer family portraits on the walls suggesting the inescapable legacy of the past. Peter Mumford’s evocative lighting captures the twilight mood perfectly, while Gareth Fry’s sound recording of the adjacent mill stream is a constant gurgling reminder of the depths to which the desperate sometimes plunge.

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