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	"This production was powerful, amusing, with fantastic energy throughout. We were utterly impressed." Head of Drama "I am not always impressed with what I see in professional theatre but this was very good indeed." English and Drama teacher

Director's notes:

Henrik Ibsen died in 1906. He was Chekhov's favourite playwright, Shaw was deeply influenced by what he saw as his 'moral debates', and even 40 years later Arthur Miller was borrowing his concerns and his methods.

100 years later we still read him and perform his plays. Their issues never become dated; what we inherit from the past; values within a family; sexual conduct; personal integrity. But of course there are changes. Around 1900 many of Ibsen's plays were considered shocking enough to be banned because they challenged taboos and prejudices. Since then fashions have altered, censorship has almost vanished and cries of moral outrage are less strident.

Ibsen's great contribution to world theatre was to add a new profundity to entertainment. He expects to disturb us and our prejudices. His moral questions yield no easy answers. And he offers more than a cerebral moral debate. His 'realistic' drawing-room plays like A Doll's House contain threads of symbolism and always engage with the emotional lives of his characters.

At the end of the play Nora shuts the door behind her. The reverberations of this sound had a deep effect on playwriting so that 1879 has been described as a turning point in theatre history. And so how do we respect that significant moment nowadays? Must we always begin by performing the play as if in its period?

Shakespeare was also a great playwright and a child of his times but we don't feel bound by doublet-and-hose or need to persuade an audience that we are all back in 1600. Indeed, a number of Scandinavian and German productions have moved A Doll's House out of its period. These may appear to some as willful and inappropriate decisions. but actually they may be forms of respect. They can suggest that a great playwright is not only of his time but also timeless.

Stephen Siddall

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