Review - Rosmersholm (Duke of York's Theatre)

Henrik Ibsen’s Rosmersholm is a politically charged tragedy swelling with a melancholy which seeps from every nook.

Hayley Atwell and the cast of Rosmersholm
Photo credit - Johan Persson
In a small Norwegian town, on the eve of an election which sees the conservative status quo challenged by radical new liberalist thinking, widowed atheist John Rosmer, formerly a well-respected pastor, wavers between embracing modern thinking, and buckling under the history and tradition which his family name, and home, is built on. On one side of the argument is his friend, and former companion to his deceased wife, Rebecca, whose intellect and self-sufficiency is at odds with the patriarchal thinking of the old. However, on the other side Rosmer’s brother-in-law Andreas Kroll campaigns for the ruling class to remain in what he sees as its rightful place. As both sides’ campaigning increases in ferocity, Rosmersholm becomes an epicentre of chaos, both personal and political. 

Tom Burke and Giles Terera in Rosmersholm
Photo credit - Johan Persson
Ian Rickson, former artistic director at the Royal Court Theatre, has done an extraordinary job of bringing this rarely performed Ibsen gem to the stage. Really, it could have been written yesterday. Rosmersholm is the perfect play for 2019, capturing the utter chaos of post-Brexit Britain, and the fervent tidal wave of fake news which notably swelled up in the run up to the 2016 US presidential election and has continued to wreak havoc politically ever since. 

Rae Smith's production design brings the bleakness of Rosmersholm to life; dozens of portraits hang on the walls and act as a constant reminder of the house’s proud history, meanwhile a grim line of grime and peeling paint trailing the bottom of the walls betrays the ghost of a flood which ravaged the house a year ago. That waterline, and the house’s accompanying disarray, acts as a constant symbol of guilt for Rosmer, as it betrays the upsetting and somewhat scandalous conditions of Rosmer’s late wife’s death; suicide by drowning, in the house’s adjacent millrun.

Giles Terera and Hayley Atwell in Rosmersholm
Photo credit - Johan Persson
The spectral canvas of the house is adorned with vivid, impressive performers in the play’s central trio. Hayley Atwell's Rebecca West is as enthralling & unreadable as characters get, engaging Tom Burke's disengaged John Rosmer in a precarious tug-of-war; do what's right or do what's safe. Meanwhile Giles Terera’s Kroll exudes an agitated energy as a member of the ruling class who intends to keep the lower societal classes subjugated. Yet another aspect of the play which feels uncomfortably familiar today. 

Holding a mirror up to modern day issues, while providing a glimpse into gender, society and politics of the late 1800s, Rosmersholm proves that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Ibsen’s smart, sophisticated dialogue is in good hands with the trio of star leads, in a production which captures today’s rocky political climate scarily well.

I was invited to review Rosmersholm thanks to London Box Office