Theatre review: Wife

We're going to be seeing a lot of Ibsen's A Doll's House in the next year or so as various theatres have programmed new interpretations on the classic story that gave its heroine an agency and independence that was scandalous at the time. But before that at the Kiln Samuel Adamson offers up several Noras in one, as Wife tells a story of queer history that sees several generations - from 1959 to the 2040s - take inspiration from her. It comes down to Daisy (Karen Fishwick,) who recently married Robert (Joshua James) to please her father, only to fall in love with actress Suzannah (Sirine Saba.) When she takes her husband to see Suzannah play Nora she knows she's got a similar big decision to make, but she ends up sticking with what society expects of her. We then jump to 1988, and though we don’t see Daisy, from what we hear of her the decision proved catastrophic: A lonely alcoholic, she's estranged from her only son Ivar (James.)

Ivar does care enough to hire a carer for her, but he may only be doing it because Eric (Calam Lynch) is also his lover. After another production of A Doll's House the two come to a crux in their relationship as the out-and-proud, confrontational Ivar demands the younger, closeted Eric come out.

Once again choices are made that seem easier at the time but have consequences for both this generation and the next, as in the present day Eric's daughter Clare (Fishwick) seeks out the man her father once loved and finds Ivar, now played by Richard Cant, with his rebellious spirit crushed, sugar-daddy to the obnoxious Cas (Lynch.) Finally we go into the future where Fishwick now plays another Daisy, the daughter Clare was pregnant with in 2019. Backstage after a revelatory Doll’s House of her own, a prop from the 1959 production in the opening scene takes the story full circle, and the actresses who’ve played Nora over the years come to represent a roll-call through queer history for many of the characters.

Adamson’s play is constructed on echoes down the decades, and Indhu Rubasingham’s production builds on this: Every time has its own production of A Doll’s House - some stuffily traditional, some pretentiously avant-garde – and Nora is always an actress called Suzannah, always played by Saba (except in 2019, when Cas has gender-flipped his production, for no other reason than to keep the plum role for himself and relegate Suzannah to dreary husband status.) Language also echoes, with people picking up their loved ones’ favourite phrases (the original Suzannah’s “I’ve had more xxxs than you’ve had hot dumps” recurs a couple of times) and names have a lot of significance: The first Daisy’s choice of Ivar for her son is a conscious link to Nora, while the second Daisy’s name mirroring the first may not be as much of a coincidence as she thinks.

Like many ambitious plays there’s a feeling that Wife overreaches itself: As well as a commentary on the kind of pioneering feminism shown by Ibsen’s play and how far the world has actually come since his play debuted, it’s also a potted history of what it’s meant to live your daily life as gay or lesbian in this country over the years, and questions whether the changes and strides that have been made have left us falling into old patterns and repeating the mistakes of the past. It’s also about theatre itself – Richard Kent’s set takes us down the years through a series of deconstructed proscenium arches – and quite a harsh critic: As character after character claims to have been affected for life by Nora’s story, there’s a cynical side that asks whether theatre actually has as much meaning as it would like to think. And then of course there’s the straightforward level on which it’s a family tragedy, as generations down the line either follow or ignore Nora’s example, and seem to pay for it regardless of their choice. So there’s a hell of a lot going on thematically, and it can feel overwhelmed a bit by it all.

Because almost every scene follows a huge moment of crisis for its characters, there’s also a tendency for the play’s tone to stay at a consistent level of intensity; I did wish Rubasingham had found a couple more moments where the story could calm down and breathe. But a lot going on means a lot to find interest in, and the actors live up to the play’s challenges: Fishwick is unrecognisable between her three roles, and James is called on to play three wildly different characters in the brutal Robert, rebelliously camp Ivar and finally Clare’s fiancé Finn, who’s lovely and supportive to the point of being stifling. Meanwhile Saba steps up to a subtler challenge, of playing a character who’s essentially the same Suzannah throughout, changed only by how she fits in to the different time periods. Wife might at times feel like an assault on the senses and leave you wanting to step back a moment, but it’s undeniably powerful and ambitious.

Wife by Samuel Adamson is booking until the 6th of July at the Kiln Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.