Edinburgh International Festival

My, oh, my. How the middle-classes get themselves in a pickle.

A full-house watched the premiere of American avant-garde director, Lee Breuer’s weird and wonderful take on Ibsen’s classic play, A Doll’s House. It’s called Mabou Mines Dollhouse and it made us, the audience – who were all sitting prim and proper at the King’s - a little baffled.

The Dollhouse is set in a dollhouse. There are midgets as men-folk. Small children appear and skip and scream about the stage, and you find yourself squinting at them, whispering to the one beside you: ‘Hilary, is that a small child, or is it another little person?’ (The answer, in the case of Hannah Kritzeck who plays Emmy Helmer, is both. She is 12 years old but stands only 37 inches high.) Indeed all in all, it’s a bit of a blancmange of mental perspective really.

Now, saying as the USP of the whole production is the little people, and not the wonderful piano playing of Ning Yu, or the superb lead performance from blonde-bimbo, Nora Helmer (Maude Mitchell), nor the fantastic set that gives the performance an increased claustrophobic intensity, we had better dedicate some review space to the little people.

Casting midgets as men (which of course they already are) was Breuer’s wee trick to “characterise the patriarchy.” It works. It makes an immediate and clever visual political point. Ok. Now can the little ones act? Damn right. They played their parts well. Very well. Of particular note, Mark Povinelli (playing Torvald Helmer) gave a towering performance, using rage and slap-stick to represent the archetypal male husband. Ok, ok. Now enough about the midgets surely!

Sadly this play is always going to be remembered for the freakery of the casting, above the brilliant moments of theatrical sorcery that Breuer and his troupe conjure up throughout. The play bores at times. This is more to do with the fact this adaptation sticks rigorously to the original and at times long-winded text, and not to do with Mabou Mines Dollhouse's weak attempt at spectacle. The spectacle does get a trifle obscured in the odd arena that it is being bent to fit into.

Overall, this play is a poignant, surreal, but at times over-cooked adaptation of one of Ibsen’s most controversial works. Remember Mabou Mines Dollhouse not for its small parts but for its achievement as a whole.
 
Two word verdict: midget gem

Mabou Mines Dollhouse
King’s Theatre
24 – 28 Aug