Pillars of the community review special tea and a mag

five star review

Although written in 1877, Ibsen's play has the shock of the new. That is partly because, aside from an RSC revival 28 years ago, it has had startlingly few recent productions. But it's also because Ibsen's assault on the capitalist ethic and the mendacity of power still seems as potent as ever.

Ibsen's hero, Karsten Bernick, is a thriving shipbuilder in a small Norwegian town. But his whole life and career is built on a network of lies. Fifteen years before the play's action, he allowed his wife's brother, Johan, to take the rap for a sexual and financial scandal.

He also jilted the formidable Lona Hassel to make a loveless marriage with her half-sister. When Johan and Lona return from America, he is threatened with the exposure of his life-lies; and even his plan to make a killing from a new railway is revealed to be based on corrupt insider dealing.

What Ibsen shows us is Bernick's eventual moral awakening; but he does so with his unique mix of irony and ingenuity. "Destroy me and you destroy the town's future," cries Bernick at one point, thus proving that civic patriotism is the last resort of the scoundrel.

But Ibsen shows the noose tightening round Bernick's neck with diabolical skill. At one point Ibsen's hero hopes to despatch his unwanted brother-in-law on a rotten vessel little realising that the floating coffin contains unforeseen human cargo.

But the virtue of Marianne Elliott's stupendous Lyttelton production, and of Samuel Adamson's new version, is that they add to the intensity of Ibsen's irony. As Bernick finally lines up alongside the other civic worthies, I was reminded of Festen in which unpalatable truths are only revealed under extreme pressure. Even Bernick's confession of his sins becomes a double-edged affair in which he ensures he retains effective control of the town's financial future. Elliott also grasps Ibsen's peculiar blend of naturalism and symbolism. Rae Smith's design begins with a realistic image of women busily sewing in a sunlit garden room. But, with each successive scene, the set is stripped bare in accordance with the gradual exposure of Bernick's conscience. By the end we are left with the spotlit image of Lona Hassel and the thunderous sound of a train symbolising the advance of industrial capitalism.

Damian Lewis captures perfectly Bernick's blend of bravado and cowardice: even the way he checks behind every door before confronting Johan reveals his essential furtiveness. Lesley Manville also plays Lona superbly as a mixture of feminist free spirit and Bernick's hidden conscience. And there is prime support from Brid Brennan as his self-sacrificing sister who gave up life for teaching, from Joseph Millson as the angry Johan and from Michael Thomas as a pontificating teacher. But the real joy lies in seeing a virtually unknown Ibsen work rescued from the shadows and shown to be a resonant play for today.