Review: ROSMERSHOLM at Streetcar Crowsnest

Ibsen can be a hard sell on a Wednesday evening.

The brooding, politically-minded Norwegian playwright’s socially progressive works, including Crow’s Theatre’s new production of ROSMERSHOLM, have remained surprisingly, depressingly timely in the 150 years since Henrik’s heyday. Full of shocking revelations and blackmail about identity and motive, meditations on class and the constraints of religious morality, and women who long for agency in a world that sees servile marriage and children as the only option, the dark, moody works might as well be required viewing after the latest Harris-Trump debate. It couldn’t be clearer why Chris Abraham decided now was the time to stage this play about the challenge that a former pastor and the former caregiver to his late wife pose to a sitting conservative governor’s platform on the eve of a pivotal vote.

And that, paradoxically, might be the problem. On its surface, ROSMERSHOLM gets a slick, atmospheric production at Crow’s, effectively staged in the round with imposing, impactful set design and filled with sharp, powerful performances, chief among them a blazing Virgilia Griffiths hell-bent on burning down the status quo. Dramaturgically, it fits into the American election season like a dream. There is no denying the strong production values and extreme competence of the whole affair.

And yet.

The question arises: who is this work for?

For the politically-savvy, the 2019 adaptation by English playwright Duncan MacMillan may feel too generalized and superficial in the way it addresses issues; for the politically-averse, it may feel like a gloomy lecture with a message of hopelessness. While the catchphrase of Macmillan’s version is, “it’s not personal, it’s politics,” it’s only when the personal threatens to overwhelm the political that we get something more interesting boiling under the surface of the fateful, deadly water feature outside the house’s doors.

Joshua Quinlan’s set of ROSMERSHOLM (literally, “Rosmer’s House”) might bring to mind Disney’s Haunted Mansion, in a good way. Rosmer’s wealthy, war-fighting ancestors, none of whom ever cried as children or laughed as adults, haunt and oppress the narrative and the living characters who try to make the house a home. Stern portraits cover the walls behind the audience that sits in four quadrants, and a set of dark wooden doors, imposingly tall, stands between two corners of the audience.

The paintings, cleverly lit by Kimberly Purtell’s flickering lamps, are reminiscent of the all-seeing portrait that presided over Coal Mine Theatre’s production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler earlier this year, reminding us that most of Ibsen’s characters are watched and haunted by spectres of the past, and ROSMERSHOLM haunts with the best of them.

The portrait’s lamps provide the only illumination, until Griffith’s Rebecca West gets efficient house manager Mrs. Helseth (Kate Hennig, officiously gliding in and out of scenes) to open the latch on the floor-to-ceiling windows opposite the doors. The sudden unlatching floods the space—but not the mood—with a glow from the outside world. The room unused to light is the former sitting room of Beth, the depressed, infertile wife of wealthy widower Rosmer (Jonthathon Young); after losing her to suicide a year ago, they haven’t used the space since. West, Beth’s live-in companion, has become very close to Rosmer in the intervening time, and the house’s master is starting to feel more like its pawn, exchanging the religious views and neutrality his ancestors encouraged for a more radical thought process. Thoughts, however, have not yet led to action, as the man can no more bring himself to lead a political movement than to physically cross the fateful footbridge from which his wife leapt.

Beth’s brother Andreas (Ben Carlson), a childhood friend of Rosmer’s, happens to be the archly conservative governor of the area, prone to making pronouncements such as that he should not be expected to listen to the opinions of his wife and young adult children, and then wondering why they’ve “betrayed him” with absolutely no sense of irony. The first meeting after Beth’s death comes at a crucial moment, with the governor asking for Rosmer’s political support for tomorrow’s vote, and the latter struggling to explain that his views have changed in the interim.

This is where ROSMERSHOLM’s timelessness starts to work against its purpose, often the paradox of relevance. The fact that nobody ever tells us what the fateful vote is about makes the discussion more broadly applicable, but also removes its specific stakes, making the fight a simplified battle between the radical left and reactionary right. It also means that everyone’s talking points are generalized and familiar: one side rails about the need for equality, feeding the poor, and the elevation of all people, and the other about the need for the unwashed masses to step aside from participating in their own government and be guided by the rich and the Church.

The updated script doesn’t entirely help matters, occasionally slipping through time and using language like “radical compassion,” a term coined by philosopher Khen Lampert in 2003, that seems alien in the mouth of a woman wearing mid-19th century period clothing and bemoaning her inability to vote. It’s a testament to Griffith’s immense skill that her passionate but oddly-written character is such a bright spot amidst the dark corners, because those shadows don’t hide that there’s at least one too many layers of revelation in the second act without enough foreshadowing in the first to tie things together.

Finally, there’s the issue that, for all the play speaks about the immorality of inaction, it seems to prioritize dramatic closure over its own message; a perfectly valid choice, yet one that lends the otherwise powerful ending with its nifty, genuinely creepy bit of stage magic an air of evasion.

The reasons to see the production become clearer in the smaller details and in the less pointed dialogue, wherein the play truly lands its main points. Meaning lies in Wong’s realistic windows, which show hints of what encroaches outside to great effect, from the pathetic fallacy of a joyless rain to the danger of disgruntled townspeople waiting for their moment to speak. It's present when Hennig’s stolid housekeeper prizes her keen ability to observe, yet later falters and doubts her own lived experience because it contrasts with what she sees in the newspaper. We see it when Carlson’s stormy Andreas pointedly covers his wine glass with his hand and sneers at the drinking habits of Rosmer’s former tutor Ulrik (Diego Matamoros, adding some much-needed humour), but later demands something “stronger than water” as he feels threatened and agitation sets in.

Meaning lies in the left-wing newspaperman (Beau Dixon) whose life Rosmer once ruined by exposing his affair and out of wedlock child, described by Andreas as a fiery blatherer, actually speaking at only just above a whisper, while Young’s Rosmer realizes that, in his moral zeal, he never stopped to wonder what happened to the exiled man’s innocent child (it’s not good news).

And it lies in Rosmer, largely a glum, deep-voiced cipher of a character, suddenly understanding that the voiceless servants dressing him are real people with their own thoughts and lives and reacting like your rich uncle awkwardly but enthusiastically discovering the concept of class war without any idea of how to put that value into action. As he offers a used bouquet from one of his many vases to an uneasy maid, telling her to take it home to her family, the gap between his life experience and hers speaks volumes in her silence.

Of Beth’s turmoil, Andreas remarks that “So many of life’s pleasures were simply unavailable to her.” In a way, the pleasure of Ibsen lies in anti-pleasure, an indulgent chance to luxuriate in our own gloom as do the characters in Rosmer’s imposing house. There’s a rallying cry here, too, in this neat and attractive production, but the question remains: who is it for, and are they going to hear it?

Will they go to see Ibsen on a Wednesday evening?

Photo of Virgilia Griffith by Dahlia Katz

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