Nora: A Doll's House review: Elaborate reworking doesn't do Ibsen's classic justice

The works of Ibsen are perennial candidates for a thorough reimagining, his quietly devastating studies of class struggle and women’s rights depressingly relevant for each subsequent generation since he started writing in the mid-19th century.

The Wild Duck was stripped down to its bare essentials at the Almeida in 2018, while last year a production of A Doll’s House at the Lyric shifted the action to colonial India.

Nora: A Doll’s House, a joint production between the Young Vic and Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre, doesn’t just tinker under the hood of Ibsen’s tight, tense play about the underappreciated role of women – it takes out the entire engine. In Stef Smith’s adaptation, there are three versions of the central character, Nora, one living in 1918, one in 1968 and one in 2018. The three actors also play the role of Nora’s old school friend, requiring some clever verbal and physical choreography.

It’s a neat idea, showing how Ibsen’s themes continue to ripple through the decades, but in practice it makes for some horrible theatre. The no-nonsense lyricism and pin-point pacing of the original text is torn into a thousand pieces. The central conceit is left bafflingly undeveloped – aside from costume and accent, these women are exactly the same, with only a handful of contemporary references thrown in to remind you of the disparate dates.

The acting is also patchy, with only the 2018 Nora really selling the desperation of her situation.

There are moments that buck the trend, when you’re drawn into this tragic tale, especially when Nora’s life implodes and she realises the futility of her domestic situation. But then you realise those are the bits Ibsen wrote. In the end, the meagre pay-off isn’t nearly worth the effort of this elaborate reworking.