[written for The Public Reviews]
Little Eyolf is one of Ibsen’s lesser known plays but it is powerful nonetheless and perhaps even more so when presented in the intimate studio space of the Jermyn Street Theatre. Echoing the fairy tale tone of the earlier play Peer Gynt, Little Eyolf has the strange mythical character of the Rat Wife intrude on the Allmers family to wreak destruction. In this way, the play is more overtly presented as a parable than Ibsen’s other works, such as A Doll’s House, which may disguise similar moral lessons with a more conventional or realistic setting.
Michael Meyer’s translation does not seek to modernise the play and this is crucial as the entire set-up of the family, the very circumstances which precipitates its destruction, are specific to the period in which it was written. Rita and Alfred are affluent and can afford to please themselves; Alfred goes off to the mountains to concentrate on writing his book, The Responsibility of Man, while his wife Rita languishes at home. Both are free to neglect their crippled son, Eyolf, as parents of their class often did. Indeed, Alfred accuses Rita of passing days without seeing Eyolf (after he suddenly decides to devote his life to the boy, realising his own responsibility as a man and father), leaving him to his aunt Asta who is the only one to show any real affection for the boy despite being the only one not duty bound to do so.
These circumstances may have been the norm but Ibsen’s play exposes the corruption at the heart of this particular family by having an outside influence reveal them to the world. The Rat Wife comes to the house asking if the family need ridding of any nuisances and it becomes obvious that both Eyolf and Asta are the nuisances which Rita would like to be rid of. In a dramatic realisation of the saying ‘be careful what you wish for’, Eyolf follows the Rat Wife into the sea and drowns as the other boys look on helplessly, leaving Rita and Alfred to contemplate the overwhelming guilt they feel. As well as guilt at their neglect of their child they also feel a sexual guilt and sexuality is presented throughout as troubling and sinful: Eyolf was crippled as a result of falling off a table when he was a baby, having been left there sleeping while Alfred and Rita made love. Even the sibling relationship between Alfred and Asta isn’t as sacred as they imagine and comes very close to corruption when Asta discovers that she and Alfred are not related. Asta must leave and accept Borgheim’s romantic advances, which she has been resisting vehemently, in order to prevent Alfred committing a sin and indulging in his love for her.
The most magnetic performance is given by Imogen Stubbs as Rita and yet there is something about her uninhibited anguish and hysteria which overpowers the play and makes it less subtle than its themes deserve. Jonathan Cullen’s Alfred is always in Stubbs’ shadow; thankfully he doesn’t try to match the fever pitch of her performance but his attempts at anger and passion only appear feeble as a response to the strenuousness of Rita’s emotions. The set was fit for purpose but I was unsure whether the bright blue walls were an intentional part of the set or just the usual décor of the playing space – whatever the intention, it was distracting and didn’t seem to fit the piece.
This play is a curiosity; with the strange Rat Wife and the horror of the death of a child at its centre, it is almost macabre. It peels back the layers of the closed domestic scene to reveal something disquieting and corrosive underneath. Ultimately the resolution of the play feels unsatisfactory, especially as Stubbs’ Rita has been played as so fervently jealous and uncompromising. It perhaps stretches credibility to think that she will devote her life to bettering those of the poor children who live nearby. This performance is muscular in its interrogation of the selfishness of humanity but bleak in the way it punishes people for that selfishness without offering much in the way of redemption.
Runs until 28th May
Picture Source
