I’m in a stranger’s living room, sitting on the floor opposite a woman who’s breastfeeding her baby and eating biscuits on the sofa. It’s not my usual Thursday night.
As part of an Arts Council-funded season with Chelsea Theatre that brings European shows to the UK, Danish company Fix&Foxy has taken on the ambitious task of staging Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ in different homes across London, which is why I find myself piling into a two-up, two-down in Brockley Rise with a random group of people.
The performance takes place in a different home every night, so no two shows are the same. But the couples who live there aren’t just opening up their homes – they’re also cast as the lead characters, Nora and Torvald, alongside three professional actors who they’ve never met, while an audience of about 15 people watch the whole thing play out in their living room. It is totally bizarre. In a good way.
It follows the original storyline of ‘A Doll’s House’, with the actors playing the parts of Krogstad, Mrs Linde and Dr Rank as well as guiding our hosts through their roles. However, the host couple don’t only play Nora and Torvald – the show switches between the fictional narrative and how this real couple might cope with these situations in their own lives, giving us an intimate insight into the dynamics of their relationship. It’s a unique interpretation of Ibsen’s much-performed play. And as theatre productions go, this is about as immersive as it gets.