The character of Nora, in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, has long been hailed as a feminist icon. But very few audiences today know about the ‘real’ Nora: a young, aspiring writer called Laura Kieler. Or that Ibsen befriended her and then took her traumatic ordeal as the basis for his play – without her consent, and with disastrous consequences.
So closely did the events of A Doll’s House resemble Laura’s own life that rumours spread like wildfire around Scandinavia, destroying her reputation. Ibsen refused to apologise, or to publicly deny any connection between his former protege and her theatrical counterpart. Laura was caught in a bind: protest, and fan the flames of gossip, or stay silent and allow her true personality and motivations to forever be distorted by the play.
Burning Down the House will take a theatrical flame-thrower to Ibsen’s classic text, as Laura Kieler attempts to wrestle the play’s narrative back to her version of events – a darker story about a serious young writer, her abusive husband and the older male playwright who double-crossed and exploited her.
Burning Down the House will add fuel to some of our most burning contemporary questions: Who has the right to tell which stories? Where is the line between empathy and exploitation? Does any of that matter, if the story is good?
The project has its origins in a collaboration between Breach and Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, Professor of English and Theatre Studies at Oxford University. Kirsten and research assistant Tzen Sam are uncovering and translating Laura’s articles, letters and plays and providing a wealth of contextual knowledge to assist Breach in creating this new production. This project has also seen new translations of Kieler’s work by Gaye Kynoch.
Burning Down the House was awarded an Ibsen Scope Grant 2024.