Helen McCrory and Paul Hilton star in a fascinating and complex play that was a favourite of Freud
by Benedict Nightingale | May 26, 2008 | The Times
At times Rosmersholm seems the most modern of Ibsen’s plays, at times the most dauntingly complex. Either way, Anthony Page’s revival maintains its grip, largely because Helen McCrory and Paul Hilton generate a quiet, unpretentious intensity while obeying the dramatist’s own orders: “No declamation, no theatricalities, express every mood in a way that seems credible and natural.”
Hilton’s Rosmer is a pastor who has lost his faith. He’s also the scion of an influential family and, as such, both a magnet and a target for his community’s warring factions. Indeed, it’s his floundering attempts to maintain a degree of idealism and become a reconciler and peacemaker that make him recognisable today. He manages to alienate both Malcolm Sinclair’s ferociously reactionary Kroll and Peter Sullivan’s Mortensgaard, the radical who aims to exploit his social and religious status. He’s that sorry figure, a piggy in the middle.