The Almeida has had a good track record lately when it comes to Ibsen. Ghosts was wonderful, with the uber-talented Lesley Manville. I was not previously familiar with Little Eyolf, but am always interested in a new production of the classics. Little Eyolf is about a rural family: father Alfred (Jolyon Coy), mother Rita (Lydia Leonard), and their disabled son Eyolf (Adam Greaves-Neal, at the performance I saw). Alfred’s sister Asta (Eve Ponsonby) lives nearby and often visits, and sympathetic, dynamic Borghejm (Sam Hazeldine), who is romantically interested in Asta, also comes to call.

Alfred has just returned from a hiking trip in the mountains, and has resolved to spend more time with little Eyolf and to make him his life’s work, abandoning the book on which he had been spending the bulk of his time. Rita resents this, and would like for Alfred to devote himself to her, as he had earlier in their marriage (before Eyolf’s birth). There is a great deal of affection between Alfred and Asta, and Rita resents this too. Alfred feels a great dealt of guilt, as Eyolf’s disability is the result of an injury which was suffered when he fell off a table as an infant, neglected as Alfred and Rita were making love.

Following a visit from the Rat-Woman (Eileen Walsh), where her rat-banishing services are declined and an uneasy feeling left in her wake, a tragedy ensues. The main protagonists are devastated, and the tensions that had been simmering below the surface come to the fore. Alfred and Asta’s relationship is explored, and Alfred and Rita’s relationship will never be the same. The acting was very good generally, but I must admit to thinking that Coy’s Alfred was nowhere near charismatic enough to warrant such excesses of devotion.

The highlight for me was Eve Ponsonby’s Asta, who played the part beautifully and whose highly strung tension was palpable. Her love for her brother shone through, and her nervousness about the situation was illuminated throughout. Lydia Leonard (most recently seen by me in the BBC’s Wolf Hall) was also very good in the fairly thankless role of Rita. It was an interesting role in the sense that it could easily have been a modern woman. There are plenty of women who do not particularly enjoy being mothers, and who resent that their children take some of their husbands’ affection away from them. It is simply not acceptable, in our modern cult of parenthood, to admit it. It does not necessarily take away from one’s love of one’s children to admit that one is not particularly good at raising them, and yet no one would ever dare say such a thing.

It was an interesting play, well staged and well acted. But I was glad it was only 80 minutes long. The emotions were too intense and the play too claustrophobic to warrant more. I enjoyed it, and I’m glad I saw it. But it was not on the same level as Ghosts. That, however, is Ibsen’s fault, rather than that of the production or the actors.