Burning Down the House

The jury's
conclusion

The jury was quickly intrigued by the boldness of Breach Theatre Company's project "Burning Down the House'' - an artistic investigation into the little-known backstory of Ibsen's famous play "A Doll's House". Till this day, few are aware that behind Ibsen's iconic Nora-character stood a very real woman, namely the young Danish-Norwegian writer Laura Kieler. Kieler had confided in her friend Ibsen and trusted him with intimate details about her complicated life circumstances, only to later recognize a distorted version of her story in the dramatic scope of "A Doll's House". After the staging, Ibsen grew even more famous, while the character of Nora with time would reach feminist icon-status. Kieler, on the other hand, found her reputation shattered and her career in ruins. She regarded Ibsen's use of her life story as a theft from which she was unable to recover, neither in her private nor in her professional life. Today, remarkably, Kieler's perspective is largely forgotten. Breach Theatre convinced the jury with an application that conveys ambition and thoroughness in all aspects of the project; from research stage, to writing, production and execution. But even more weighty is the multilayered feminist aspect of this artistic endeavor. The fact that the potent and problematic backstory of Ibsen's "A Doll's House" even today remains unknown for most people, is part and parcel of Breach Theatre Company's clever take. "Burning Down the House" points to structural paradoxes that might still be omnivalent in society. As such, this project also includes a historiographical layer. It asks: What structures influence who gets to tell stories on behalf of whom? What informs who becomes the canonized artist, and who ends up the muse? As 'true fiction' as a genre is becoming ever more popular, the ramifications of capitalization on lived experience is as relevant as ever.

About the project

Burning Down the House
Written by Ellice Stevens and Billy Barrett
Directed by Billy Barrett

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 interrupts the action of A Doll’s House and derails it in her efforts to set the record straight. Addressing the audience directly, she 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.

The show will explore the devastating fallout of A Doll’s House on Laura’s career – and her attempts at artistic retribution in her own uproariously funny play, Men of Honour. Laura’s battle with Ibsen for control over her life story 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.

Breach Theatre
Breach is a multi-award-winning devised theatre company founded by Dorothy Allen-Pickard, Billy Barrett and Ellice Stevens, in collaboration with Executive Producer Sally Cowling.

We uncover stories that captivate us – from an experiment into teaching dolphins English, to a rape trial in Renaissance Rome, to the impact of homophobic legislation in the 1980’s- using them to provoke alternative perspectives and to illuminate the times in which we live.

There’s a rigour to our research and a playfulness to our work: combining a forensic documentary approach with bold and inventive devising. We are always in search of the «truth» about big issues, without claiming any sort of objectivity ourselves. Our shows are full of subversive humour and unafraid to be political.

Our productions tour nationally and internationally, and have previously been published by Oberon Books. Our latest production, After the Act, will be published by Nick Hern Books.