Nora : A Doll's House (NHB Modern Plays)

By Stef Smith and Henrik Ibsen

‘You’ve lies in the whites of your eyes, Nora. What have you done…?’

Nora is the perfect wife and mother. She is dutiful, beautiful and everything is always in its right place. But when a secret from her past comes back to haunt her, her life rapidly unravels. Over the course of three days, Nora must fight to protect herself and her family or risk losing everything.

Henrik Ibsen's brutal portrayal of womanhood caused outrage when it was first performed in 1879. This bold new version by Stef Smith reframes the drama in three different time periods. The fight for women's suffrage, the Swinging Sixties and the modern day intertwine in this urgent, poetic play that asks how far have we really come in the past hundred years?

Nora : A Doll's House was first produced by the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, in 2019, at Tramway, Glasgow. It was revived at the Young Vic, London, in February 2020.

It is a finalist for the 2020 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, awarded annually to celebrate women who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre.

'Stef Smith's excellent adaptation... a provocation infused with Ibsen's radical spirit' - Guardian

'A beautiful and explosively significant piece of theatre' - Scotsman

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Mar 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781788503273

Stef Smith

Stef Smith is a playwright whose work includes: Nora : A Doll's House (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, 2019); Girl in the Machine (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 2017); Human Animals (Royal Court Theatre, London, 2016); Swallow (Traverse Theatre, 2015); Remote (NT Connections 2015); And The Beat Goes On (Random Accomplice/Horsecross); Cured (The Arches, Glasgow); Woman of the Year (Òran Mór); Grey Matter (Lemon Tree, Aberdeen); Falling/Flying (Tron, Glasgow); Roadkill (Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 2010 and 2011). Awards include: Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland for Best New Production, Amnesty International Expression of Freedom Award, Herald Angel Award, Total Theatre Award for Innovation, The Scotsman Fringe First Award (Roadkill); Scottish Arts Club Theatre Award for Drama, The Scotsman Fringe First Award (Swallow). She has been awarded the New Playwright Award by Playwrights Studio, Scotland. Stef was a member of the Royal Court National Writers Group in 2013. She is an Associate Artist at the Traverse Theatre.