A country racked by in tense division be tween the right and left; character assassination by a biased press — and ruthless political figures willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their ends.
No, it’s not a play about the Tea Party and the midterm elections. It’s Henrik Ibsen’s “Rosmersholm,” a rarely performed 1886 classic the Pearl Theatre Company has just revived in a way that reveals its startling immediacy.
The play was written after Norway’s massive political reorientation: A liberal, progressive government had recently taken power, followed by an impassioned conservative backlash.
Sound familiar? This version, adapted by Mike Poulton, plays up these elements without sacrificing the work’s psychological complexity.
The central character is Johannes Rosmer (Bradford Cover), a former pastor and aristocrat who abandoned both the church and his family’s conservative doctrines after the suicide of his wife, Beata, four years earlier. Now living on his family estate with only his platonic friend Rebecca (Margot White) and housekeeper (Robin Leslie Brown) for company, he finds himself in the middle of a heated political battle.
On one side is his reactionary brother-in-law, Dr. Kroll (Austin Pendleton), desperate to recruit Rosmer back to his side. “The clamor of the base and the unlettered drowns out the voice of reason,” he seethes. On the other are the exploitative liberal newspaper editor Mortensgaard (Dominic Cuskern) and the hard-drinking ideologue Brendel (Dan Daily).
Meanwhile, the free-thinking Rebecca is quietly exerting her own kind of pressure, intensified by her guilt over long-buried family secrets and her hidden role in Beata’s death.
Veering awkwardly from social discourse into symbolism and melodrama, the play is far from seamless. But director Elinor Renfield, eliciting sterling performances from her cast — accompanied by lighting and sound effects that emphasize the overheated action — has brought it to vivid life.