You sometimes hear people tell you that a play from another century seems to speak directly to our own time.

Last night watching Duncan Macmillan’s new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Rosmersholm at Crow’s Theatre directed by Chris Abraham was the perfect segue from the Trump-Harris debate the previous night.

The progression from idealism to cynicism, the transparent use of media to mislead or lie, class struggle and the rights of women in society are all front and centre.

Abraham has assembled a dream cast who will only get stronger as the run goes on.

For most of the play we watch Ibsen probing the past, not so much a CSI as an enquiry into the meaning of life, as we observe the different responses of each character to a conservative society’s demands and norms. The stage picture of our immersive set in Guloien Theatre presents the action in the round, allowing the audience the pleasures of watching responses from across the space, while every actor is fully exposed. Rosmersholm is a place, a concept of society itself, and practically a character in the play. The very first moments of Abraham’s reading that may seem like a throwaway bit of action (characters crossing innocently) sets us up for the organic flow on the stage pulling us towards the exit off to one side and the inevitability of the conclusion, further aided by a powerful sound design sometimes at the edge of audibility sometimes emerging into the foreground by Thomas Ryder Payne.

Ben Carlson as the conservative Governor Andreas Kroll is the catalyst for the first part of the play, his rage and grief tightly repressed as befits his standing in society. Diego Matamoros as Ulrik Brendel seems to conjure magic every time he appears, shifting the tone and the pace like a trickster, a complete contrast to the Governor’s oppressive language & politics in his refusal to be fettered by social mores.

Beau Dixon as Peter Mortensgaard is another catalyst, his brief appearance volcanic but tightly controlled by Chris Abraham as far as what he was permitted to do onstage given that his real actions are in print rather than through anything he would permit himself to do onstage. Kate Hennig as Mrs. Helseth is the servant who has seen everything unfold in the household, seen through a close-minded Christian lens, so well-trained in her subservience as to be a true fixture in the house.

That resounding space full of repressed emotions is where we meet two people that seem much more modern in their outlook, even as we see them unpack layers and discover deeper aspects of themselves over the course of the play. Virgilia Griffith as Miss Rebecca West is one of Ibsen’s breath-takingly modernist creations, someone you may think is almost too good to be true: except as we get to know her she’s not exactly as she seemed at first. The process of tearing away the surface is one of the delights and horrors of the play, a brave display as she enacts her own fearless implosion before our eyes.

Jonathon Young is Pastor John Rosmer. You see a remarkable blank effect in both of these photos, uncanny in its stillness even though it must be the result of discipline and skill. For the first half hour Young is like a becalmed boat on a lake, waiting for wind to give it some movement. His tranquil calmness is frankly breath-taking, indeed behaving the way I wish pastors would behave, as he listens and reacts with empathy rather than performing and preaching. His responses tend towards a naive idealism but even so he’s listening to those around him. As he starts to respond and tell us of what he really believes it is as though the wind has found him and he begins to move and respond, a startling and organic transformation.

As the run continues I think it will be enjoyable to watch Young & Griffith, as well as Matamoros, Dixon, Hennig and Carlson particularly given that the theatre affords one the opportunity to see them again from the opposite side.

Rosmersholm has just opened, running to at least October 6th. See it if you can.