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Vancouver Sun
2 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Vancouver Sun
Fringe Review: A Doll's House (No Relation) a murderous tale retold emphatically
A Doll's House (No Relation) 3 Stars out of 5 Stage 4, Walterdale Theatre, 10322 83 Ave. True crime is incredibly popular with endless podcasts, Netflix specials and cable documentaries retelling horrific events in gruesome detail. But what if the story was being told not by a detached, monotone host but by the murderer themselves? A Doll's House (No Relation) brings us into the mind of a sociopath for a firsthand account. To start, it's important to note this show has nothing to do with Henrik Ibsen's incredibly popular play from the late 19th Century. This is something completely new, hence the title (No Relation). Get top headlines and gossip from the world of celebrity and entertainment. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sun Spots will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Instead, it's the story of Doll, a self-obsessed serial killer seeking outside validation for their crimes. They want to be known as the best serial killer, the greatest of their time, spoken of in the same breath as Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy or Jeffrey Dahmer. Doll has come prepared with a slide show and props, a tiny dollhouse with a representation in miniature of their crimes to date. It's gruesome and gory, a graphic diorama that is, fortunately, too small to imprint real drama on the audience. They spend 60 minutes gleefully recounting their murderous spree. A Doll's House (No Relation) is exactly what you would expect from the title. Madeline Podlubny jumps around on stage as Doll, at times cold and calculating and frantic at others. She does great with the material, but it feels a bit thin. While the concept is interesting, it lacks subtlety. Is this a commentary on the nature of fame? Is there something here about wanting to be accepted so badly that murder is the answer? A Doll's House (No Relation) doesn't end with a strong message, just a fun performance and a very weird concept. Check out all of our reviews from the 2025 Edmotnon International Fringe Theatre Festival here .
Calgary Herald
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
Fringe Review: A Doll's House (No Relation) a murderous tale retold emphatically
Article content Stage 4, Walterdale Theatre, 10322 83 Ave. Article content True crime is incredibly popular with endless podcasts, Netflix specials and cable documentaries retelling horrific events in gruesome detail. Article content But what if the story was being told not by a detached, monotone host but by the murderer themselves? A Doll's House (No Relation) brings us into the mind of a sociopath for a firsthand account. Article content Article content To start, it's important to note this show has nothing to do with Henrik Ibsen's incredibly popular play from the late 19th Century. This is something completely new, hence the title (No Relation). Article content Article content Instead, it's the story of Doll, a self-obsessed serial killer seeking outside validation for their crimes. They want to be known as the best serial killer, the greatest of their time, spoken of in the same breath as Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy or Jeffrey Dahmer. Article content Doll has come prepared with a slide show and props, a tiny dollhouse with a representation in miniature of their crimes to date. It's gruesome and gory, a graphic diorama that is, fortunately, too small to imprint real drama on the audience. They spend 60 minutes gleefully recounting their murderous spree. Article content A Doll's House (No Relation) is exactly what you would expect from the title. Madeline Podlubny jumps around on stage as Doll, at times cold and calculating and frantic at others. She does great with the material, but it feels a bit thin. Article content
The Guardian
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Hedda review – Lily Allen leads a helter-skelter take on Ibsen's tragedy
It is not through any shortcomings of the cast that Matthew Dunster's modern-dress reimagining of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler is so peculiar. Lily Allen is convincingly brittle as the bored newlywed who has just returned from honeymoon with her plodding academic husband, George (Ciarán Owens). His loyal aunt, Julia, is exquisitely played by Imogen Stubbs. Julia Chan shines in the part of Hedda's old school friend, Taya, who has left her controlling husband and is in the throes of a love affair with the alcoholic academic Jasper (Tom Austen, all earnestness here). He is Hedda's former lover who sparks her destructive jealousy, which leads to the play's explosive ending. The setting is a cool, Scandi-style living room with long billowing curtains, beautifully designed by Anna Fleischle. But as well-acted and stylish as this production is, why does it not convince in its story? Perhaps because it seems neither of our time nor of Ibsen's. Dunster's adaptation sticks to original events on the whole and this fidelity jars against the modern context. The playwright's Hedda is a female Shakespearean antihero, of sorts, an arch manipulator who seeks freedom from the confinement of her marriage and position in high society. Allen plays the daughter of a music label mogul brought low rather than a woman of aristocratic lineage. But when stripped of the specific confines of her time, she is less coherent as a character. Her refusal to work, for instance, is harder to understand, so Hedda seems like a spoilt princess rather than a woman trapped by, but also resisting, patriarchy. George does not transpose into this world convincingly either: he is not adoring nor pliant and you wonder what he is doing with a wife as conspicuously unloving as Hedda. There is psychological realism – characters speak as they feel – but the language sounds odd and artificial in this setting: Hedda implores Jasper to make his suicide 'beautiful', as in Ibsen's script, and speaks of her 'disgust' when she is told the bullet that killed him was shot into his bowels. Again, it jars. Dunster, also directing, creates good intensity in some scenes but the pace of events gathers a speed that brings out the melodrama of Ibsen's plot. Allen shows you her character's power and rage more than her vulnerability but you do not feel her sense of narrowing choices, maybe due to the rush of events. It grows fevered, not keeping a pace with the psychology of its characters, and by the end, events come thick and fast, from Jasper's drinking binge to trouble with the police, a visit to another woman's home and his misplaced book manuscript (here on a laptop). Characters' emotions swing in one direction and then another. The play's tragedy rests on Hedda's fear of scandal, after the powerful figure of Brack (Brendan Coyle, an MP rather than a judge and compellingly creepy) blackmails her. It does not quite chime – maybe scandal does not carry the same threat for a woman like Hedda today or perhaps this plot point is just not given enough space to grow in its threat. There is tension in the earlier acts and some taut moments, but it ends up seeming like a domestic thriller rather than a grand tragedy. At Ustinov Studio, Bath, until 23 August
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
PATRICK MARMION reviews Lily Allen's Hedda in Bath: Singer just can't inject much empathy into this malignant narcissist
A GREAT actor can make us care about almost anybody. But Lily Allen, in her latest stage venture at Bath's tiny Ustinov Studio, has to cope with one of the dodgiest characters in all of drama. We are talking about Hedda Gabler, the alpha-narcissist creation of 19th-century Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Hedda is an entitled madam who, in Matthew Dunster's modernised version, has the airs and graces of a spoilt supermodel. Fitted out with a modern backstory – Hedda is now the daughter of a late musician allegedly swindled by Spotify, and she moans that she 'misses her daddy and having it all' – she's also being dumped into 'middle class suburban poverty' by marrying a sweet but dull professor of something very obscure. Set in the West Country (or 'f***ing Somerset' as one character curses), we are in the realms of deep self-absorption. Hedda's ex, Jasper (Tom Austen, of Grantchester), returns, weeping that he doesn't want to be his partner's version of himself, but lacks the guts to be his own version of himself. And if you can unravel that, this show may well be for you. Hedda's thickly-bearded husband George (Ciaran Owens) is unsettlingly reminiscent of Allen's recently ditched real-life ex-husband David Harbour (Stranger Things). The difference is that George has had a personality bypass and she is without motivation for marrying this impecunious deadbeat who's pathetically jealous of her ex. Nor is it clear why George is marrying Hedda — a woman who's very touchy, but not at all feely (around him at any rate). And yet, even though she belittles and assaults an old friend, and urges her ex to shoot himself, we never really fear what Allen's Hedda is capable of. Other actors get more traction out of Dunster's hyper-realistic dialogue, rooted in tortured inertia. Austen oozes rizz as the chronically intense Jasper, who is an expert on the future (albeit not his own). Julia Chan as his new love (and Hedda's old friend), Taya, is an alarmingly vulnerable addict on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Imogen Stubbs is emotionally urgent as a gushy aunt, while Brendan Coyle (Downton's Mr Bates) is a soporifically insouciant MP and sugar daddy to Hedda. Hedda is not without quality, but it is almost entirely without empathy. No actor can survive that. Thankfully, Najla Andrade puts the neurotic swamp in perspective as the bashful Brazilian housekeeper, fearful of everyone's volatile mental state. Anna Fleischle's set design, meanwhile, embodies the play's soullessness, with a minimalist interior that looks like an upmarket funeral parlour with floor to ceiling net curtains. Dunster's production is fully crewed with understudies and clearly hoping for a West End transfer. And Allen's name will surely sell tickets. But where she may get away with playing a motivelessly malignant character in this theatrical boutique, Shaftesbury Avenue will be a steeper test of fan loyalty. Hedda is not without quality, but it is almost entirely without empathy. No actor can survive that.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Hedda review – Lily Allen leads a helter-skelter take on Ibsen's tragedy
It is not through any shortcomings of the cast that Matthew Dunster's modern-dress reimagining of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler is so peculiar. Lily Allen is convincingly brittle as the bored newlywed who has just returned from honeymoon with her plodding academic husband, George (Ciarán Owens). His loyal aunt, Julia, is exquisitely played by Imogen Stubbs. Julia Chan shines in the part of Hedda's old school friend, Taya, who has left her controlling husband and is in the throes of a love affair with the alcoholic academic Jasper (Tom Austen, all earnestness here). He is Hedda's former lover who sparks her destructive jealousy, which leads to the play's explosive ending. The setting is a cool, Scandi-style living room with long billowing curtains, beautifully designed by Anna Fleischle. But as well-acted and stylish as this production is, why does it not convince in its story? Perhaps because it seems neither of our time nor of Ibsen's. Dunster's adaptation sticks to original events on the whole and this fidelity jars against the modern context. The playwright's Hedda is a female Shakespearean antihero, of sorts, an arch manipulator who seeks freedom from the confinement of her marriage and position in high society. Allen plays the daughter of a music label mogul brought low rather than a woman of aristocratic lineage. But when stripped of the specific confines of her time, she is less coherent as a character. Her refusal to work, for instance, is harder to understand, so Hedda seems like a spoilt princess rather than a woman trapped by, but also resisting, patriarchy. George does not transpose into this world convincingly either: he is not adoring nor pliant and you wonder what he is doing with a wife as conspicuously unloving as Hedda. There is psychological realism – characters speak as they feel – but the language sounds odd and artificial in this setting: Hedda implores Jasper to make his suicide 'beautiful', as in Ibsen's script, and speaks of her 'disgust' when she is told the bullet that killed him was shot into his bowels. Again, it jars. Dunster, also directing, creates good intensity in some scenes but the pace of events gathers a speed that brings out the melodrama of Ibsen's plot. Allen shows you her character's power and rage more than her vulnerability but you do not feel her sense of narrowing choices, maybe due to the rush of events. It grows fevered, not keeping a pace with the psychology of its characters, and by the end, events come thick and fast, from Jasper's drinking binge to trouble with the police, a visit to another woman's home and his misplaced book manuscript (here on a laptop). Characters' emotions swing in one direction and then another. The play's tragedy rests on Hedda's fear of scandal, after the powerful figure of Brack (Brendan Coyle, an MP rather than a judge and compellingly creepy) blackmails her. It does not quite chime – maybe scandal does not carry the same threat for a woman like Hedda today or perhaps this plot point is just not given enough space to grow in its threat. There is tension in the earlier acts and some taut moments, but it ends up seeming like a domestic thriller rather than a grand tragedy. At Ustinov Studio, Bath, until 23 August
