Little Eyolf

While nothing on this set distracted from the actors, the space was also rather sterile, compared to the plant-lined conservatory, forest glade, and garden retreat in Ibsen's stage directions (a positively burgeoning environment, coming from him).. (The role was shared among three boys on different nights.) The image on the season's brochure, used also on the programme cover, shows Eyolf lying face up on the floor of the fjord. (After she left, Asta turned down the blanket at the end of the chaise she had sat on, clearly thinking of fleas and lice, but, curiously, the blanket was not removed, though Rita was extremely uncomfortable so long as the Woman was on the veranda.) The trade-off for the Ratwife's banality is that Eyolf's death becomes a mere accident, a raw plot device, rather than a lure toward depths of understanding for the remaining characters. Eyre sought "a journey into light, however painful," and the final image of the couple standing together on the edge of the veranda, looking down the ijord, achieved that, but at the cost of depths, of mystery, of irony.