When Nora in Ibsen’s The Doll’s House walked out on her husband and two children in 1879, the sound of the door slamming behind her reverberated throughout Europe. People were deeply shocked. 136 years later the taboo still remains. Mothers who abandon their children get a far worse press than men who abandon their children.
Deborah Bruce’s The Distance was so popular at the Orange Tree last year that it has been brought back for another run. Motherhood is difficult; and for some mothers too difficult. Lots of women are going to identify with the heroine, who is convinced that her husband, whom the children adore, will do a far better job at bringing them up than she ever will.
Her female friends rally round to give her support and advice; but it is not the advice she wants to hear. They fail to listen to what she is saying. The first act, in which everybody is talking at the same time, is particularly well stage-managed and as exhausting to listen to as it must be to act.
Charlotte Gwinner’s revival has a good cast. Michelle Duncan is the distressed mother. Charlotte Lucas is the well-meaning godmother, a control freak, who drives everybody up the wall. Charlotte Emerson is another well-meaning friend; but, with three children by three different husbands, and always in a flap, hardly the friend you would turn to for advice in a crisis. Joshua Sinclair-Evans, making his stage debut, shows considerable promise.