Burning Down the House

A fresh take on one of the most famous plays ever written.

Henrik Ibsen wrote A Doll’s House. But what if he stole the story?

Laura Kieler was a young writer whose life inspired Ibsen’s play. Now she steps out of the shadows to tell her side of the story.

Funny, fierce, emotionally charged and brilliantly theatrical, Burning Down the House is a new play about art, ambition and the people whose stories get told - and who gets left out.

This new production by Breach, the acclaimed company behind After the Act (Royal Court and national tour) and It’s True, It’s True, It’s True (BBC 4), is inspired by the research of leading Ibsen expert Kirsten Shepherd, Professor of English and Theatre Studies at Oxford University, her research assistant Tzen Sam and work by translator Gaye Kynoch.

Burning Down the House Programme

Additional Events

Post-show Q&A following main performance (with BSL interpretation): Saturday 3 October, 19:30

Join Breach creatives Billy Barrett and Ellice Stevens for a conversation with Oxford University researcher Professor Kirsten Shepherd about how the show developed from her team's new research into the remarkable story of Laura Kieler.

Post-Show Discussion - “Can Nora Speak English?" - Translating Stage Worlds to World Stages”: Wednesday 7 October, evening

A translation is a negotiation and a mediation between two languages and their respective cultures. A translator and a theatre company are travellers in time and space – in this instance, between the late 19th century and 2026, between Dano-Norwegian and UK-English, between Oslo-Copenhagen and an Oxford-Schwarzman stage. How do voices from the past and the archives tell their stories today - and in a language that is foreign to them? How does a translator go about hearing these voices and letting them speak with their own words but in another language – and are they then the same people and characters?

Literary Translator Gaye Kynoch, Oxford University researcher Tzen Sam and Breach creative Ellice Stevens explore the process of translating playscripts. Kynoch’s new translations of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Laura Kieler’s Men of Honour have both informed Burning Down The House.

Men of Honour Rehearsed Reading: Saturday 10 October, 2pm

The cast of Burning Down the House perform a rehearsed reading of Laura Kieler’s Men of Honour, her bitingly satirical response to her life story being stolen for A Doll’s House.

Although A Doll’s House is familiar to readers and audiences in translation around the world, Men of Honour is virtually unknown. Now we can hear the voices that Kieler created in her dramatic response to Ibsen’s appropriation of her life story – voices that are now speaking in English, thanks to Gaye Kynoch's translation of the play. What alchemical and archival tools are employed by translator and editor to transport a small yellowing book published in Oslo in 1890 into our modern world? How does the context of Kieler’s day resonate with the context of our day – and in another language? How do works of literature resonate across the centuries?

Free to Burning Down the House bookers, but tickets should be booked in advance.

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Accessibility

BSL interpreted performance on Saturday 3 October, 19:30 that will also include a BSL Interpretation of the post-show talk.

Chilled performance on Saturday 3 October, 14:00. This performance allows audience members a more casual environment where the house lights remain on at a low level and audiences can make noise and come and go from the auditorium as necessary.

You can find out more information on accessibility at the Schwarzman Centre, including details of how to apply for our access card to be able to view and book a complimentary companion ticket.

If you have any questions or require further guidance, please contact tickets@schwarzmancentre.ox.ac.uk.