Nora's offense here isn't forgery but embezzlement from the hedge fund headed by her daddy. She did that — with the help of his accountant, who "took the bullet" and has just been released from jail — in order to finance a rest cure in Italy for husband Evan, who had suffered a heart attack. Now her "partner in crime" threatens to spill the beans if Evan, who has just been tapped as CEO of a very large bank, does not give him a job. Rebeck manages to shoehorn in most of Ibsen's action, even Nora's tarantella, along with commentary on class differences and great hunks of contemporary psychobabble. But her play is a soap opera, whereas Ibsen's plays, even when melodramatic, are inexorable.
This does not stop New Rep from fielding a quality production helmed by Bridget Kathleen O'Leary on a snow-trimmed McMansion set by Kathryn Kawecki. The acting is mostly sound, with Sarah Newhouse a more chicly manipulative than infantilized Nora and Gabriel Kuttner eerily calm as the embittered blackmailer. The toughest assignment falls to Will Lyman, who imparts a fervent, flirtatious charm to Nora's controlling sugar daddy of a spouse. Even when he's pushing her out of the lifeboat, you can see why she got in.
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