Burning Down the House, a world premiere from Breach Theatre, runs at the Schwarzman Centre in Oxford from 25 September - 10 October 2026, and tells the story of the woman whose life Ibsen turned into Nora.
Burning Down the House, a world premiere from Breach Theatre, opens at the Schwarzman Centre in Oxford this month. It runs from 25 September - 10 October 2026, with press night on Thursday 1 October 2026, and tickets are on sale now.
The play goes back to A Doll’s House and shifts the focus off Nora. Its subject is Laura Kieler, the writer and friend of Henrik Ibsen whose own circumstances he rewrote into the character, without her knowledge or permission. Kieler answered him with a play of her own, Men of Honour. Breach’s production asks who is allowed to tell another person’s story, and what it costs the person whose story it was.
It began in an Oxford library rather than a rehearsal room. The research is by Kirsten Shepherd, Professor of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Catherine’s College, working with research assistant Tzen Sam and literary translator Gaye Kynoch, who between them supplied Breach with translations of Kieler’s play, her articles, letters and journals. Shepherd says it has been five years in the making.
Billy Barrett and Ellice Stevens of Breach said: "We’re delighted to be bringing Burning Down the House to the Schwarzman Centre, following such a fruitful collaboration. It feels very vital and right that the production starts its life in Oxford. Laura Kieler’s story taps into contemporary conversations surrounding the ethics of storytelling, explores the blurry line between creativity and inspiration and questions who has the right to tell what stories. The subject matter is complicated, murky and thrilling."
Shepherd added: "It is intriguingly, disturbingly ironic that the making of A Doll’s House involved the appropriation of a real woman’s story, with dire consequences for her and her family for which - despite Laura repeatedly asking him to - he never publicly apologised. ‘I am not Nora,’ she insisted many times. Burning Down the House cracks open what she meant by that."
The play is written by Ellice Stevens and Billy Barrett and directed by Barrett. The devisor-performers are Peter Clements (The Shitheads at the Royal Court), Sophie Steer (The Tempest at Shakespeare’s Globe), Ellice Stevens, Jacoba Williams (The Shitheads) and Yasser Zadeh (The Confessions at the National Theatre). Set design is by Laura Hopkins, with costume designer and associate set designer Moa Johansson, lighting designer Will Monks, movement director Leanne Pinder and composer and sound designer Hugh Sheehan.
Kieler’s own play gets an airing alongside the run. A script-in-hand reading of Men of Honour, newly translated by Kynoch, plays on Saturday 10 October 2026 at 2pm, the first time it has been heard in English in full; an adapted excerpt of it appears within Burning Down the House itself. There are two post-show events: a talk with Barrett, Stevens, Shepherd and Sam on the evening of Saturday 3 October, given with BSL interpretation, and a discussion on translating for the stage with Kynoch, Sam and Stevens on the evening of Wednesday 7 October. A chilled performance plays at 2pm on Saturday 3 October and a BSL-interpreted performance at 7.30pm the same day.
Breach are best known for After the Act, seen at the Royal Court and on a UK tour, and It’s True It’s True It’s True, which was filmed for BBC Four. The company developed this piece with a Knowledge Exchange Fellowship and the TORCH Knowledge Exchange Innovation Fund, and a major grant from Ibsen Scope in March 2024.
Performances are at 7.30pm, with a 2pm matinee on Saturday 3 October. Tickets are £17.60 to £22, previews from 25-30 September are £14.30 to £18.15, and student tickets are £10. The Schwarzman Centre, which houses a 250-seat theatre among its performance spaces, opened its public programme in April 2026.
