A Doll’s House – Peter McCauley returns to Circa, Ibsen and working with Emily Perkins

Peter McCauley plays Gerry in A Doll’s House. Here Peter shares his thoughts on returning to Circa, to Ibsen and to working with Emily Perkins once again.

If the past is a foreign country, as is stated in The Go-Between then my history in that country speaks with a forked tongue. It tells whooping tales of shipwrecks and rock’n’roll tours where the debris from one mingles with the other in a maelstrom of disaster. It is not however an exaggeration to say that it is 30 years since I last performed in a play at Circa Theatre. It was a farce written and directed by John Banas and featured the very late Michael Haigh playing a bumbling detective. Another very late and equally fine actor, Anne Flannery, directed me in a staging of The Constant Wife at the old wooden building next to the former public library that was the first home of Circa.

I am enormously pleased to have the opportunity to work in Wellington again and especially at this theatre of significance. That I am able to renew my acquaintance with Emily Perkins whom I first met on a television show that we were both cast in also makes this project special. Back in that alien time we will call the 80s when Avalon was more than a suburb and Emily was a bright wide eyed young woman of great talent, I had no idea that I would have the privilege of working with her brilliant words in a play based on one written by Henrik Ibsen.

You may not be surprised that I couldn’t foretell such a happening but you must admit it is somewhat mystifying that a 19th century Norwegian playwright should provide a vehicle in the form of Hedda Gabler for me to tread the boards of the Norwegian National Theatre! That Downstage production received tremendous acclaim in London, Edinburgh and Sydney as well.

A Doll’s House opens 5 August. Book here

All images by Tabitha Arthur