The change from the girlish, charming wife to the radical, courageous heroine setting out alone has always been a perturbation. Part of the trouble is that we do not think, and actresses and directors do not think, the Nora of the first acts, the bright woman — with her children, her presents, her nicknames, her extravagance, her pleasure in the thought of “heaps of money” — can be a suitable candidate for liberation. No, that role should by rights belong to the depressed, child-less, loveless Mrs. Linde and her lonely drudgery. The truth is that Nora has always been free; it is all there in her gaiety, her lack of self-pity, her impulsiveness, her expansive, generous nature. And Nora never for a moment trusted Helmer. If she had done so she would long ago have told him about her troubles.