A Doll's House provoked controversy when it was first produced in Copenhagen in 1879. Henrik Ibsen's play, with its seemingly feminist message and its questioning of the roles of husbands and wives in 19th-century marriages, caused a sensation at the time. Its themes are still relevant today.

Aarne Neeme is directing A Doll's House as the first production in Canberra Rep's 2019 season. It's his 14th play for Rep: he last worked there in 2016 directing its productions of Witness for the Prosecution and The Three Penny Opera.

Neeme directed a Perth production of A Doll's House in 1991. He says it's interesting to revisit a play after many years and with more life experience.

"It's not a question of what you did last time because of the very fact you're working with a different cast and at a different time."

The play is being performed in a translation by Simon Stephens that was first used at the Young Vic in London in 2012.

Ibsen's work, Neeme says , is "one of the great plays" and describes it as "the first really naturalistic play", attempting to create an illusion of reality on stage, even before Anton Chekhov's works.

A Doll's House is set during the Christmas season in 1879. It focuses on the relationship between Nora (Susannah Frith) and her banker Torvald Helmer (played by Rob de Fries), who is expecting a promotion. While they seem to have an ideal 19th-century Norwegian middle-class life with prosperity and three children, cracks are beginning to appear on the smooth surface.

Nora feels stifled by her life at home and by her relationship with Torvald, who treats her patronisingly, thinking of her as a foolish, naive spendthrift. When Torvald became ill, they had to spend time in Italy so he could recover. The source of the money for this and how it was obtained become major points of contention. A major point of contention.

Some friends arrive who have problems of their own: Kristine Linde (Alexandra Pelvin), a widow schoolmate of Nora, who seeks her longtime friend's help to secure a job at Torvald's bank and Dr Rankin (Saban Lloyd Berrell), a wealthy family friend who is seriously ill.

Less welcome is Nils Kronstadt (Sam Hannan-Morrow) – an employee at Torvald's bank and a single father – who knows a secret Norah has been keeping from her husband and threatens to reveal all if she does not do as he asks.

Things rise to a crisis point and Nora makes a shocking decision.

Neeme cites Ibsen: "There are two kinds of moral laws, two kinds of conscience, one for men and one quite different, for women. They don't understand each other; but in practical life, woman is judged by masculine law, as though she weren't a woman but a man."

He thinks A Doll's House still resonates with people because many of  the issues it raises are still relevant – for example, "Why don't we have more women in Parliament?" – and because many people, especially women, can relate to Nora's desire for self-determination: "I think I'm a human being before anything else. I don't care what other people say. I don't care what people write in books. I need to think for myself."

He says the play avoids turning into melodrama because the characters and their situations  are not presented in black and white: for example, Nora has been playing the compliant "doll" of her husband for a long time before she starts questioning her situation – Torvald is a good provider but he is pompous and self-centred. Even Kronstadt has understandable motives for behaving as he does.

Neeme says, "With the advent of the #MeToo movement, the play appears to be a most apposite choice, but Ibsen is even more concerned with self-liberation, in that his heroine Nora, has been complicit in the role that society has handed her - that of the 'doll-wife'."

He is not not going to modernise the play but "rather keep it in it's original period, to see how far we have come, or not come, in the past 140 years. I noted the frank answer a 10-year-old girl gave when asked what one change she wants to see in the world: "I want girls to stop being treated as walking Barbie dolls."