On the family estate outside Oslo at the turn of the 19th century, a man paces the floor in an upstairs room. This is John Gabriel Borkman, once a famous entrepreneur, now reduced to penury and self-doubt following a prison sentence for embezzlement. His wife, her twin sister and his son are all trapped in the claustrophobic atmosphere which has descended upon the household – and which can only lead to an explosion as the suffocation becomes unbearable...