A woman with a terrible secret struggles to find a way out before it destroys her marriage.

Anemone Jones brings that nightmare to life in haunting style in her portrayal of the titular character in The Actors’ Group’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s "A Doll’s House."

Nora Helmer (Jones) and her husband, Torvald (Aaron Roberge), appear to have a perfect marriage.

He is a hardworking professional who was just promoted to a top-level management job. She is his frivolous little pet who delights in entertaining him.

So much for appearances! It soon becomes apparent Nora lies to her husband. Larger lies gradually come into focus.

Jones is adorable as the childlike wife and wins our sympathy in the scenes in which Nora is forced to confront the tangled web of lies she has created.

Roberge is appropriately stiff and paternalistic as a husband whose world view is defined by his sense of personal responsibility and honor.

Director Brad Powell also gets a multifaceted performance from Sara Cate Langham in the pivotal role of Nora’s long-lost friend Kristine Linde, a woman who married a wealthy man she didn’t love in order to provide for her sick mother and younger siblings.

Langham has stood out at Hawaii Pacific University playing vivacious young women; she looks and sounds appropriately aged and worn here.

Tony Nickelsen, last seen playing Theodore Roosevelt in Kumu Kahua’s spring production of "Wilcox’s Shot," successfully takes on a very different type of character here as Nils Krog­stad, a guy trying to live down a past disgrace and the uncounted additional social lapses he committed thereafter.

It is a demanding role and Nickelsen plays it well. He makes Krogstad’s earnest albeit self-serving declaration — "For at least six months I have not done anything dishonest!" — one of the funniest bits in the show.

David C. Farmer as Dr. Rank, the elderly man who is Torvald’s best friend and daily visitor, owns the scene in which Rank haltingly confesses his affection for Nora.

Men of a certain age often seem to be written as comic characters, but Farmer delivers each line with memorable subtle shadings of shyness and slyness.

Is the doctor an old fool? An aging rake? Or is he a gentleman sincerely in love?

Ibsen’s criticism of the traditional expectations regarding the proper roles of men and women made this play so controversial when he wrote it in 1879 that he was forced to write an alternative ending. The most controversial aspects of it now are Nora’s assumptions about the proper behavior of men.