A Doll's House
‫ הנריק איבסן‬-‫בית בובות‬
By Henrik Ibsen
Adapted by Frank McGuinness
Directed by Dan Yurgaitis
Scene and Lighting Design by Larry Wild
Torvald and Nora Helmer
Nora and Kristine Linde
Nora and Dr. Rank
Nora, Bobby and Ivar Helmer
Nora and Nils Krogstad
Nora, Dr. Rank and Torvald
The Tarantella
Nora and Torvald Helmer, Dr. Rank, Helene and Kristine Linde
Link to the Background Notes for A Doll's House.
Photos copyrighted © 2004 by Larry Wild
Notes on the NSU Theatre presentation of
A Doll's House
by Henrik Ibsen
Adaptation by Frank McGuinness
Synopsis
Nora Helmer is a vibrant young housewife who suffers from a crippling dependency
on her husband, Torvald, of eight years who does all the thinking for both of them. In
order to save him from a debt and to spare his masculine pride, Nora arranges a loan
(without his knowledge and by forging a signature). When the crime is inevitably
revealed, Torvald's response sets into motion a series of events that call the very
validity of their marriage into question, and Nora awakens to a sense of true selfawareness for the first time in her life. And in one of the most famous (and
scandalous) climaxes in all of nineteenth century drama, Nora makes a choice that
continues to be debated by audiences to this day.
About NSU Theatre's Production
The cast for NSU's production of A
Doll's House is as follows: Heather
Woehlhaff will portray Nora Helmer,
Raphael Duncan is cast as her smug,
conventional husband, Rory K.
Behrens will be Dr. Rank the devoted
family friend, Mary Dodson as her old
girlhood friend Kristine Linde now
shadowed in lonely widowhood, and
Zered Felt as Nils Krogstad the
embittered man who threatens to
blackmail Nora over a forgery committed years ago that brings on the earthquake that
shatters the foundations of her world. Other cast members include Sara Pillatzki as
Anne-Marie the Nanny and Amy Heidenreich as Helene the Maid, Jamie Myers as
the Messenger, with Alex Reff and Danny Myers as her two young sons Bobby and
Ivar. Patrick Daschle will understudy the two boy's roles.
NSU Director of Theatre, Daniel Yurgaitis, directs the play and the scenic and
lighting design will be by NSU Technical Director, Larry Wild. Broadway
Costumes™ in Chicago will provide the period wardrobe. The entire production will
be stage managed by Samantha Banner while Kellyanne Kirkland will serve as
assistant director and Bob Pore as assistant stage manager.
A Doll's House will be presented for four performances, beginning February 18
through the 21st, at 7:30 pm nightly on the stage of the Johnson Fine Arts Center on
the campus of NSU. Seats are not reserved and tickets are $8.00, $7.00 for students
and seniors and free to all NSU students with their ID card. There are special rates
available for groups of 10 or more. Tickets will be available in the NSU bookstore
beginning on Monday, February 9th, or by mail. Call the NSU Bookstore at 6262655 or the NSU Department of Theatre at 626-2563 for additional information.
About Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) has been generally acknowledged since the 1880's to be
one of the greatest masters of the modern drama, although during his lifetime some of
his social message plays were banned when they were first written. However, during
his lifetime he was greatly honored with degrees, a knighthood from a German Duke
and the adulation of progressive minded people (George Bernard Shaw being one of
his strongest supporters) and lifetime pensions from the governments of Norway and
Sweden. Of his 24 plays (all written originally in Norwegian), ten have been
translated into every major European language and are still staples of stages in all the
major capitals of the western world.
Born in 1828 in a tiny town in southeastern Norway, he was the second of six children
of a wealthy family that lost their money when he was 8. At the age of 16 he was
apprenticed to a pharmacist and it was then that he began to write poetry. In the
capital city of Oslo (then called Christiania) he wrote his first play at the age of 20
entitled Catiline about the conspirator of ancient Rome. It went unproduced. Failing
to get accepted into the university, Ibsen joined a Norwegian revolutionary group but
soon lost interest in their cause (especially after some of its leaders were arrested).
His romantic medieval play The Warrior's Barrow brought Ibsen to the attention of a
national theatre in Bergen, where he was invited to be resident poet and playwright.
The theatre also subsidized his studies of stagecraft in Copenhagen and Dresden, with
the provision that he return and serve as director for at least 5 years. Ibsen honored the
agreement and would go on to stage some 145 plays at Bergen, solidifying his theatre
craftsmanship. At the end of his contract, he wrote The Vikings of Helgeland, a
patriotic celebration in verse of ancient Norse folklore that made him a national hero.
In 1858, Ibsen married Suzannah Thoreson, and eventually would have one son with
her. Ibsen believed that marriage between a man and a woman should be a union of
equals- each free to become their own human being. This belief led many of Ibsen's
critics to attack him for failing to respect the sacred ties of marriage.
In 1862, he wrote a play, Love's Comedy, which many found scandalous in its
approach to love and marriage, and a year later The Pretenders which was a fiery
tract favoring a union of the three Scandinavian countries to help Denmark oppose
Prussia in its annexation plans. The following year, Ibsen would leave Norway and
for the next 27 years would live mostly in Rome and other Italian cities, as well as,
Germany and Denmark. It was during those years that Ibsen would go on to write the
plays on which his reputation is founded.
While riotous disapproval was unleashed in Norway over his satire The League of
Youth (1869), and furious controversy broke out there over The Pillars of Society
(1877), even as it was presented simultaneously in five theatres in Berlin Ibsen would
attain great popularity during that period. Peer Gynt (1867) was a great success when
embellished with Edvard Grieg's music. But violent condemnation flowed almost
everywhere A Doll's House (1879) was produced for its questioning of masculine
assumptions of superiority, and with Ghosts (1881) for its frank dealing with the
marital infidelity of a rich man with syphilis and clerical hypocrisy roused storms of
anger.
The frankness and realism of Ibsen's plays caused them to be banned in some cities,
but made them also seem like breaths of fresh air amid the staleness of Victorian
prudery. Ibsen drew attacks from many but also had support from critics such as
George Brandes and George Bernard Shaw. By the early years of the 20th century (5
to 10 years after Ibsen's death in 1906), his plays were fully accepted throughout
Europe and America.
Henrik Ibsen's Plays
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Cataline (1848)
The Warrior's Barrow (1850)
Lady Inger of Ostrat (1855)
The Feast at Solhoug (1856)
St. John's Night (1857)
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The Vikings of Helgeland (1858)
Love's Comedy (1862)
The Pretenders (1863)
Brand (1866)
Peer Gynt (1867)
The League of Youth (1869)
Emperor and Galilean (1873)
The Pillars of Society (1877)
A Doll's House (1879)
Ghosts (1881)
An Enemy of the People (1883)
The Wild Duck (1884)
Rosmerholm (1866)
The Lady From the Sea (1888)
Hedda Gabler (1890)
The Master Builder (1892)
Little Eyolf (1894)
John Gabriel Borkman (1896)
When We Dead Awaken (1899)
About Frank McGuinness
Frank McGuinness has had a long association with the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, who
staged his first play, The Factory Girls in 1982. The Abbey recently revived his
celebrated international success, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the
Somme, and toured it to the Edinburgh Festival, the Royal Shakespeare Company and
L'Odeon Theatre d'Europe in Paris. His play Someone to Watch Over Me was staged
at the Vaudeville Theatre in London's West End and the Booth Theatre on Broadway.
His version of Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle was performed at the National
Theatre in London.
About the Play
In Frank McGuinness' preface to his new version he writes,
In 1871, eight years before Henrik Ibsen wrote A Doll's House, Ibsen met a
Norwegian girl called Laura Petersen. Ibsen took quite a fancy to her and called her
his 'skylark.' In 1872, she married a Danish schoolmaster, Victor Kieler, who
subsequently contracted tuberculosis. His doctors prescribed a warmer climate, but
they were poor, and Victor became hysterical at the mention of money. Laura
arranged a loan without her husband's knowledge, for which a friend stood security.
The trip to Italy thus financed was successful, and Victor made a good recovery.
Two years later, however, repayment of the loan was demanded. Laura did not have
the money herself, dared not tell her husband and, worse, still, the friend who had
stood security had himself fallen on hard times. Laura attempted to pay off the loan by
forging a check. The forgery was discovered, the bank refused payment, and Laura
was forced to tell her husband the whole story. Despite the fact that she had done it
purely to save his life, Victor Kieler treated Laura like a criminal. He claimed she was
an unfit wife and mother and when she suffered a nervous breakdown, he had her
committed to a public asylum, and demanded a separation so that the children could
be removed from Laura's care. She was discharged after a month, and managed to
persuade Victor to take her back for the children's sake, which he eventually, but
grudgingly, agreed to do.
In September 1878, only a couple of months after hearing about Laura's committal to
the asylum, Ibsen began work on A Doll's House. In his notes he wrote the following:
A woman cannot be herself in modern society, with laws made by men and with
prosecutors and judges who assess female conduct from a male standpoint. Copyright
© 1996-1998 Frank McGuinness
The play's first presentation was in Copenhagen in 1879, and within a year of that first
production, A Doll's House was being performed all over Scandinavia and Germany.
Controversy over Nora's audacity in leaving her husband, Torvald, her declaration of
independence, was so heated that at social gatherings a rule was general that
discussion of it would be barred. Ibsen would appear to be uncomfortable with a
purely feminist interpretation of his play when, speaking to a meeting of the
Norwegian Association of Women's Rights several years after the play's premiere, he
stated that "I must decline the honor of being said to have worked for the Women's
Rights movement. I am not even very sure what Women's Rights are. To me it has
been a question of human rights."
The first American actress to play the role of Nora was Helen Modjeska in 1883. The
play's first American title was The Child Wife and premiered in Louisville, Kentucky.
It would take another six years for the play to reach New York. It first appeared in
England in 1884 under a still different title, The Breaking of a Butterfly, in an
adaptation by playwright Henry Arthur Jones. Yet another adaptation, this time called
Creditors, was acted by Janet Church in England in 1889. When the play finally came
to New York it was in a German-language version and performed at the Irving Place
Theatre for the large German speaking population. This event was considered
significant enough to be reviewed by the city's English language newspapers. The
New York Times wrote of this production "Ibsen was striking at the narrowness of
German or Norwegian idea in regard to women when he wrote the play about ten
years ago. But it might be well to show that women ought not to resort to fibs and
subterfuges even in a good cause, and that men ought to make serious friends of their
wives."
It would take another three months for an English language version, finally under the
title of A Doll's House, for a few performances as part of a repertory being presented
by Richard Mansfield. He did not appear in the play, and Beatrice Cameron
performed the role of Nora. The play drew the ire of a number of people, as evidenced
by the opinion of the NY Dramatic Mirror of December 28, 1889 which stated that
"the Ibsen cult is not likely to achieve popularity in this metropolis." However The
New York Times seems to have understood the play better when it wrote that "for
audiences composed of persons who think deeply on such questions as the position of
the married woman in the family, and how women should be educated for marriage,
few plays can be more attractive. It raises the question of Women's Rights in a way
that affords food for endless discussion."
Nevertheless, the play continued to find a large audience interested and intrigued by
Nora's dilemma. Since it's premiere there have been at least nine major Broadway
revivals of this play, starring such luminaries as Mrs. Fiske, Ethel Barrymore, Alla
Nazimova, Ruth Gordon, Claire Bloom, Liv Ullmann and Janet McTeer.
In addition to the various Broadway productions, there have a number of
filmed presentations. In 1973, Claire Bloom recreated her performance as
Nora in a filmed version that included Anthony Hopkins in its cast. That
same year there was a second version, this one starring Jane Fonda.
Filmed in Norway, the play was enlarged by adaptor David Mercer in
order to take advantage of the exteriors available. Directed by Joseph
Losey it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. PBS Masterpiece Theatre
featured a BBC production in March of 1992. Directed by David
Thacker, it featured a new translation by Joan Tinsdale, and featured Juliet Stevenson
as Nora. The New York Times reviewer, John O'Connor, called it "a new, pointedly
ideological translation… both sharp and felicitous."
Two unusual variations on the play appeared in 1982 and 1991. Musical theatre
lyricists and book writers Betty Comden and Adolph Green in collaboration with
composer Larry Grossman, wrote a new musical play entitled A Doll's Life, which
was their attempt to show what happened to Nora after she left her husband. Directed
by Harold Prince and featuring Betsy Joslyn and George Hearn, the musical was not
well received. More successful was film director Ingmar Bergman's adaptation, which
premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1991 under the tile of Nora. By
trimming the play and cutting the characters of the maid, nurse and two children made
the play as "coiled and airtight as a jack-in-the-box" (New York Newsday), while The
New York Times reviewer Mel Gussow felt that the production made the play "even
more relevant to contemporary society."
Critical Responses for Some of the Broadway Revivals
and their Noras
Mrs. Fiske's performance (1902)
"The sympathetic genius of Mrs. Fiske has made the role of Nora Helmer her own so
far as America is concerned; and today A Doll's House, one of the keenest, most
ironical dissections of the human soul ever performed on the dramatic stage, has
become the popular ideal of 'the Ibsen play.'" Theatre Magazine
" In few of her parts are Mrs. Fiske's excellences and limitations more clearly to be
seen. Nora is the type of playthng primitive man - and men are so primitive - makes of
primitive women. Her whole aim in life, as she points out on leaving Torvald, has
been to delight and allure him. If she has an end of her own to gain, she gains it be
bribing him, and her bribe here is to dance for him in her chamber. Mrs. Fiske lacks
this instinctive exuberant coquetry." The New York Times
Ethel Barrymore's performance (1905)
"Miss Barrymore's conception of Nora is sound. She is the frank, irresponsible,
volatile, frivolous, doll-like creature doomed by marriage to be the plaything of a
selfish, egotistical, smug, canting, conceited and self-centered husband. These
qualities she indicated, but with a background of ingeniousness." New York Herald
"Certainly a stronger woman's right's document, whether the writer meant it as such or
not, was never put into the hands of those who clamor for the freedom of sex." New
York Telegram
"No one can fail to admit that Miss Barrymore has justified her claim to be considered
a serious actress. From the moment of her first appearance until the parting words of
Torvald, she played with a sure touch and gradually developing authority of
expression. This Nora had many splendid moments. She passed from the girlish, lighthearted irresponsibility of a butterfly creature to a rare compelling quality of moving
pathos." New York Times
Alla Nazimova's performance (1907)
"She portrayed a gay, high spirited little woman, fond of personal comfort as a cat,
and therefore extravagant in taste, generous and warm hearted by impulse, and
perfectly incapable of knowing right from wrong. Mme. Nazimova made you from
the start understand and like this woman; she enlisted your sympathy in her self-made
embarrassments and your personal interest in their solution. You made Nora's cause
your own from the start and found ample excuse for her peccadilloes. Mme.
Nazimova's gay spirits in the opening scenes were infectious, her romps with the
children delightfully natural, and her steadily growing terror of Krogstad's impending
disclosure was finely depicted. And the final assertion of Nora of her womanhood was
enacted superbly." New York Herald
Ruth Gordon's performance (1937)
"But Time and Papa Ibsen, the realist, are not always on the best
of terms. In spite of the old-fashioned neatness of his planning, in
spite of the individual complexity of his characters, both
specialists and general playgoers are forced to admit their interest
in A Doll's House is nowadays more academic than human." New
York Post
Ruth Gordon
"If A Doll's House is less frequently revived than some other
Ibsen plays, it is because the revolt it chronicles is a little
embarrassing now. Thornton Wilder [who adapted this version]
has pruned away most of the stiff Nordic fripperies but still the
propriety of Helmer's little wife is hard to understand. The
motivation of the character is plagued with shibboleths today, but
the moral and spiritual triumph of Nora are still full of the fire of
life." New York Times
Claire Bloom's performance (1971)
"The play has not lost one iota of its power. It is full of the most disturbing passion- a
passion that breaks through the most conscious concerns of the artist to reach the
buried regions of our deepest humanity. A Doll's House is about the overweening
"sexual politics" of the insensitive middle-class husband who treats his wife like some
animated toy that trills and warbles and tweets when you wind it up. But what it is
really about is the ignorant games of desire we play when our natural appetite for
transcendent experience is straitjacketed by the moral and social systems that muffle
and distort such appetites… Miss Bloom's performance falls somewhere between an
attempt to do Ibsen straight and to give him a resonance with current stirrings over
women's lib and similar matters. One is glad to have a production of this great play
done with such intelligence, cleanness and care." Newsweek
"Ibsen is making a case for the emancipation of women, of course, and this is a
perfect example of a woman's play. Especially those women who were married and
tucked away- or buried- in the stuffy households of the 19th century. Still, it remains a
fine enough drama to excuse a man's being dragged along to see it." New York Daily
News
"It is curious- for society, rather sadly curious- how modern Ibsen's arguments about
the suppression of women now seem, nearly 100 years later. " New York Times
"When Nora slammed the door in the famous last scene of A Doll's House, she not
only provided of the historic moments in the modern drama, but she supplied the
Women's Liberation Movement with a pioneer heroine. Ibsen's play about the wife
who rebelled is being given an interesting performance… Claire Bloom brings charm,
emotional ability and conviction to the role of Nora." New York Post
"I could sidestep Ibsen's A Doll's House and I would be a happier man. I could
bemoan the play's structural difficulties; the belabored plots points of an illustrated
lecture, the melodramatic hand wringing, the awkward and incredible revelations of
the third act between Nora, mother of three, and her husband Torvald, which results in
her famous, irrecoverable exit. This brisk production, with the Norse brooding erased
from the play's surface, took me by surprise; it startled me and punished me and made
me see things in A Doll's House and in myself too terrifying to deny… More painful
and unexpected is that Ibsen's characters are not ogres. The arbitrariness of their fate
as a family is not a destiny earned by malevolence. They are decent people. The
moment in which Nora asks Torvald to return her wedding ring is shattering because
both husband and wife are acting in good faith." The Village Voice
Critical Responses for the Film Versions
Jane Fonda's film (1973)
"In the long, narrow vista from the parlor through the dining room to the playroom,
Nora's world is seen, in the reduced perspective of deep focus, as a doll's house in an
optical as well as dramatic delusion. Fonda is a glowing, vibrant, impulsive,
transitional figure between past and present, between Victorian pretense and lonely
liberation." The Village Voice
Claire Bloom's film (1973)
"Shaw, who called Ibsen a greater dramatist than Shakespeare, did not want people
fussing about the possibility of the play's seeming dated. Shaw need not have worried.
A Doll's House, as we saw on stage two years ago and now in this film, is theatre of
amazing ferocity. The play dates only in second-rate productions." New York Times
Critical Responses for the Broadway Revival featuring
the Frank McGuinness Adaptation (1997)
"This is why I love the theatre! It just doesn't happen that often and when it does, you
sit there, open-mouthed, grateful, admiring and shaken. What Janet McTeer achieves,
with the … wonderful adaptation by Frank McGuinness… is the sense that the
landmark role of Nora was only just written and written specifically for her. " New
York Times
"A thunderclap of an evening that takes your breath away." TIME
Resources
William Archer's (1856-1924) public domain English translation of Ibsen's A Doll's
House
Motion Picture:
A Doll's House (1973)
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Staring: Claire Bloom and Anthony Hopkins
Director: Patrick Garland
Format: Color, Closed-captioned, NTSC
Rated: G
Studio: MGM/United Artists
Video Release Date: August 1, 2000
ASIN: 0792846389
Other Formats: DVD widescreen
Available at Amazon.com.
Compiled by Daniel Yurgaitis
Posted: December 24, 2003; Updated: February 16, 2004
Copyright © 2003-2004 by Northern State University, Aberdeen, SD