By Henrik Ibsen
Directed by Lee Breuer
Adapted by Lee Breuer
Returning to St. Ann's Warehouse is this re-working of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879) by the New York-based avant-garde theatre company Mabou Mines. Award-winning writer/director Lee Breuer casts Ibsen's constricted women with actresses nearly 6 feet tall, while the men, masters of their Victorian universe, are played by actors under 5 feet.
Considered by many to be one of the first true feminist plays, A Doll's House questions the highly valued traditional roles of men and women in the late 19th century, incorporating Victorian ideals about gender and status. It follows the story of Nora Helmer, a woman trapped in an unhappy and unequal marriage to her husband, Torvald. While Nora proves herself completely capable of taking care of herself and her husband, secretly taking out and paying off loans when Torvald falls ill, she always plays the part of the frivolous and dependent wife. When blackmail disrupts the family's life, Nora eventually realizes that the marriage is a failure and walks out on Torvald and her children. This controversial conclusion shocked and scandalized audiences of the time; as one writer said, the slamming of the door as Nora walked out "reverberated across the roof of the world." Ibsen endorses the self-sufficient individual, stressing the ability to care for and know oneself above the conventions of society.
See a YouTube video of the Mabou Mines DollHouse production at UCLA (Nov-Dec 2006).
Critical Praise for Mabou Mines DollHouse:
"Ibsen will never be the same again. Would that all classics could be so searchingly but lovingly re-examined." (London Times 5/5 stars)
"…bold and brilliant, and at once fascinating, outrageous and inspired"
(Chicago Sun-Times through LexisNexis)
"Do not miss Mabou Mines DollHouse... it is one of those experiences for which one searches, night after night in the theatre, and which one will not forget for a long time."
(Le Monde, Paris (in French) through LexisNexis)
Other reviews of past performance (same production):
Relevant Classes:
Anthropology - Fluent Bodies (N. Panourgia)
First Year Seminar (Barnard) - Modernism and Modernity (A. Alberro)
History (Barnard) - European Women in the Age of Revolution (D. Valenze)
Theatre (Barnard) - Acting Lab: Acting the Avant-Garde (R. Bundy)
Women's and Gender Studies - Feminist Texts II (E. Berstein)
