A Doll's House

I went to the American Theatre of Actors on Saturday to see Hip Obscurity's rendition of Henrik Ibsen's play, "A Doll House." (In the Ibsen book of plays I have there is no "'s" after "doll" but it varies with every source). The stage was a small square with twenty-something seats on either side and it was not risen. I am a big fan of Henrik Ibsen, and while I don't find "A Doll House" as interesting a play as some of his others, I thought that there would be a twist because Hip Obscurity chose to create a modern rendition set in  1958. In short, the play is about a seemingly carefree and naive woman named Nora Helmer and her rich husband Torvald. Nora illegally (with a forged signature) borrowed "a thousand dollars" from one of Torvald's employees, Krogstad, to pay for a trip to Italy so that Torvald could recover from a sickness he had. Once Krogstad's position at work was put in jeopardy, he threatened to tell Torvald of Nora's secret because she had said that her father paid for the trip. In the end, Nora leaves Torvald after a long monologue about how for eight years he's treated her like a doll instead of a human, talking down to her and never initiating serious conversations. 

The director of the play, Anthony Castellano, explained in the program that the 1950's was a perfect time setting because of the women's liberation movement--he said that the play's initial time period would distance the audience members' connection to its importance. 

I wasn't impressed with the rendition because I expected a drastic difference from the original, but the only modern aspect was that Nora was humming songs like Jingle Bells and carried a  "Big Brown Bag" from Macy's (I think Macy's?) I thought that the actors weren't focused and the man who played Torvald was unconvincing. He didn't seem invested in his role and he wasn't even convincing during the scenes where he had to scream. I'm pretty sure we even made eye contact a couple of times and that threw me off because I'm sure I wasn't the only one and I don't think the actors should make it clear that they are looking at their audience because it brings us back to reality. One memorable scene from the play when I read it beforehand was when Nora was talking and laughing with her children for a while, because she eventually leaves them since she doesn't see herself fit to take care of anyone but herself. The original written scene had incredible and specific direction, but Castellano completely cut the entire scene out. There was no trace at all of children in the play and when she said that she was leaving them, something important, I wasn't fazed at all. I thought that the actress who played Nora was unrealistic and was over acting, and the only times she convinced me that she was Nora Helmer was when she cried at one point. When she becomes serious in the end, it was like she was a completely different person than the woman I had been watching throughout the play, which I guess is the point, but she literally made no connection between the two facets of Nora's personality. However, I did enjoy the acting of some of the minor characters.

I've been to the American Theatre of Actors before, and I may have even seen a play by Hip Obscurity who usually performs new and unknown works, so I appreciated the fact that they tackled an Ibsen play. Clearly it was low budget, which is not a bad thing at all, but there were no costume changes (even when Nora and Torvald attended a ball) and I found a few type-os in the program (not good!). 

"A Doll House" is not a favorite play of mine but I feel like the production would have been enjoyable if I felt that the actors were invested, because judging by their impressive credentials I'm sure that they are great actors. 

Hip Obscurity is a very modern-based theater group who "explores gender, sexuality, and self-identity as a construct as lived in the everyday" and they "seek to confound the commonly-held belief that these issues are obscure or outside the average experience." I feel that "A Doll House" was perhaps out of their element. The producer's note talks about Sarah Palin and her Pro-Life debates, so clearly the feminism aspect was what drew them in, and I definitely think they could have put more emphasis on making that clear because Nora's monologue at the end was the only evidence that women's rights is what the play is essentially about.