A Doll’s House reviewed by Julia W. Rath

Highly Recommended **** Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” is one of the most performed plays today. The current production at the Raven Theatre is directed by Lauren Shouse and based on an adapted script by Anne-Charlotte Hanes Harvey and Kirsten Brandt.

One of Ibsen’s main themes has to do with the limits of nicety. The Helmers are a respectable middle-class family who lead a nice, comfortable life. Nora (Amira Danan) lives in a nice house and wears nice clothes. Her adoring husband Torvald (Gage Wallace) has just gotten a nice job as a bank director with a nice income and a forthcoming bonus. He gives Nora a nice allowance to purchase nice things. They have nice children and employ two live-in maidservants Helene (Carmen Liao) and Anne-Marie (Kelli Walker), who nicely double as au pairs. Nora’s life is considered enviable, as she supposedly lives without a care in the world—without the burdens that her spouse (and provider) carries with him on a daily basis. Everything is so nice and wonderful. But in a culture where the rights of personhood and property are passed down from father to husband to son, Nora is denied any rights as a woman separate from those of her male relations. is this a good way for a woman—or anybody—to live?

The year is 1879, and the place is a small town in Norway. With a sheltered stay-at-home wife being a sign of high social status, Torvald is more than happy to support Nora’s spending habits and protect her from harm. All of her wants and needs are paid for with his salary and his affections. She need not have any ambitions. But why does she consent to being displayed like an ornament? Why must she be content with a husband who cares only about her extremely good looks and virtually nothing else about her? Why must she, in today’s language, remain satisfied with simply being a “trophy wife?”

Yet Nora’s seemingly fortunate economic and social circumstance is coveted by her close friend Mrs. Christine Linde (Shadana Patterson), who is older than she is and is now widowed. With her sons fully grown, Mrs. Linde desperately needs a job to define herself, remain financially afloat, and retain the middle-class lifestyle to which she is accustomed. Nora is also envied (but in a different way) by her husband’s doctor and best friend Dr. Rank (Mike Dailey), who is secretly in love with her.

A second theme of the story is that of moral clarity and moral choice. When the show opens, Nora has put herself and her husband in debt so as to afford an all-expenses trip to Italy; as Dr. Rank has previously prescribed warm climes to save Torvald’s life. At the time of this arrangement, she tells Torvald that the money was a gift from her now-deceased father, when in fact it was not. Instead, she has signed a promissory note in order to obtain the necessary loan, but as her own signature (being a woman) is considered worthless, she forges her father’s name on the note as the cosigner. Unfortunately, she is found out by her creditor, the attorney Krogstad (Nelson Rodriguez), who holds this “indiscretion” over her head, as he attempts to blackmail her in order to keep her secret: both the debt itself and the illegal nature of how she obtained the funds. Should this news ever leak out, everybody would think that Torvald put her up to this, which would sully his reputation as the new bank director.

Nora never regrets her tough and well-considered decision to borrow money clandestinely to preserve her family’s hearth and home, the future well-being of their children, and, of course, her husband’s health—while trying her best to maintain outward appearances and their spousal partnership. But once her secret is found out, Torvald not only fails to recognize his wife’s innate goodness, thoughtfulness, and strength of character but lacks any interest to hear her out at all. Thus he never comes to understand her careful assessment of their family situation and her underlying reasoning. He is cannot fathom that she is even capable of making decisions of such import. Instead he regards her as being a silly child. By calling her foolish—almost as a term of endearment—a flood of emotions come rushing in as Nora turns against him. It is at that very moment when she becomes empowered: Nora can no longer see a role for herself in a stagnant marriage, so she chooses to give up middle-class convention in favor of disentangling herself from her male breadwinner. She is more than willing to dispense with her highly-coveted family life and her comfortable and relatively high social position in order to set forth on an uncertain path. This has consequently become preferable to remaining complacent in a highly limited feminine role, where she is treasured for her beauty and charm but little else.

This brings us to the third theme: What should a woman’s place be in modern society? Is she the equal of a man? The main difference between Nora and her husband is that she eventually realizes the bind she is in, but Torvald clings so tightly to his culture and family traditions that he fails to see the strictures on his attitudes and behavior—or he doesn’t want to see them. He pines for the Nora who is a projection of himself and his desires, and not the flesh-and-blood woman she actually is. His is a staid life of conformity; and from his culturally-bound point of view, his way of seeing their marriage is the only correct one. But why must sex and gender roles be so strict, with so many constraints on a woman’s behavior? Ibsen shows us what can happen when society’s judgments impinge upon a couple’s loving relationship. As we watch a woman grow and eventually buck the existing norm of female domesticity and complacency, she needs to go off into an uncertain world to try to find herself. For Nora, the time has come to strike out on her own and discover who she really is—and get past being confined like a songbird in a gilded cage or being treated like a doll or mere plaything.

Speaking of dolls, there is a casting issue in this production: Nora, as Torvald’s “doll”, should have been played by a more petite and slighter woman, or Torvald should have been played by a taller actor. Basically, Danan is a head taller than Wallace and should not have to stoop and crouch in all sorts of servile and fawning ways to play her role, and she certainly should not have worn high heels after the costume change. Yes, there are stereotypes about men marrying women shorter than they are; but in this case, that stereotype is important to telling the story. It is doubtful that a conservative man such as Torvald would have married a wife taller than he. Plus, the height differential doesn’t work when Torvald calls Nora diminutive names; this would have been almost comical if Danan’s acting wasn’t as good as it is. Having a shorter Nora or a taller Torvald would have only added to Nora’s perceived strength of feminine resolve when she leaves her husband for good.

Costume designer Izumi Inaba does a fine job replicating the clothing of the late 19th century, and Ian Lieberman, as wardrobe supervisor, has filled in rest of the costuming. Scenic designer Jacqueline Penrod has built a totally convincing set that works well in conjunction with Shouse’s stage directing—with all of the sliding doors to depict an anteroom, Torvald’s home office, and a rear entryway in the audience’s imagination. An added touch was watching both the characters of Torvald and Dr. Rank play the piano while Nora dances. Credit must go to composer and sound designer Eric Backus and choreographer Ariel Etana Triunfo.

“A Doll’s House” would have shocked audiences when the play was first performed in Denmark in 1879. This was a time period when frank discussions of marital discord, separation, and divorce were virtually unheard of. Today’s production is no less relevant in its frank portrayal of spousal expectations for love and marriage. Though times have changed—with divorce much more the norm—what has stayed the same is that intimate partners must constantly negotiate (and renegotiate) the nature and scope of their relationship. How much are they willing to compromise to keep their relationship intact? And at what point do their differences become irreconcilable?

Just as Jo March, the heroine, cries out in Greta Gerwig’s current screen adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Nora could have easily spoken the exact same words at the end of the play: “Women have minds, and they have souls as well as just hearts. They’ve got ambition and they’ve got talent as well as just beauty. I am so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I’m so sick of it!”

Raven Theatre’s production of “A Doll’s House” is playing through March 22, 2020, on the East Stage, at 6157 N. Clark Street (at Granville), Chicago.

Tickets:

$46 ($43 when purchased online)

Seniors/teachers: $41 ($38 when purchased online)

Students/active military and veterans $15

Every Thursday is “Under 30 Thursday”, when patrons under age 30 can purchase tickets for $15.

Groups of 10 or more are $30 per person for Thursday and Friday performances and $35 per person for Saturday and Sunday performances. Student groups are $15 per person.

Performances:

Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays – 7:30 p.m.

Sundays – 3:00 p.m.

Touch Tour/Open Captioned Performance: Sunday, March 8, at 3:00 p.m.

Touch Tour begins at 1:45 p.m.

Tickets are currently available at raventheatre.com or by calling 773-338-2177.

Free parking is provided in a lot adjacent to the theatre. Additional street parking is available. Nearest El station: Granville Red Line. Buses #22 (Clark), #36 (Broadway), #151 (Sheridan) #155 (Devon), #84 (Peterson).

To see what others are saying, visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click at “A Doll’s House”.