Doll’s House gets its feminist message across
A Doll’s House K (out of 4) Written by Henrik Ibsen. Adapted by Frank McGuinness. Directed by Daniel Brooks. Until Aug. 27 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 50 Tank House Lane. soulpepper.ca or 416-8668666 Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 play A Doll’s House never quite went out of style, once the furor over its premiere died down. Lately, the story of the dark side of married life, which scandalously ends with its female protagonist leaving her husband and children to find herself, is enjoying a surge in popularity.
Daniel Brooks’ production at Soulpepper Theatre does a fine job of showing why.
Torvald (Christopher Morris) and Nora (Katherine Gauthier) are a contemporary couple: he’s a welldressed top banker and she’s a blond housewife with a maid and a nanny. But it’s Christmastime, so she mostly shops. This is a familiar marriage, not one we’ve seen in traditional productions.
Lorenzo Savoini’s cavernous set better resembles a spacious condo than a Norwegian estate.
Victoria Wallace’s costume design nails the modern Bay Street attire and Nora’s pristine white puffy winter coat is immediately recognizable; it places her perfectly among yoga moms who shop at Whole Foods with lattes.
That might seem like a cynical stereotype, but it emphasizes Ibsen’s original intent with A Doll’s House. It was revolutionary to stage a woman’s story, criticizing the social constrictions placed on them in 1879. Today, why can’t we do the same for a subsection of women often assumed to be superficial, vapid and with no social contribution outside of organizing fundraisers?
Nora begins obtuse to the outside world, demonstrated smartly by making Nora’s childhood friend Kristine (Oyin Oladejo), who has lived a much more challenging life, a black woman; suddenly their disparities become much more than just financial.
When Kristine charges that Nora doesn’t “know how hard life can be” — after Nora spends $48,000 to take Torvald to Italy for a year to cure his illness — Nora’s indignant reaction comes off as the quintessential combination of white fragility and white privilege.
But in Nora’s defence, she’s literally cooped up in her apartment. She spends most of her time striding around the room until she chooses a chair to sit in, only to get up again moments later. While this gets grating, the audience understands the reaction from someone living without stimulus or activity to devote their brain power to.
It also explains her explosive playtime with her children: the only companionship or empowerment she feels. And when she retreats from them under the stress of Krog- stad’s blackmail, it’s painful to watch but ultimately gives her the freedom to stop the infantilizing both she and her husband are guilty of.
Brooks makes these characters ugly and completely self-unaware; Torvald, in particular, who so jarringly misreads his wife’s mood that he gets naked while she dresses and packs her bags.
In fact, her moment of clarity sends him into a childlike spat, stomping and whining.
Throughout the play, Brooks interjects melodramatic groans or tantrums from the two central figures into the drama, often getting laughs, but it’s never certain whether this is played for comedic levity or if the laughs come from the audience’s discomfort with two adults acting like infants.
In other moments, Brooks shows his hand too much, with spotlighted soliloquies that demonstrate Nora’s mental stress or a projection of snowfall on a sheer curtain, but he understands how the feminist message of A Doll’s House translates to today: that strict but random societal roles defined by gender stop everyone from developing into emotionally mature adults.
What’s more impressive is he did it without putting a phone in anyone’s hands onstage.