A Doll House
A Life-Changing Classic
by Henrik Ibsen
adapted and directed by Preston Lane
October 16 – November 6, 2011
Dare to be free.
The most controversial play about love and marriage ever written still shocks and thrills a century after its lead character opened a door to freedom. Nora lives the perfect life and seems to be the perfect wife. Her husband has been recently promoted, her children are adorable, and she is about to pay off a secret debt. All seems right until a past crime she committed to save her husband threatens to destroy her happy home and she must face the hardest choice of all. Does she have the courage to stand alone? Can she face her fear of freedom? Expectations shatter and traditions are torn apart in this startling exposé.
"Edgy, raw, and riveting, Preston Lane's adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House is a must for students of classic theatre, a thrill for Triad Stage fans, and a compelling installation for contemporary art lovers."
–Lynn Jessup, Classical Voice of North Carolina Read the full review
"All in all, a boldly executed, shrewdly judged invigoration of a drama that still touches the core issues of modern life."
–Perry Tannenbaum, Creative Loafing Charlotte Read the full review
This production contains adult situations.
Running time: 2 hours and 15 minutes, including one fifteen-minute intermission.
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Triad Stage's Producers Circle and Center Stage level donors |
Meet the Actors
Get to know a little more about actors Krista Hoeppner (Nora), Luke Robertson (Torvald), Amy da Luz (Mrs. Kristine Linde) and Amy Claire Feldmann (Emmy) and Isaac Feldmann (Ivar) with these actor profiles on our Tumblr page.
A Doll House Dramaturgy
Our Artistic Associate, Bryan Conger, and assistant director, Daniel Potts, have created a Google site about playwright Henrik Ibsen and the play.
Click here to visit our A Doll House Dramaturgy Google site.
The Sound of A Doll House
David E. Smith has composed an original score for our production of A Doll House. Click here to listen to a sound sketch of his design.
Ibsen and the "Woman Problem"
by Dr. Christine Woodworth, University of North Carolina Greensboro
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Betty Hennings as “Nora”
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When A Doll House premiered in Copenhagen on December 21, 1879 with Betty Hennings originating the role of Nora, the production is said to have concluded with a door slam that “reverberated throughout Europe” (Davis 218). Few plays spark and continue to provoke such vociferous debate as Henrik Ibsen’s iconic text. But was Ibsen a feminist?
In a now infamous speech delivered to the Norwegian Women’s Rights League on May 26, 1898, Ibsen declared:
I thank you for the toast, but must disclaim the honor of having consciously worked for the women’s rights movement. I am not even quite clear as to just what this women’s rights movement really is. To me it has seemed a problem of mankind in general…True enough, it is desirable to solve the woman problem, along with all others; but that has not been the whole purpose. My task has been the description of humanity. (qtd. in Sprinchorn 337)
Ibsen scholar Joan Templeton has noted that this speech has been held up for over one hundred years as justification for denying the feminist sentiments within Ibsen’s writing, noting that “As strange as it may seem to the uninitiated, it is standard procedure in Ibsen criticism to save the author of A Doll House from the contamination of feminism” (110). Yet Ibsen was undeniably concerned about the “woman problem,” which entailed suffrage, property rights, and education access for women. In 1884, Ibsen sent a letter to the Norwegian government, urging them to support a bill in favor of property rights for married women. He was skeptical that such a measure would find success, however, as he wrote in a letter to a friend: “To consult men in such a matter is like asking wolves if they desire better protection for the sheep” (qtd. in Sprinchorn 228). This was just one of several examples of Ibsen’s public support of greater equality for women. Gail Finney asserts that Ibsen was heavily influenced by a number of women’s rights advocates, notably his wife Suzannah and Camilla Collett, a novelist and Norway’s most famous feminist (90-91).
Throughout the 1880s, bootleg adaptations of A Doll House were presented, many times with re-written endings that bolstered the status quo. Ibsen himself was once persuaded to create an alternative “happy ending” for a German production. Yet many prominent social critics and theatre artists were far more interested in A Doll House as Ibsen originally intended. George Bernard Shaw and Eleanor Marx—Karl Marx’s daughter who learned Norwegian specifically to be able to translate Ibsen’s works—performed the play in 1886 in a London drawing room, establishing Ibsen as a symbol for social justice crusaders. Emma Goldman included a tribute to Ibsen in The Social Significance of Modern Drama. Elizabeth Robins, American actress and suffragist, once said that “no dramatist has ever meant so much to the women of the stage as Henrik Ibsen” (qtd. in Ledger 89). Regardless of Ibsen’s intent in writing A Doll House, the slamming door continues to reverberate, rattling the gilded cages of 19th century femininity.
Works Cited
Davis, Tracy C. “A Doll’s House and the Evolving Feminist Agenda.” Feminist Research: Prospect and Retrospect. Ed. Peta Tancred-Sheriff. Kingston, Ont.: McGill-Queen’s UP, 1988. 218-228. Print.
Finney, Gail. “Ibsen and Feminism.” The Cambridge Companion to Feminism. Ed. James McFarlane. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. 89-105. Print.
Ledger, Sally. “Ibsen, the New Woman and the Actress.” The New Woman in Fiction and in Fact: Fin-de-Siecle Feminisms. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2011. 79-93. Print.
Sprinchorn, Evert. Ibsen Letters and Speeches. New York: Hill and Wang, 1964. Print.
Templeton, Joan. Ibsen’s Women. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997. Print.
