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.
| Production Sponsors |
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Triad Stage's Producers Circle and Center Stage level donors |
With a play like A Doll House, we have to ask ourselves “why” and “how” we say
something that has been said for over 120 years. Many of us studied it in high
school. Most of us think we know what the play is about—and about that subject
some of us believe there isn’t anything new left to say.
I certainly spent much of my first two decades of directing imagining that as
much as I loved Ibsen, A Doll House was little more than a clumsy, dated piece of
propaganda—more Shaw than Ibsen with a point to prove and a sledgehammer to
knock us over the head until we all agreed it had been proven.
But I was wrong. If I started out thinking A Doll House was an early suffragette cry
for equality, somewhat creaking under the weight of equal part melodrama and
late 19th century politics, I ended up discovering this play is a timeless feminist cry
from the heart—a cry from any heart that yearns for freedom— that celebrates the
value of the individual, to grow, to learn, to make its own identity, and to live—fully
engaged—with other individuals as radically true to themselves as Ibsen challenges
us to be to ourselves.
So for me the “why we say it” is because I know of no other play that more
dramatically demands freedom, that more violently attacks the forces and
institutions that diminish ourselves, placing the human need for self-realization far
beneath society’s overwhelming need for control and illusion.
The “how we say it” is a challenge. The message must break free of more than a
century of preconceived notions that come with the words “classic”, “modern
drama” and “Ibsen”. In my adaptation, I have struggled to find a contemporary
speech that upholds the spirit of the original. The designers and I have attempted
to recognize the need for new signifiers to replace the objects and clothes that the
baggage of the past century and the terrible burden of “classic” makes it difficult
for us to view. The title itself rejects the most familiar English translation and
takes away the possessive doll, replacing it with a doll house for a child’s game that
grownups should refuse to play.
I dedicate this production to my dear friend, Christy Weikel, who learned too hard society’s punishment for modern day Noras who demand the responsibility and dignity of freedom.
Preston Lane
