Theatre review: Mabou Mines DollHouse

“Then why go on supporting a society like this? What does it live by? Lies and pretenses—“
--Henrik Ibsen, Pillars of Society


When I was in graduate school at Columbia, we were offered the choice between a collaborative seminar on Ibsen and one on Dürrenmatt. No one wanted Ibsen, so we had to draw straws; I lost, and so was consigned to a semester of Norwegian realism. I’ve never really liked Ibsen, and many of my classmates in the seminar didn’t, either. We sat down one day and figured out exactly what it was we didn’t like: his predictability.

The structure of all Ibsen plays goes something like this:
1. We are introduced to an illusion.
2. A character is introduced who will destroy this illusion; someone knows this.
3. There is an attempt to bargain with the insurgent.
4. The illusion is destroyed; the bargaining didn’t work.
5. Finally, there is a movement toward an ideal.

Because this holds true across his entire oeuvre, Ibsen is infuriatingly predictable. Of course, against most modern theatre, he is.

A Doll’s House, written in 1879, marked a fundamental breakthrough for realistic drama. It subverted the traditional play structure of the time, by ending with ambiguity, not catharsis. A Doll’s House is probably Ibsen’s most famous and most performed play. It is the story of the slow dissolution of a bad marriage, famously ending with a door slam, as Nora walks out on her husband. The play rocked nineteenth-century morals; productions were banned in many cities because it was considered unthinkable for a woman to leave her husband and children.

Despite the play’s firmly-rooted realism, the modern performance trend is to completely subvert this realism. Witness Mabou Mines DollHouse, now on its second run at St. Ann’s Warehouse, in which all the women are over six feet tall and all the men are cast with dwarfs. A Doll’s House has been adapted and altered almost more than any other modern drama (although Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler is right up there, as well); there’s been a short-lived Broadway musical version; a version in which Nora and Torvald fight it out in the last scene, literally swinging from the chandelier; a version in which Nora climbed back into the house through a window; a version in which Nora loses it and begins killing; and a version in which Nora didn’t leave home at all, but climbed onto her roof to chain-smoke. There were several early alterations, all of which kept Nora at home, safely ensconced within the male power structure.

Naturally the temptation is to read A Doll’s House as an early cry for feminism. Henrik Ibsen was a famed introvert; he once remarked, “the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.” His statement could equally apply to Nora, the heroine of A Doll’s House and long considered one of the world’s first feminists (though Ibsen never meant to write a “feminist” play). In fact, she declares, “I must stand quite alone, if I am to understand myself and everything about me.” Ibsen felt it was a play about self-liberation, rather than specifically female liberation. His canon is replete with instances of the individual vs. a provincial, narrow-minded society, of the right of the individual to fulfill his (or her) true self, often by escaping a difficult past and the restrictive rules of society. In Ghosts, motherhood is associated with powerlessness, and illustrates the tragic effect of the dumb acceptance of convention; in The Lady from the Sea, domesticity was equated with banality and boredom, and women’s self-realization was entirely dependent on the attitudes of the men around them; and famously, in Hedda Gabler, Hedda’s efforts to find freedom are tragically and violently quashed by both the men around her and by the rules of her society.

Ibsen’s characters often lived in a general atmosphere of oppressive boredom and societal repression (Rosmersholm, Hedda Gabler, John Gabriel Borkman), reflecting the heartbreak of frustrated lives. There were passionate lovers dominated by their own bourgeois mentality (Hedda Gabler, Little Eyolf, When We Dead Awaken), as well as women trapped in unfulfilling marriages (Pillars of Society, A Doll’s House, Hedda Gabler, The Lady from the Sea, Little Eyolf, John Gabriel Borkman). He used the same basic character types and personalities from play to play; the women were usually intelligent and passionate, but inhibited by convention; the men were arrogant, who destroyed (or nearly destroyed) the happiness of all around him, whether inadvertently or not; many of his characters came from wounded childhoods, in which they were hurt, molested, or otherwise exploited; and guilt, unhappiness and alienation were prevalent, propelled by a spiritual emptiness and a false morality.

All this unhappiness, confinement and “anguish of the soul” (Peer Gynt), coupled with a predictable plot structure—well, it’s no wonder Ibsen doesn’t make for an evening of uplifting theatre. It’s like watching Chekhov, or reading Dostoyevsky: well done, and probably worth the effort, but vastly depressing. I never did like being able to foretell the ending.

That said, the “illusion” of Ibsen’s structure is rendered quite literally in Mabou Mines DollHouse. All the women are over six feet tall, Nora included, and all the men are cast with dwarfs (and Death is taller than them all). Nora (in a fantastic performance by Maude Mitchell) lives in a literal doll house—ostensibly for her children, but her husband Torvald (Mark Povinelli) fits the child-size furniture perfectly. Torvald sees women as childish, helpless creatures, but also grants them outsized power in the home, responsible for children’s morals and purity. To be a woman in his world was to be confined, both literally (corsets, voluminous dresses) and figuratively. Nora does her best to fit his image of her—she speaks in a childish, breathy falsetto, she giggles and prevaricates, and she never stands upright in his presence—instead, she crawls, or writhes on the floor, granting him at least some modicum of physical power. Torvald calls her all manner of diminutive pet names, including “my dearest possession;” he’s a condescending, patronizing ass, and frankly it’s a wonder it takes her that long to leave.

But this family lives firmly rooted in illusion; Torvald’s repeated suppression of reality, and his obsession with his home’s appearance and reputation, lead directly to Nora’s realization that she’s been married to a stranger. In fact, his last words to her before she exits are “What will people think?” When she leaves, the doll house disappears, revealing a multi-level puppet show, in which Torvald and Nora are repeated ad infinitum. Their final discussion is sung, rather than spoken, and Nora never actually slams a door. Instead, she strips (literally and figuratively), tossing aside all the trappings of a life as a doll.

It’s a breathtaking production, revealing the full genius of director Lee Breuer (one of the founders of the American avant-garde theatre) and his company Mabou Mines. While it is three hours long, every moment is filled—with sight gags, with sounds, with fresh perspectives. Sometimes a production can turn a classic play completely inside out and somehow reveal the play’s true nature, which is exactly what happens here. Nora is rendered vital and modern, while we feel the true extent of her repression. It’s simultaneously a deconstruction, parody and homage to Ibsen’s classic, and plumbs depths of emotion I’ve never seen in any other production of A Doll’s House.

Normally, the structure of A Doll’s House would go something like this:

1. We are introduced to an illusion: Nora has borrowed money from Krogstad and forged the promissory note. The money helped save Torvald’s life, but Nora feels he can never know that she committed an illegal act to do it.
2. A character is introduced who will destroy this illusion; someone knows this: Krogstad threatens to reveal Nora’s forgery to Torvald, unless Nora convinces him not to fire Krogstad from his position at the bank.
3. There is an attempt to bargain with the insurgent: Nora attempts to bargain with him, but he refuses, and sends Torvald a letter explaining Nora’s treachery.
4. The illusion is destroyed; the bargaining didn’t work: Nora confesses everything to Torvald.
5. Finally, there is a movement toward an ideal: Nora leaves.

But in this production, which does indeed follow Ibsen’s script almost exactly, it’s rendered more like this:

1. We are introduced to an illusion: the doll house.
2. A character is introduced who will destroy this illusion; someone knows this: Nora herself will eventually destroy the illusion, and on some level, she realizes this.
3. There is an attempt to bargain with the insurgent: She tries valiantly to resist the knowledge that her marriage is a sham and that she cannot consider herself to be a real person.
4. The illusion is destroyed; the bargaining didn’t work: But eventually she is forced to confront the bitter truth, that she can no longer live a lie.
5. Finally, there is a movement toward an ideal: Nora leaves.

Somehow, this progression feels truer, more accurate, though it is in fact happening side by side with the former.

I still don’t like Ibsen. But I liked this production very, very much. It may be the only Ibsen production I’ve ever fully enjoyed.


Adapted from A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
Directed by Lee Breuer
With Maude Mitchell (Nora), Mark Povinelli (Torvald), Kristopher Medina (Krogstad), Janet Girardeau (Kristine), Ricardo Luis Gil (Dr. Rank), Margaret Lancaster (Helene), and Hannah Kritzeck, Isabel Yourman, Sophie Birkedladen, Eilert Sundt, Jessica Weinstein, Eamonn Farrell, Ilia Dodd Loomis and Nic Novicki
Set Design: Narelle Sissons
Lighting Design: Mary Louise Geiger
Costume Design: Meganne George
Sound Design: Edward Cosla
Puppetry Design: Jane Catherine Shaw
Choreography: Eamonn Farrell
Running Time: Three hours with one 15-minute intermission
St. Ann’s Warehouse, 38 Water Street, Brooklyn; 718-254-8779
Tickets $35
Tuesday through Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 4 pm
February 12 through March 8, 2009