If you want to test the power of a well-written play, strip away practically everything except the words. That's what director Jamie Lloyd has done with A Doll's House at the Hudson Theatre. The result: the play was as compelling for me as when I first read it in college. That's because Lloyd has focused on the most important theatrical element, the players. Jessica Chastain as Nora heads the exceptional cast for this Broadway revival of Ibsen's 1879 classic story of a woman's journey to self-realization.
From the moment you enter the theatre, the austerity is apparent. Scenic designer Sutra Gilmour’s stage is bare except for a few light wood straight chairs. Moody, pulsing music by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto creates an air of anticipation. About 15 minutes before the start of the show Chastain walks out to sit as a turntable slowly revolves her around the stage. Her expression is pondering, looking off into the distance. Her long copper-colored hair is pulled back and her clothes are contemporary, a long black dress with three-quarter length sleeves (costume design by Gilmour and Enver Chakartash). She will rarely leave that chair for the entire nearly two-hour intermission-less show, except most dramatically when her fevered dance for her husband, which she has been doing seated, pitches her to the floor.
The next indication that this production will be different is the opening conversation between the two main characters, Nora, the sheltered Norwegian wife, and her doting and controlling husband, Torvald (Arian Moayed). Unlike in traditional interpretations in which Torvald is condescending and Nora childish, these two converse more like equal partners, parents of three small children who are sharing the joy of Torvald’s promotion at the bank and their relief from financial strain. Chastain’s Nora is happy and confident, and more mature than how she is usually portrayed. They could be a couple from today rather than the late 19th century. Playwright Amy Herzog wrote this modernized adaptation. As the evening progresses, though, the two will revert to the characters with whom we are more familiar,
Convention is turned on its head even more in further interactions, most notably when Nora is threatened with exposure by Krogstad (Okieriete Onaodowan, in photo), an underhanded bank employee Torvald is on the verge of firing. He makes it clear he will expose the crime Nora committed to get money to pay for medical treatment for Torvald if she does not persuade Torvald to keep him on.
Rather than confront each other face to face, Lloyd has them seated with their backs to each other. Emotional expression is kept low-key with little variation, as it is throughout the show. The actors’ words are crystal clear, spoken out to open space rather than each other. With no sets, costumes, props or physical encounters, the dialogue rules. It was like a radio play in which we are forced to listen carefully because that’s all we have. I was involved the entire time.
The unconventionality is in place right up to the final scene. With no door to close firmly behind her, Nora exits through a panel that opens in the back wall, heading into the world beyond, leaving her family behind.
When classics are drastically reinterpreted like this I often feel that someone encountering them for the first time won’t be getting a true sense of the play but I didn’t feel that way this time. We don’t need the simple Norwegian living room and Victorian costumes. We’ve got the story, powerfully intact.
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