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Beate Hein Bennett
"Henrik
Ibsen’s 'Doll House' as told by
Robert Greer, Founder/Director of the Strindberg Rep, a resident company of Theater for the New City, adapted and directed this iteration of “Doll House” by Henrik Ibsen (1828 -1906) as he imagines the play through August Strindberg’s eyes. This theatrical possibility is perhaps not too far-fetched since Strindberg in a preface to a story excoriated the play as too feminist, especially with its dramatic conclusion—the famous “door slam heard around the world.” Strindberg later wrote “The Father” (1887), seen as a response to “Doll House” (1879) which had become an immediate international theatrical cause celebre. (The first American production in Milwaukee in 1882 presented an adulterated version under the title “The Child Wife.”) Henrik Ibsen’s play is a stark social vivisection of a middle-class marriage in which the wife, Nora is treated like a doll for the husband, to dress up, to compliment or scold, and control like a child. As a result, Nora has adopted a child-like or girlish behavior carried over from her days as a daughter—the men in her life have never accepted her full humanity as a grown woman. Of course, traditionally society had minimized the importance of higher education for women and even prevented access to it. However, in the 19th century, as part of several social progressive movements, women began to rebel against established social constrictions and organized a movement for full social and political rights. “Doll House” is Henrik Ibsen’s social wake-up call for society to look at women as full partners in the human enterprise.
August Strindberg (1849 - 1912), the ‘other’ modernist playwright, wrote plays about marriage not from a societal point of view but from a psychological basis. In his view the uneven power struggle between man and woman is not based on socially prejudicial notions about the proper role of each but is rather built into the biological, i.e. sexual nature of each. In his view about the marital relationship, the woman’s sexuality gives her a definite biological advantage over the man--a man may physically domineer but she knows the paternal identity of her children. The identity of the mother is clear but not necessarily the identity of the father. (Modern medicine and DNA have changed this uncertainty.) In his play “The Father” Strindberg plays with this paternal uncertainty as a source of the wife’s torture of her husband, The Captain—she sows doubts about his being the father of their daughter and thus fatally undermines his sense of manhood. The source of Strindberg’s misogyny is well-known—his marriage with the actress Siri von Essen was tempestuous. He suffered from pathological jealousy to the point of madness—and this disabling male jealousy and fear is manifested in his dramas as counterpoint to the female psychological dominance of the “man-hating, half-woman” (Strindberg). This is the basis of the tragic male-female and marital relationships in his plays.
The reason behind Mr. Greer’s attempt at blending Ibsen’s “Doll House” (R .Farquarson Sharp correctly translated the original title) with a Strindbergian touch is a bit mystifying to me in this post-feminist age. While it is true that the phenomenon of “trophy” wives as decorative accoutrements to moneyed husbands appears in popular culture, I am not sure that either Ibsen’s play or Strindberg’s dramaturgy is served by Mr. Greer’s adaptation. Ibsen shows Nora’s awakening to the need for an authentic Self and her husband Torvald’s obtuse hope for a restoration of their status quo marriage in an extensive and profound dialogue in the final act before she leaves. Mr. Greer’s version seems to have cut portions of the text that reveals Nora’s awakening sense of Self and realization why her life and their marriage rested on a false basis—she was her father’s child-doll and entered marriage to become Torvald’s child-doll. Torvald’s own emotional seesawing is that of an obtuse man who accepts social conventions without question but also hopes for marital repair. Ibsen’s last stage direction and line: “Empty. She is gone. (Hope flashes across his mind.) The most wonderful thing of all---? (The sound of a door shutting is heard from below.) Mr. Greer superimposes the sound of the final door slam with the sound of a gunshot, implying Torvald committing suicide. The suicidal gunshot adds a melodramatic closure to “Doll House” obviously not envisioned by Ibsen. I am not sure Strindberg’s sense of irony would have concluded the play in this way.
Natalie Menna plays Nora with a forced cheerfulness that shows signs of tired irritation with her husband Torvald’s patronizing superiority. Charles Everett as Torvald is dignified and kind like an indulgent father until his social position as bank director is threatened, and he fiercely castigates her. Chris Hahn plays the family friend, Dr. Rank, a physician who has self-diagnosed a terminal illness and knows he is dying from the unspoken cause, namely syphilis contracted by “the sins of the father,” a recurring motif in 19th century medicine. Tom Ryan plays the ominous Nils Krogstad, a lawyer who fell afoul of the law and wants to keep his position at the bank; he holds the fate of Nora and Torvald in his blackmailing hand. Jane Cortney as Mrs. Linde is an interesting counterpoint to Nora—she is the model of the self-sufficient woman that Nora admires and aims to become. The Cino Theatre space is large which allows big distances between the actors. Alex Bartenieff’s lighting is mood and focus directed. Billy Little designed the costumes. To mash up the two very different sensibilities of Ibsen and Strindberg is an experiment although I am not convinced of its intended effectiveness. [BHB]
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