‘A Doll’s House’: 21st century Ibsen reimagined

‘A DOLL’S HOUSE’: Arian Moayed & Jessica Chastain. Photo: Courtesy of ‘A Doll’s House.’

A DOLL’S HOUSE
Written by Henrik Ibsen
New Adaptation by Amy Herzog
Directed by Jamie Lloyd
Through June 10, 2023
Hudson Theatre
141 West 44th Street
(855-801-5876), www.ADollsHouseBroadway.com

By David NouNou

Henrik Ibsen wrote his renowned drama A Doll’s House—one of the first and finest pre-feminist plays of the day— in 1879. Amy Herzog has translated it into a riveting post-feminist play, and director Jamie Lloyd has taken this splendid piece and reinvented it into his usual dreary manner of stripped-to-the- bone-bare minimalism. Remember his equally misguided venture in the 2019 revival of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal?  It appears that Mr. Lloyd’s vision of any revival is not to deal with the content and detail of the play, no anchoring of the play—just a gimmick of letting it play on any bare stage and let it land where it lands.

In A Doll’s House, Ibsen provided a wonderful grounded play of a beautiful, young, self-absorbed woman chirping like a bird at the onset of the play, to amuse her husband, and by the end to an open-eyed woman of her day to map out her life moving forward. Amy Herzog has modernized the language brilliantly, almost word for word, as the original text to simplify the dialogue for modern audiences.

Nora (Jessica Chastain) and Torvald Helmer (Arian Moayed) have been married for eight years and have three children. They’ve had hard times but now Torvald has been made manager of his bank and money will be easier to spend. Nora is visited by her old friend, the widower, Kristine Linde (Jesmille Darbouze) and Nora reveals her problems to Kristine. Nora has borrowed money from a loan shark at the bank years ago, and has been paying it slowly, paying as much as her allowance permits. Torvald believes the money was from her father before he died, but in reality, to save Torvald’s pride, she borrowed it from a loan shark to pay for his health retreat in Italy to save Torvald’s life.

Kristine needs and ultimately lands a job at Torvald’s bank through Nora’s influence. Kristine gets to replace Nils Krogstad (Okieriete Onaodowan), a man who is her ex-boyfriend. Nils has made shady forgeries at the bank and is being dismissed. Nils comes to Nora to plead his case to Torvald to let him stay at the bank. He reminds Nora that he is the loan shark, that it was she who forged her father’s signature on the promissory note. Nora goes into a freefall on how to avert this crisis. The suffering of Nora and Torvald’s rebuking Nora upon finding what Nora has done is the crux of living in a doll’s house. Nora was her father’s little doll, married Torval and became his chirping doll, had kids and played dolls with them. She has to finally assess her life and realize herself as the woman she wants to be.

Having seen Claire Bloom, Liv Ullmann, Janet McTeer, and now Jessica Chastain, never have I seen a Nora as disciplined as what Ms. Chastain displays in her performance. When one enters the auditorium of the theatre, one sees Ms. Chastain sitting on a hard wooden-backed chair, spinning around a bare stage for 35 minutes not moving a muscle while other cast members amble in and take their positions on stage. It is Ms. Chastain’s alabaster beauty that rivets you to her and with it being a bare stage, you can’t take your eyes off her.

Watching Ms. Chastain start as the chirping doll, coquettish and self-indulgent, morphing into despair and desperation, her disillusionment in her husband, and finally coming to her own resolve and what she must do is an entrancing and a formidable performance. What’s more amazing is that her performance is being given while sitting on this uncomfortable chair. She has to deal with each character, sitting down, and go through her emotions without being able to move. Even in the end when she asks Torvald to return her ring and in turn, she gives him back his, there are no rings to exchange. Wow, now that is minimalism.

Ms. Chastain is ably supported by Ms. Darbouze as Kristine, Okieriete Onaodowan as Nils Krogstad, but Arian Moayed is a different story. Mr. Moyaed’s character starts out as the obnoxious self-consumed Torvald, and his childish tantrum near the end is so over the top that a medic has to be called in. Dr. Lloyd, where were you when all this was taking place?

Amy Herzog has delivered a beautiful translation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Ms. Chastain delivers what could easily be a Tony-winning performance for Best Actress in a drama, and Jamie Lloyd doesn’t even let the actors interact face to face with each other. They are either talking back-to-back, across the stage from each other. I guess this is to show the great divide between his characters. Go see this production simply for the sublime Ms. Chastain giving one of her best performances ever and overlook all the other shortcomings.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published March 17, 2023
Reviewed at March 16, 2023 performance.

‘A DOLL’S HOUSE’: Okieriete Onaodowan & Jessica Chastain. Photo: Emilio Madrid.

‘A DOLL’S HOUSE’: Jessica Chastain. Photo: Courtesy of ‘A Doll’s House.’