#Play A Doll’s House

• Playwright:  Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)
  
• Title: A Doll’s House
  
• Genre:  play
• Opening night: 1879
• Reading time:  30-45 min
• List of Challenges 2020
• Monthly reading plan

Conclusion:

1. This was a very easy play to read.
2. The dialogue is …
3. clean, simple, evocative, alive and easily spoken.
4. In Act III when Nora finally finds her voice she
5. pummels her husband….who can’t handle the truth!
6. #MustRead  classic play!
7. This play is an audience favorite:
8. Film adaptations with Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Jane Fonda and Juliet Stevenson
9. Stage production is planned June 2020 London with Jessica Chastain.

1. At the moment a spin-off is on stage in London.
2. Nora: A Doll’s House –> Young Vic Theatre in London.
3. Stef Smith’s adaptation of the Ibsen play sends the title character on a time-traveling mission,
4. exploring how far women’s rights have progressed in the last 100 years.
5. The play re-frames the drama in three different time periods:
6. the women’s suffrage movement,
7. the Swinging ’60s in London, and
8. present day.
9. The play was recently named a finalist for the 2020 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

Structure: Three act play:

Act 1: exposition (married life, Christine returns)
Act 2: rising action (Nora’s secret is discovered!)
Act 3: climax and resolution occur simultaneously (Nora…walks out the door with her baggage!).

Well-made play:

1. This created a sensation in 19th C Royal Theatre Denmark on 21 December 1879!
2. Ibsen broke with the traditional well-made play  structure.
3. The well-made play  from 19th C first codified by French dramatist Eugène Scribe
4. …with 5 equal parts  in 5 acts:  exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement.

Genre:

1. Problem play…
2. …character Nora is  in conflict with a social issue or institution ( marriage)
3. Ibsen presents in A Doll’s House the
4. treatment of women (..as unequal)
   
5. particularly the entrapment of women …in marriage
6. in a very realistic manner.

Timeline: 3 days

1. The play begins on Christmas Eve and
2. concludes the day after Christmas… the 26th.

Main characters:

1. Nora and Torvald (married)
2. Christine (BFF)
3. Nils – employee at Torvald’s bank
4. Dr Rank (family friend)

Quickscan:  (…no spoilers)

1. — The institution of marriage was sacrosanct in 19TH C
2. — This play was highly controversial and elicited sharp criticism.
3. — Nora Helmer gains the reader’s empathy.
4. — Nora’s change: sheltered 19th C child wife….to mature woman who finds her voice
5. — Theme: woman trapped in a patriarchal society (…loveless marriage)
6. — Foils:   Nora —> Christien (friend); Torvard (husband) —> Nils (employee)
7. — Foils:   partners Nora and Tovard —> partners Christine and Nils
8. — Symbol: most important is the Christmas tree —> beautiful, admired, decorated
9. …parallel with Nora. During the play the tree loses it’s splendour, ornaments as does Nora
10. …appearing in a bedraggled state.

Contrast relationships:

Nora and Tovald:
NO…communication openly.
NOT honest with each other
NO respect for each other
KEEP secrets (…at least Nora does…)
UNEQUALS – man controles and is above wife
NO true love

Christine and Nils —> exactly the opposite!
YES…communication openly.
YES honest with each other
YES respect for each other
NO kept secrets
EQUALS