A DOLL'S HOUSE: DIRECTING A CLASSIC FOR
A CONTEMPORARY AUDIENCE
by
CATRIN A. PARKER, B.A.
A THESIS
IN
THEATRE ARTS
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty
of Texas Tech University in
Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for
the Degree of
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
Approved
May, 2002
Copyright 2002, Catrin A. Parker
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Nothing of any worth happens in a vacuum. My failures are my own, but my
successes have their roots in many different soils. 1 would like to take this opportunity to
thank some of the people who have impacted my life, my art, and my passion. As the
creators of my life, my parents take second place to no one in my gratitude. They have
continually provided me with the strongest of foundations that has allowed me to take the
risks necessary to a creative life. Their support, whether moral,financialor emotional,
has been imceasing and unconditional.
I have had the extraordinary gift of having wonderful teachers in my life—some
are teachers by trade, and some by experience. At Texas Tech, the entire faculty has
shared in my growth as a theatrical artist; however, I can only mention a few here. Dr.
Jonathan Marks, and his lovely wife Tova, have been supportive of mefromthe
beginning. Dr. Marks gave me myfirst"job" here at Tech and has given me increasingly
responsible positions in the department. His tmst in me, and my abilities, has been
wonderfiil.
Dr. George Sorenson has been an inspirational fire for me. He was the first to
call me "dkector" and also challenged me m thefieldof acting. His faith in my talents as
a director, actor, and singer (!) dared me to grow and expand my horizons. Is there any
higher acclaim for a teacher?
Dr. David Williams provided challenges for me both m the classroom and on
the boards. He made history relevant to the theatrical world today, and kept thefiiturein
11
front of us when directing. His willingness to listen and to go out on a limb kept the rest
of us on our toes. His leadership in the face of adversity does not go imnoticed.
Inspiration has also come to me through my friends. They have challenged me
when I needed a challenge, consoled me when I needed support, and listened when I
needed to vent. Myfriends,both past and present ones, are the rock solid support that
allows me to believe that no matter where I leap, I will be caught.
The casts and crews that I have worked with while at Tech have all taught me
lessons well earned. The closeness that is achieved with a group of people during a
production is unlike anything else I have ever experienced. My heart belongs to theatre
people everywhere.
Although they probably thought I was teaching them, my students have taught
me so much more than they will ever know. The basic, core questions that they asked
brought me out of myflightsto the theoretical and reminded me of what was important—
the audience and the passion.
I also owe a debt to my 'virtual' fiiends and teachers on-line at the Acting-Pro
and Directorslist discussion lists. They have given me no end of beneficial advice and
mformation. I have received so much wise counselfromthem on the craft, the business,
the art, and the love of this thing we call 'theafre.'
There are so many more people that have left their fmgerprints on my life, and
therefore, my art. 1 wish for all of them to achieve the level of happiness and
contentment ui their lives, that they have helped me achieve ui muie.
Ill
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ii
CHAPTER
I.
INTRODUCTION
1
IL
ANALYSIS OF THE SCRIPT
5
Historical Analysis
5
Author Information
6
The Play as Text
11
The Play as a Production
14
PRODUCTION CONCEPTS
18
The Set Design
19
The Lighting Design
22
ffl.
The Soimd Design
;
24
The Costume Design
25
IV.
REHEARSAL PROCESS
28
V.
THE AFTERMATH
36
Design Elements
37
Directorial/Acting Elements
41
Conclusion
43
BIBLIOGRAPHY
45
IV
CPL\PTER I
INTRODUCTION
In partialfiilfilhnentof my graduate duties, I submitted a proposal to direct a play
in the Texas Tech Theatre Department's Lab Theatre. One of the best pieces of advice I
have received on this subject while here at Texas Tech camefromDr. Elizabeth Homan.
She suggested that I find a central theme or principle that I wanted to explore through the
world of theafre, and then submit five plays that utilized that theme or principle. Then I
would be happy no matter what play was picked for production. I took her advice and,
therefore, although A Doll's House was fourth on my preference list, I was very happy to
be directing it.
The cenfral theme behind my choices was an exploration of "myth, magic and the
mundane." I have always loved stories that were about larger-than-life people, heroes
and gods; yet stories about the daily grind—^the mundane bits of life that we see in our
own world—^are the ones that best hit home. When you can find a playwright who can
combine the mythical themes with a mimdane atmosphere—^you have found magic.
Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House certainly quaUfies, as he uses the mundane
surroundings of a typical family at Christmas time to explore the magical realms of
human fulfilhnent and identify withm society. Nora, the lead character, best embodies
this journey to the center of the soul, but each of the characters in this play is walking this
path somehow.
My cenfral goal in the production of this play was to present a classic play with
elements of both the mythical and the mundane and make it relevant to a contemporary
1
audience. One of the challenges of presentmg this play to today's audiences was fighting
the assumption that "classic" plays hold little bearing on the world of a contemporary
audience. Many people, especially in a college setting, tend to assume that old chestnuts
will be boring and have little to no application in our modem world. It would be easy to
see this play as bemg about a social problem, a woman's role in society, that a
contemporary audience might feel had akeady been addressed and was therefore
irrelevant. However, this play has a much deeper meaning that I didn't want the audience
to miss out on. Therefore, I felt that one of my first objectives should be to make the
relevancy of this play accessible to this audience. I did not want the audience to get so
caught up in the historical aspects of the show that they neglected to hear the story. I
needed to find a way to make the story of these people from 1879 connect to audience
members in 2002.
The idea that all the characters in the story are after the same basic goal was my
first major idea along this line. The mythical journey to personalfixlfilhnentfor an
individual has no time barriers; it is as cenfral to personal growth today as it was in
Norway in Uie late 1800s.
In the infroduction to his book, Ibsen: A Collection of Critical Essays, Rolf Fjelde
writes:
The theme of finding one's tme vocation recurs throughout Ibsen's life
and work, but its full importance is revealed only if seen as part of a larger
problem: not merely a subjective quest for personal realization, but also
an objective effort toward unaginative insight into the main tendencies of
an age and a civilization. (2)
This provided a second clue in my mission to connect the classic with the contemporary.
What are the differences between our society and Ibsen's? More importantly, what are
the similarities?
The knowledge of these two tenets—^that the purposes of each of the characters
are not only similar to the objectives of the other characters, but are also the same
purposes that many people have today—^helps to keep my work focused. When things
get too complicated or complex, I go back to these basic ideas and ask myself if the
ciurent situation supports them, distorts them, or, even worse, does neither. This has
helped me in several situations.
One of the decisions I made to help communicate the timelessness of this play
was to take it out of a specific tune period. In order to do this, I decided not to have
realistic design elements. I believe that the more items you have on a stage, the easier it
is for an audience to pigeonhole the story into a specific time and place. I am not the first
to have this thought. In the preface to his book, Three Plays by Thornton Wilder, Mr.
Wilder says,
When you emphasize place in the theafre, you drag down and limit and
harness time to it. You thmst the action back into past time, whereas it is
precisely the glory of the stage that it is always "now" there. Under such
production methods the characters are all dead before the action starts.
You don't have to pay deeplyfromyour heart's participation, (x)
Not having a realistic set or reahstic costumes meant that the audience could not
easily latch on to a particular time period, and therefore might be better able to see the
connections with our contemporary society. It helped to de-emphasize the differences
between the two societies and emphasize the similarities.
This decision also helped in a few practical matters as well. It took away the need
for set items—such as a piano, couch, and wood-burning stove—^that would have been
uimecessarily obstacles on the thmst stage. It also meant that our costume budget would
not have to be tom asunder in order to build period costumes.
It is mteresting to note here that after I started working on this play, it became
more and more apparent that my goal was going to be easier to reach than I thought. The
play itself does most of the work. Making this story relevant became more about
stripping away the preconceptions of what a classic is than helping the audience
understand a story that is perfectly understandable on its own.
Directing a play is an incredible joumey. In the following chapters, I will be
discussing the elements of that joumey. I plan to cover all the things that go mto
directing a play for a public audience: the analysis of the script and basic research, the
design concepts, the rehearsal process, and thefinalproduct.
CHAPTER II
ANALYSIS OF THE SCRIPT
There are many ways to analyze a script, but two major approaches are an
historical analysis and a concept analysis. The historical analysis, as one might deduce
from the name, works to study the history of the play in several ways. These ways
should cover information on the author, information on the play as a text, and information
on the play as a production. The concept analysis involves research that pertains to the
major concept or idea that the director sees in the play. This will be discussed more in
the next chapter.
Historical Analysis
I began my analysis of A Doll's House by researching its creator, Henrik Ibsen. A
study of the playwright can often lead a director to interestmg insights into the backstory
of the play, and can also help explain character choices to actors. I do not intend to write
a biography of Ibsen here, but there are some relevant facts from his life that show up in
the play - some subtle and some overt. As told by Harold Clurman, "Ibsen's plays are
deeply autobiographical. [...] In [Ibsen's] own words, 'Everything that I have written is
most intimately connected with what 1 have lived through, if not personally
experienced...' " (2). I believe that the many elements of a play and its characters are
directly influenced by the personal experiences of a playwright. By trying to imderstand
the relevancy of particularfraitsand conditions in a playwrights life, a director can better
understand the conditions of the world of the play and the characters' responses to them;
I would like to share some mformation that I discovered about Ibsen and how I think that
this affected the world of the play, and subsequently our production of it.
Author Information
Ibsen was bom on March 20,1828, m Skein, Norway. Skein was a small town
but had a busy life and an important place in economicfrade(Meyer 5). Its size - big
enough to offer opportunity to its inhabitants and surrounding areas, but small enough for
everyone to know each other - was to have its echo in the creation of the town that is the
setting for A Doll's House.
When he was around the age of six, Ibsen's family fortunes took a tum for the
worse. Partly due to his father's drinking and negligent business habits, they were
eventually bankrapt (Clurman 5). This change infinancesand social standing had a
lasting impact on young Henrik and influenced his writing in many ways. In A Doll's
House, you can see the coimections in Torvald's penny-pinching, Krogstad's desire to
regain respectability after having "all doors closed" to him, Kristine'sfinancialworries
that forced so many decisions in her life, and even the shadowyfigureof Nora's father
and his business practices that were "not beyond reproach..." (McGuinness 35).
Another echo of Ibsen's life that is sounded in A Doll's House, albeit mdfrectly, is
the stigma of illegitimacy. Withm the play itself, Aime-Marie—once Nora's nanny and
now caretaker of Nora's own children—^tells Nora that she considered herself lucky to
have received any position after having to give her own child away: "When I could get
such a good place, ma'am? A poor gfrl who's been mfroublecould only be very glad to
come; for that wicked man did nothing for me" (Ibsen/Lord 78, Act 2). Although the text
never explainsfiirther,the reader is left with the impression that Anne-Marie has had an
illegitimate child. Tradition has it that Ibsen was illegitimate—Shaving been fathered by
another man during his legal parents' engagement. Further, Ibsen himself fathered an
illegitimate child at the age of eighteen. He supported the child until the boy's fourteenth
birthday, but had no contact with him until "he [Ibsen] himself was an old man"
(Clurman 5).
Another interesting connection between the playwright and his characters comes
with the character of Krogstad. ICrogstad's main purpose, his superobjective if you will,
is to gain respectability. According to Harold Clurman, the same could be said for
Ibsen—^although he never gained much ui the way of financial recompense, he actively
sought "ofiBcial orders of merit, medals, decorations, doctorates." Clurman also suggests
that Ibsen wanted the "homage of the authorities back home" and goes on to say, "Most
artists, despite haughty expressions of disdain for such honors, thirst for recognition and
acclaim, especially if they have long suffered neglect" (11). Ibsen gives these words to
Krogstad: "It's not just for the money. That's the least important thing about it. [...] I
need to win back what respectability 1 can in the town" (McGuinness 42). It seems that
the playwright can well identify with those who have been tomfromtheir positions in a
society and have to fight their way back up the ladder.
Of course, one of the foremost links between Ibsen's life and the story of ^ Doll's
House is the story itself Legend has it that Ibsen met a woman named Laura Petersen,
the real-life Nora Hehner. Mrs. Peterson reportedly took out a loan to finance a trip to
Italy to support her husband's health; however, she did not tell her husband. When he
found out about it, he "claimed that she was an unfit wife and mother and, when she
suffered a nervous breakdown, he had her committed to a public asylum, and demanded a
separation so that the children could be removedfromLaura's care." Unlike Nora, Laura
persuaded her husband to take her back, although he did so "gmdgingly" (McGuinness
3).
Ibsenfraveleda great deal—indeed, once he left his native country, he didn't
return for twenty-seven years. In spite of his biting statements about his country, or
perhaps due to them, he was known as Norway's national poet and held in great acclaim
by his coimtrymen later in life. Harold Clurman quotes an experience told by Richard
Le Gallienne (Eva Le Gallienne's father) when he watched Ibsen enter a cafe in Norway:
As he entered and proceeded with precision to the table reserved in
perpetuity for bun, which no one would have dreamed of occupying, a
thing new and delightfiil—^to me a mere Anglo-Saxon—suddenly
happened. As one man, the whole caf^ was on its feet in an attitude of
salute, and a sfranger standing near me who evidently spoke English, and
who recognized my nationality, said to me in a loud and reverent aside,
'That is our great national poet, Henrik Ibsen!' And remained standing till
he had taken his seat, as in the presence of a king... (Clurman 25)
Perhaps it was his experiences whilefravelingthat led him to so acutely point out
Norway's shortcommgs, yet those same shortcomings were not exclusive to Norway;
peoples m other nations, when faced with the statements commg out of the mouths of
Ibsen's characters, saw their neighbors and themselves. Neither were those shortcommgs
exclusive to his time period; the relevance of Ibsen's works is as timely today as it was
when he wrote them. As Harold Clurman wrote, "Can we even today maintain that
there no longer exist among us, and m considerable numbers, our Noras and husbands
very like hers? And are there none left who do not somehow resent the play?" (7).
8
As afransitionbetween information about the author and the play as a text, it is
worthwhile to say a bit about Ibsen's manner of writing. Placing Ibsen's style or purpose
for writing into a category has always been problematic. Did he write these stories to
incite social change, or to tell a human story? Was he a political writer, or a storyteller?
The answer is, "Yes." He wanted to do all that and more. The quotes you canfindfrom
hun on this subject rangefromone end of the spectmm to the other—depending on his
mood of the day, to whom he was speaking, and in what period of his life you asked him.
Around 1865, when he was 38, he wrote the following statement to his publisher: "I find
it my godgiven talent to arouse my countrymenfromtheir lethargy and make them
understand what direction the great issues of Ufe are taking. [I felt it my duty] to awaken
the nation and to lead it to think great thoughts" (Clurman 21). Then, in 1888, he
bemoaned his inability to escape causes: "...ever since The League of Youth appeared, I
have always been claimed as the possession of one or other of the political parties. I,
who have never in my life concerned myself with politics, but only social questions!"
(Meyers 595).
Ibsen was a man of many interests, talents and convictions, and he resisted being
pigeonholed as a writer. In his biography of Ibsen, Michael Meyers tells of when Ernst
Motzfeldt asked Ibsen if he would "publish some guide to the meaning of this 'recently
completed phase' (referring to the style of the cycle of plays that had begun with A Doll's
House and ended with When We Dead Awaken). Ibsen replied:
No. Just as I myself claun complete freedom as far as the public is
concerned in my choice andfreatmentof material, so the public too must
have completefreedomin interpreting my writings as they choose. I have
no right to deny the public that freedom. (Meyers 788)
In a 1898 speech, Ibsen said the following: "I have been more of a poet and less
of a social philosopher than people generally tend to suppose. [...] My task has been the
portrayal of human beings" (TOmqvist 6). It seems that Ibsen, like the rest of us mere
mortals, was given to contradictions in his life.
Ibsen not only upset society by what he wrote, but also by how he wrote it. With
A Doll's House, he broke several time-honored scriptwriting conventions. Michael
Meyers writes, "So explosive was the message of A Doll's House [...] that the technical
originality of the play is often forgotten" (455). The first and most obvious is the lack of
a happy ending—one could even say the absence of a definitive ending at all.
Several times during that famous last act Ibsen seems about to settle for a
happy ending— [. . .]. But the terrible offstage slamming of that front
door which brings down the curtain resounded through more apartments
than Torvald Helmer's. No play had ever before confributed so
momentously to the social debate, or been so widely and fiiriously
discussed among people who were not normally interested in theafrical or
even artistic matters. (Meyers 454)
Oh, to Uve in a world where a play could have such an impact! The ending was
so repugnant to one German acfress that she refused to do it as written—claiming she
would never leave her children! Ibsen was forced to re-write the ending to suit her, or
allow others to re-write it for him, such was Germany's copyright laws at the time. He
was vindicated later when the happy ending failed and the acfress eventually reverted to
the original text due to a public outcry (Meyers 259).
The second deviationfromthefried-and-tmeformula is the conversation between
Nora and Torvald prior to Nora's leave-taking. Normally, this juncture in a play would
befilledwith a fast-paced wind-up of all the various loose ends that cuhnuiate in a
10
climactic ending. However, Ibsen has Nora pull up a chair for a serious dialogue with
her husband. "[Ibsen] alsofranscendsit [the standard, formulaic play] by supplementing
the unraveling in the third act—a standard feature of the piece bienfaite—^with what
Shaw terms 'discussion' " (Tomqvist 47). This change infraditionalplaywriting
practices confused many theafregoers and confributed to the sfrong opinions held about
the play.
The Plav as Text
After researching severalfranslationsof ^ Doll's House, I settled on Frank
McGuinness's adaptation. The sfrongest reason for this choice goes back to one of my
original goals: making the play relevant to a contemporary audience. McGuinness's
adaptation has the most contemporary language in it. This goes quite a way toward
making an audience feel comfortable with the story you are telling. However, he retains
enough formality in his style that we get the sense of custom and consfraint that are such
an important part of this play. I was disappointed to find out that the version published in
America was different from the one I had originally read, which was published in
England. There were some scenes, and many lines, missing. However, we muddled
forward.
It is worth noting that Ibsen always referred to his plays as his "books." This was
due to the fact that the plays were published as novels before they were produced as stage
plays. Therefore, the readability of his plays was important. He put in many descriptors
intended to give the reader a picture of the world within which the characters were living.
These descriptors also help in stagmg an Ibsen play, but I will speak more on that later.
11
In reading a dramatic text, a dfrector should look for more than the story. Word
choice, punctuation, sentence arrangement, etc.—^all of these things are clues to better
understanding the storyline, the characters, and then* world. When using a franslation,
this research can be more time-consuming, but I have found it to be very worthwhile in
the end. Unless you are able to speak the mother language of the playwright—^and
therefore capable of seeing his actual word choice—^you have limited choices of how to
conduct this research. You could hire your ownfranslator,read many different
franslations, or study the work of someone who has aheady compared the franslations.
Since I am unable to read Ibsen's words in his native tongue, I chose to do the last two.
I read the followingfranslationsof Ibsen's A Doll House: Henrietta Frances Lord
(1901), Eva Le Gallienne (1951), R. Farquharson Sharp (1958), Rolf Fjelde (1965),
Christopher Hampton (1972), James McFarlane (1981), and Frank McGuuiness (1996,
1998). I also read, and am deeply indebted to, Egil Tomqvist for his book, Ibsen: A
Doll's House. This book was an invaluable tool for researching the text of this play. He
addressedfranslationproblems, compared various texts, and even compared differeit
productions from stage, screen, and television.
Here are a few examples of how researching the text led to a better imderstanding,
and hopefully, a better production of the play. In McGuinness's version, the characters
are listed in a general order of importance; both their first and last names are listed (when
known); and with the exception of Dr. Rank and the servants, their occupation is not
mentioned. However, in Ibsen's own writuigs he listed them differently. Tomqvist
points out the listing and notes its relevance:
12
All the men except the anonymous Porter are here infroduced by
profession plus surname. And it should be noticed that professional
indications are in Norwegian used as a form of address: 'Would Lawyer
Hehner be so kind as to...' Or even: 'Would the Lawyer be so kind as
to...' The social status of the men is in this way more clearly advertised in
the Norwegian original than in the English franslations. There is also an
interesting parallel-by-confrast between Hebner's and Krogstad's
professions, not visible in the English franslations. Both are lawyers, but
whereas Hehner as a barrister is qualified to plead before the Supreme
Court, Krogstad [whose job description is 'attorney'] lacks this
qualification. [. . .] Ibsen provides them with more or less identical
professions, while at the same tune indicating Hebner's social superiority.
(15)
This information helps the reader to understand how unportant social standing
was m Ibsen's world and in the world of the characters that he created. This, of course,
helps the director to understand why Nora corrects the maid when she refers to 'tthe
lawyer's office" with a quick "The bank manager's office, you mean" (McGuinness 18).
More importantiy, it underscores Krogstad's desperation to regain respectability by
retaining his position at the bank.
Another fine point lost in translation clues us into the coimection between Nora
and the Christmas free. I must confess that myfirstreaction upon reading of a Christmas
free on stage was not positive. Neither the shape of the acting area nor the set conception
supported the use of an object that I saw as being a symbol of tune (the Christmas
season) and nothing else. However, after reading Tomqvist's statement on the
Norwegian words involved, and the coimotation that the playwright was striving for, I
rethought the inclusion of the free and saw its use as a symbol.
In A Doll's House the connection between Nora and the Christmas tree is
even verbally present ui the Norwegian original: in the beginnmg Nora
speaks of the free being 'pynter' (decorated), while midway through the
play Mrs. Lmde expresses her wish to see Nora 'pynter.' (55)
13
Not having the advantage of the word play in English, but not wanting to abandon
the use of the free as a symbol, I had tofindanother way to make the pomt. I plan to do
this by having Torvald take a decorationfromthefreeand place it in Nora's hair. My
hope is that the audience will see the connection. I know this is a subtle move, and it
may be lost on some; but I feel that the verbal wordplay in Norwegian was subtle as well,
so the original intent of the playwright is still being supported.
The Plav as a Production
Another important area of research is the production history of a play. Since A
Doll's House is "perhaps more often produced than any other Ibsen play" (Clurman 108)
and with the ever-helpful internet, it is relatively easy to find information about past
productions. However, the information gainedfromdata on past performances is mostly
limited to reviews and/or informationfromthe producing theafre. Reviews, by their very
nature, are the results of one person's opinion,filteredthrough their own personal
prejudices and experiences. Information given by the producing theafre is also biased,
and generally limited to cast lists and a few photos.
However, there is some good to be gained by researching other productions of ^
Doll's House. To me, the value lies mostly in two areas: do's and don'ts, and concept
ideas. I will discuss the concept portion in the next section.
I have learned a great deal about the do's and don'ts of this play from reading
reviews. Some have changed my mind about how to present something, and some have
made me re-think the presentation altogether. As far as acting is concemed, I have
14
learned what pitfalls to watch out for and how to communicate some concept that shone
brightly in my head but seemed murky coming out of my mouth. One thing that most
reviewers have a talent for is the gift of puttmg unpressions into words. I will share a
few examples of these lessons learned.
In contemplating a stage set that would give the feel of confinement, I considered
portions of walls ringing the thmst stage. Of course, it would not be a full wall, as that
would obscure vision, but a portion of the wall hanging from the ceiling and a portion of
the bottom of wall so as to suggest the actual wall. Early on in my studies, I found a
review of a production that had the same idea. Although I was deflated to learn that mine
was not an original idea, the reviewer's words did offer me this obstacle to watch out for:
'The set made me feel as though I was at a hockey game.' (This is, unfortunately, a
paraphrase, as the site is no longer operational and I did not make note of the author's
name and particulars. However, the point was plain.) Had we gone with such a set, I
would have done all I could to detractfromthe hockey feel.
Since I had decided to aim for a non-realistic set and feel to the play, I was
particularly interested anytime someone called a production "expressionistic." However,
as this review of the November 2000 production by Shared Experience indicates, there
are definite pitfalls to avoid. "You can never completely desfroy Ibsen's masterpiece.
But Shared Experience's new production, directed by Polly Teale with Yvonne
McDevitt, has a damn good try. It is labeled 'expressionistic' What strack me was its
mindnumbing literalness. Everything that is unspoken m Ibsen's text is acted out as if for
an audience offive-year-olds"(West End). The lesson leamed: do not beat your
15
audience over the head with a message. Although expressionism is a valid form of
theafrical performance, it can easily slide into 'spoon-feeding' your audience; this review
made me determined to not fall into that pit.
Lloyd Rose, in his review of the Broadway production of Frank McGuinness's
new adaptation, notes how this production avoids what he calls "the Nora problem."
McTeer [Janet McTeer, who portrayed Nora] and director Anthony Page
bring this production very close to what I've always thought is the
essential tmth of A Doll's House. It isn't a play about a woman finding
out her husband is a jerk, it's a play about a woman finding out she's a
jerk. McTeer's Nora doesn't realize so much that Torvald is a cad as that
she has constructed a fantasy about his being a hero. The mistake is hers,
for being a grown woman who believes in a fairy tale. This discovery
doesn't put Nora in a lecturing mood. She's staggered, a little dazed, as if
she'd been punched in the head by reality. (Rose)
This review has encouraged me in my behef that this is not a simple story.
Torvald cannot be a jerk, Krogstad cannot be a villain, and Nora cannot be a heroine. To
simplify the characterizations thus would shortchange the power behind Ibsen's play and
release the audience from questioning their own roles in life.
Although not a review, another great source of inspiration for me has been the
book Ingmar Bergman: A Projectfor the Theatre by Frederick and Lise-Lone Marker.
In this book, the authors interview Ingmar Bergman on, among other things, his
adaptation of A Doll's House, which he re-named Nora. I have chosen not to read his
script until our production is up and running, but I have pored over the interviews and
found some of Bergman's insights fascinatmg. He says that he chose to do this play to
help answer the question: "What does our society—^political, religious, pedagogical—do
16
to the relationship between man and woman?" (Marker 3). In his remarks, he notes that
people like Nora and Torvald are:
...ui private hells of their own devising, frapped in relationships that are
defined and deformed by a litany of recurrent rituals—^role playing and demasking, buying and selling, oppression and retaliatory humiliation, in
short all those games that human beings play and lose at so disasfrously.
(Marker 2)
In this interview, Bergman makes many interesting and insightful comments that I
latched on to, but the most notable for me was the following:
Interviewer: So often in other performances of ^ Doll's House, it seems
hard to reconcile the Nora of the first act [. . .] with the sfrong Nora who
emerges at the end [. . .]. But you have seen her as being sfrong from the
outset, haven't you?
Bergman: The one great mistake—and I've seen it committed tune after
time in productions of A Doll's House—is to forget that, with this play,
you must always start at the end. [...] No, you must always start with the
last scene—^with an imderstanding of what happens in the last scene. Once
you have understood that, then you can go back and begin at the
beginning. In that last scene you have the whole solution to the rest of the
play. (Marker 13)
This piece of the interview was a revelation for me. It not only uifluenced my
rehearsal schedule—^I began rehearsals with the last act—^but it also gave me the germ of
an idea. If the people involved in the production of the show could benefit from starting
at the end, perhaps the audience could as well. Therefore, I chose to begin this
production with a prologue that consists of a portion of the end scene. I will discuss this
choice more m the next chapter.
17
CHAPTER III
PRODUCTION CONCEPTS
Concept research helps the director decide how she or he might best put across the
play's message, as seen by the dfrector. The research that I did for my concept of frie
play ran the gamut of formal researching of past productions to receiving what-if
moments while in the shower. Once 1 was given the go-ahead to direct this play, I
became obsessed with it. Everything I encountered unpacted on my ideas for the play. I
am sure it sometimes became annoying to friends and family.
These snippets of ideas were eventually shared with the designers. Some of the
ideastiieyused, and some they did not. More often than not, the original idea was not
used, but the feel of the idea was kept. In this chapter, I will discuss some of the concepts
I had for the show and then discuss what concepts showed up in the production and how
they got that way. I want to speak to each of the production areas: set, lights, sound, and
costume design.
Before writing this chapter about my directorial concepts, I re-read my original
notes from way back when. I shared these ideas with the designers at ourfirstproduction
meeting. I noticed that my first-impression ideas have been used differently by each of
the designers. None of my ideas about the set made it into the fmal product, although I
believe that what we did end up with at least supports the feelings that I wanted to come
across to the audience. The costume design stuck a little closer to some of my ideas, but
their deviations provided a better platform for the sense of the ideas than my ideas had.
18
Generally speaking, the concepts I had for this play revolved aroimd the idea of
the constraints that society puts on people. Since I wanted to emphasize the fact that all
the societies—the playwright's society in 1978, the society in the world of the play, and
our current society—^have consfraints, I reiterated to the designers my desire to use nonrealistic design concepts. I was not interested in being tme to the time period of the
original setting but in connecting the relevancy of social consfraints of Norway in the
1800's with the social constraints of America in 2002; so, while I did not want to be
pinned down to the realistic portrayal of a specific time period, I did want to retam a
feeling of confinement, consfraint and being hemmed in.
Another aspect I felt sfrongly about in this play was that everyone in the play was
frapped in some way, not just Nora. I did not want the audience to be able to default to
the easy answer of "Torvald is a jerk," and "Nora is a feminist ahead of her time." So, in
the design decisions as well as the rehearsal decisions, I sought to avoid easy symbols.
The Set Design
The idea for the set design took a long time to evolve, but in the end I believe it
proved beneficial to the production. Since I did not want to present a realistic portrait of
this play, I felt that the main mission of the set should be twofold: to provide a useable
space for the actors and to assist in creating the feeling of the play. I asked the designer
to look into the idea of levels so that I could use them to create different pictures.
There are somefrapsinherent in designmg for the Lab space. The thmst nature of
the stage is usually a new thing for designers to work around. The first designs that the
designer came up with were set back too far in the space to be useful. They were also
19
more realistic in nature. We discussed how acting areas that were upstage of the
audience chafr line were not sfrong choices, as there were portions of the audience where
spectators would not be able to see that area. One thing we did in order to combat this
problem was to bring the stage curtains back as close to the walls as we could get them.
This helped to mcrease the visibility for the side audiences. The fact that the audience
could see the ends of the stage, and the actors exiting the stage remforced the fact that
this was not a realistic production.
Next, the designer brought a model of a set design that consisted of a series of
platforms, of varymg heights, which all fed into a triangle platform. The triangle
platform's point jutted down mto the thmst section of the stage as a two-step unit. This
gave the actors a powerful playing space down in the main acting area and allowed me to
create some interesting pictures with people standing and sitting on the steps. The
Director of Theafre (DOT) confributed an interesting idea when he suggested that the
highest portion of the set, used by Torvald when he's lecturing and therefore
affectionately known as "the pulpit," be mobile. He showed how it could move down
intotiiemain acting area in stages. This movement of Torvald's world down into Nora's
world effectively limited Nora's space and created a sense of encroachment.
Next I asked the designer to build "fragments of reality" on the set by having just
the suggestion of realistic items, such as walls, railings, etc. At first she could not make
this idea work to her satisfaction on the model, but the DOT gave her some advice and
she tried again; however, the concept never came together in the fmal project.
20
I had asked that the fumiture on the set be kept to a minimum. Although the
script references rocking chairs and stoves, I didn't feel it necessary to have those things
actually on the set. We eventually decided on two stools and a backless couch. I asked
that one of the stools have aflip-toplid so that Nora could hide things, like the
macaroons, in there. This idea I shamelessly stolefroma production of Hedda Gabler at
the Dallas Theater Center. Since the couch is backless, the actors would be able to sit on
either side of the couch and talk to each other. This proved advantageous in the thmst
area, as it allowed the majority of the audience to see at least one person's face all the
time. At first both the couch and the stools were circular and smooth in their shape, but I
suggested to the designer that it might fit the rest of the design better if they were also
triangular in shape. She agreed and designed them as such.
Meanwhile, something interesting was happening in rehearsal. In order to
simulate the couch, we were using chairs; however, the chafrs were placed back to back
so that the actors could sit on either side. I found that the actors were doing some very
interesting things while using the chair backs, such as leaning on them, or draping then*
arms over them. I asked the designer if there was a way we could incorporate that idea
into the couch. She designed a couch, modeled after the old style courting couches, that
had a rail running diagonally through the middle of it. This gave the actors a railing to
use and proved quite beneficial.
The props used in this show also come under the jurisdiction of the set designer.
Due to the non-realistic approach we are taking, we were able to elimmate many of the
props that are suggested in the script. We also added a few as well.
21
One of the props we added was a gramophone. In this play, Nora dances the
tarantella. Typically, the actors playing Torvald and Dr. Rank play the music on a piano.
However, since neither of the actors playing those parts can play a piano and, more
importantly, I didn't want to clutter the stage with a piano for a few minutes' use, we
decided to go a different route. Since this production has the advantages of not being tied
to a time period or having to provide a factual, realistic reason for everything on the
stage, we all feh comfortable m having recorded music. However, I still wanted to have
something for the actors to work with on the stage. The designer drew an exfremely
interesting gramophone idea which had the hom portion of the gramophone made out of
wire. The wire would be curved and arranged enough to suggest the hom portion of the
gramophone, but would also be hollow enough that the audience realizes that it is not a
real gramophone.
Other interesting prop ideas included a doll for Nora's daughter to carry. This
doll's costume would resemble the little girl's costume, which in tum resembles Nora's
costume. The Christmas free is another prop piece that can help with the non-realistic
feel of the set. It seems a little incongmous to bring a real-looking Christmasfreeinto
this non-real set, so the designer is going to design one tofitthe set.
The Lighting Design
Since a lightmg design is so dependent on the shape that the set takes, the lightmg
designer and I were unable to discuss many specifics until later in the process, but we did
discuss some general ideasfromthe very begmnmg. This show has a great deal of
22
opportunity for a lighting designer as it is, but with the addition of the non-realistic
concept, there is even more room within which to play.
At the top of the show, we have a prologue. The prologue consists of a portion of
the end of the show. During the prologue, the entire cast will be on stage; Nora and
Torvald will be saying their lines, but not looking at each other. 1 have asked the lighting
designer to give this a very stark feel. I want to keep the house lights up, and have a very
generic wash on the stage that mimics the feel oftiieLab during rehearsals - very stark,
bland, washed out.
Another scene that seems to beg for lighting effects is what we called the "trial"
scene, where Krogstad browbeats Nora mto confessing her crime. I have asked the
designer to look into having Nora sitting in a pool of bright light, as at an interrogation,
while having the rest of the stage dark. Then BCrogstad would move in and out of the
light, confributing to Nora's feeling of harassment and isolation.
In line with the non-realism aspect, I want to have tunes where the characters
suddenly appear on the stage with no realistic reason as to how or when they got there. I
hope to have areas at the top of the stage platforms where pools of light can be tumed on
and off to activate the characters that are standing in them. These activating lights will be
confrolled by Nora; she summons these characters when she speaks to them. This idea,
while a good one, did not play out in the final product. There were a couple of reasons
for this, which 1 discuss m the final chapter.
23
The Sound Design
This script comes with some sound effects afready called for, but some of these
we were able to eliminate, agam due to the non-realism concept. We were also able to
add to the sound design by deciding to utilize mood music in some areas. I love tiie idea
of domg this, as I think it can really add to a show; however, it is tricky. I asked the
designers to come into rehearsals early and play underscoring wherever they wanted to
test it. They certainly came more often than the other designers, but spent more time
Ustening to the show than working with us to determine what would be beneficial. I had
been hoping they would bring in bits of underscoring ideas to play during rehearsals so
that we could see how the sound would work with the scene. I think they were a little
reluctant to mterfere with rehearsals.
The tarantella music that the designer decided on is just perfect. It's only two
instraments—^piano and accordion—^and has a scratchy feel about it that goes perfectly
with the gramophone idea. Evidently, this was not an easy acquisition to make, as the
designers have told me that there are a million different versions of the tarantella out
there. However, they found this one in our own backyM-d; Prof Peggy Willis-Aamio, the
head of the dance section of our department, had a copy of it.
The question of pre-show, post-show, and intermission music was an interesting
one. At first the designer was thinking of classical instmmentals to lead into the show.
Then we discussed using contemporary music that touched on the subjects in the show.
The assistant designer brought up the idea of women's protest songsfromthe seventies,
but I asked them to expand the concept beyond just the subject of femmism. Then he
24
brought in several songs with a folksy, grass-roots, protest feel about them. When 1
expressed approval of the approach they were taking, the head designer expressed
concern that he had missed my point, since he did not understand the connection. I
reassured him that I believed he had not missed the point, that with the combination of
the country songs I had suggested, the songs he had suggested, and the folksy style that
the assistant had brought in, we were mnning the gamut of the audience's awareness
levels. I think it clicked for hun after that.
The sound designer mentioned that he was havingfroubleknowing how to
arrange the music for pre- and post-show music. He said that he wanted to make sure
that the music moved smoothly toward the beginning of the play in a coherent maimer. I
suggested to him that it might fit better with our overall scheme if the music did not move
smoothly. I reminded him of the non-realism effects we were going for in the other
design elements and suggested that having the music choppy and unfocused was not
necessarily a bad thing.
The Costume Design
The costuming of this show started off as the element I was most worried about,
but soon tumed into the one that I feel most closely supported the play's concepts. My
worry camefromtwo directions:first,costuming is the design element about which I
know the least; and secondly, there have been incidents in the past that have made me
wary of this department. However, the current designer and the costume staff had not
been part of those previous incidents, and they were all helpful in talking me through the
process.
25
As I mentioned earlier, I did not want the costume designer tied to a specific time
period or have him spend time, money and effort in trying to make the costumes
historically accurate. However, 1 did want to retain the feeling of consfraint that clothes
of that time period gave, such as form-fitting bodices,tightcollars, long skirts, etc. I was
also interested in giving the show a very sexy, sensual feel, so I asked him to look uito
clothes that promoted that idea.
After the set designer demonsfrated her set model at a production meeting, the
costume designer asked me to come to a meeting. At this meeting he, the faculty
costume designer, and the costume shop supervisor surprised me with a new concept:
they wanted to put all the actors in grey-scale clothmg, plus one colored item. The item
and the color would be different for each character and would be suggestive of some
aspect of their personality. They felt that, after seeing how absfract the stage was, this
idea would be more beneficial to the production and the ideas I was trying to bring
across. I was very excited about their eagerness to work with the production, and
although I was not sure how the grey-scale idea would work, I was willing to try it.
I have found that I am a very visual person; I have a hard time seeing something
in my imagination that the designer is trying to explain to me. Also, there is never any
guarantee that what I see in my imagination is the same as what he sees in his. Since
most of the costumes for this show would be pulled from stock rather than bought or
built, it was decided that, instead of doing renderings, I would attend the first fittings so
that 1 could see what the costumes looked like on the actors. I agreed to this provided
that I could still veto something I did not like; I did not want to be locked into somethmg
26
because it had been pulled. The costume shop agreed to this as well, and it worked very
well. For the most part, I liked everything that I was shown. There were a few changes
here and there, a few additions, and a few compromises. All in all, though, the costumes
really supported the work of the actors and the concepts of the production.
27
CHAPTER IV
REHEARSAL PROCESS
There is no place I would rather be than inside a rehearsal hall. The energy that is
created when people bend forward with the same goal in mind is truly remarkable to me.
I like to think that I have an eye for casting parts well, but the truth behind that notion is
that the actors have this source inside, and all I do is tap into it. When an actor hits that
groove—^when they are so in tune with their character and the moment—I just stand back
in awe. There have been many such moments during this rehearsal process, and I find
that my biggest task is to keep creating spaces where they can have those moments over
and over again.
I went into this project with the idea of using Konstantm Stanislavski's Active
Analysis and Anne Bogart's Viewpoints in the rehearsal process. However, with a few
exceptions, I must admit to failure on that level. Except for using the terms "creative
objective" and occasionally discussing the "arc" of a character, I made little overt use of
either of those systems. The predominant system used was "Parker's Process," which
consists, among other things, of deep knowledge of the play, an eye for using what an
actor's sfrengths are, creating tension, encouraging actor sh-t and fashioning stage
pictures. I think it works.
One of the tenets of "Parker's Process" is that every human encounter can be
traced to power in some way. Who has the power? Who wants the power? What will
they do to get it? What keeps them from getting it? What will they do ifwhen they get
it? What if they do not get it? I believe that by concentrating on the power flow in a
28
scene, a director can form a solid basis for blockmg and actor choices. I kept this m mind
as we worked each scene and let it help me decide who was up on the stairs, who was
down, who was standing, who was sitting, etc. 1 believe that it is one of the director's
jobs to create pictures that help tell the audience what is happening in the scene. I say
"help tell" because the primary responsibility lies with the actors and the text, but
directors can confribute through stage pictures. Knowing the power flow can help a
director create stage pictures that speak volumes.
One discovery that I made during this process, or at least wasfinallyable to put
mto words, was what I call the "spirit" of the blocking. At the beguming of rehearsal, we
not only did not have a set, but we did not know what the set would look like. Therefore,
when I started working with the actors, I had to keep in mmd that any blocking we
decided upon could be changed when we got the design for the set. I started talking with
the actors about the spirit behind the blocking rather than the mechanics of the blocking.
In other words, instead of saying, "Cross upstagerightand tum your back to hun," I'd
say, "He's making you feelfrapped,you want to get as far awayfromhim as possible,
you don't even want to look at him." Then, no matter what the set looks like, the actor
will try to get as far away as she can and therefore complete the spfrit behmd the
blocking.
These two concepts, power and spirit blocking, were used together in the
rehearsal hall on many occasions. For example, I talked with actors playing Nora and
Torvald about how thefr movements were guided by the amount of power they felt in
scenes together. Torvald almost always has the power when the two of them are
29
together; therefore, his movements should reflect that. His movement pattems were
straightforward, and he moved confidently from one place to another. On the other hand,
Nora had to constantly move in reaction to him; she rarely initiated moves. Her
movements were circular and created with the knowledge that she must cater to him.
This led to definite pattems for the two of them.
We kept these things in mind as we moved to blocking the end of Act Three. In
this scene I wanted to see a defmite change in the power levels. After Nora aimounces
that she's leavmg, she is the one who has the power. Torvald must now try to change her
mind. The fu-st step we took was to invert the movement pattems. This went a long way
towards showing the power change in the scene. Now Nora's movements were
purposeful and determined, while Torvald's were more bewildered and frenetic.
Remembering the spfrit of the blocking of the openmg scene allowed us to reverse the
mannerisms and movements. This use of the power theory and spirit blocking allowed us
to block a complex scene quickly and easily with movements that rang tme.
Creatmg stage pictures is an element that I worked with a lot in the blocking of
this show. To me, a good stage picture is a stationary setting of the actors on the stage in
such as way that, even if only for a very brief moment, that snapshot remforces the
elements of the text. I wanted to use these moments to help solidify thoughts and
feelings in the audience's mind. I think that a stage picture is an unportant tool that the
director has to help communicate concepts to thefr audience. Thefirstpicture that the
audience sees ui this production is the openmg prologue. The entire cast is onstage, their
30
positions are very presentational, and the lights are very stark. I thmk this created an
image that suggested that something different was happening.
Another conscious stage picture choice is created when Krogstad first enters the
Hehner household. Nora and Kristine have just been chatting and gossiping about old
times. Krogstad walks in and the atmosphere changes. Everyone in that room shares a
secret with one of the other two, but no one knows everything. As soon as Krogstad
enters the room, I asked Nora to let her sudden fear pull her away from Kristine, across
the room. This created a brieffriangletableau that made it easy for the audience to see
sly, puzzled looksfromeach character to the others and gave a feeling of people at odds
with each other. Creating these stage pictures is unportant and, best of all, fim.
One of the interesting challenges I have found hi working with this cast is the
variety in their experience and talent levels. With some, you can just give a suggestion or
ask them a question, but with others you have to be more explicit. With the least
experienced of the group, you practically have to spell it out. 1 was always taught to
avoid giving line readings, but it did come down to that occasionally. Of course, it did
not help that the roles they are in are small m terms of time, so I did not work with them
as much as I did with the others. I know that my job here is directmg, and that my goal is
to do the best thing for the production, but I cannot help remembering that we are in an
academic institution and hope that maybe I can teach some of the younger actors as we
go along.
One of the most helpful tools I found m rehearsal is the question "why?" I asked
myself that question in each moment and then asked it of the actors as well. Most of the
31
tune our answers matched, but sometimes not. Usually when they did not is when some
really interesting work would take place or new discoveries would be made. During my
initial analysis of the script, I made a point of writing my thoughts as questions. This
allowed me to ask "why" questions of the actors that encouraged them to study a
situation, rather than simply handing them the answer that I wanted them to have. For
example, I asked Krogstad and Nora, "Why does Nora tell the tmth about signing the
contract? Why would this consummate liar suddenly tell the tmth about such a dangerous
thing?" Their answers and thought process, and then the acting out of those processes,
led to some dynamic scenes.
Rehearsal for this show began the way I want the show to begin—with the
ending. It's important to me that the Nora in Act One and the Nora in Act Three are
believable as the same person. I don't think she undergoes any hugefransformation;she
just slowly becomes aware. She has to have, and show, the ability at the beginning to do
what she does at the end. Therefore, I began rehearsals with the last half of Act Three. I
hoped that this would allow the actors to see where they were going, and thus be able to
show sparks of that in Act One. As with the audience, I wanted the actors to be less
uiterested in where we were going, and more interested in how we got there. Although
the actors knew that I wanted to use a portion of the last act for the prologue, we didn't
discuss which portion until closer to the end of rehearsals. I had a portion picked out, but
I wanted the actors to give their input on the section used as well. As it tumed out, we
used pretty much the same portion that I had picked out earlier.
32
One of the challenges I had to work with camefromthe actor who played
Krogstad. In my quest tofinda non-villainous Krogstad, I cast an exfremely nice person.
While this defmitely helped fight the stereotype of an evil character, it made it more
challenging to get the actor to react in a physical manner that portrayed his desperation
and the possibilities of what he might do. Fortunately, one of the things we have ui
common ended up being a pathway into a solution. Since we had bothfrainedm martial
arts, I knew the importance placed upon being centered. While afremendousasset in life,
this can sometimes be difficult for actors if they are trying to play a character that is offcentered. This was exactly what this actor was facing; he was not onlyfightinghis niceguy nature, but wasfightinghis leamedfraitof being centered. Krogstad may be a nice
guy at heart, but he is in no way centered. Identifying this problem out loud seemed to
help the actor be more specific and aggressive in his choices. Krogstad tumed out to be
very believable in his angry and desperate moments, and we believed the anguish that
drove the actions,
I only used exercises a couple of tunes in this rehearsal period, and they were both
with Kristine and Krogstad. I wanted the entire show to have a sensual, physical feel to
it, and I felt that these two actors needed some help in getting to know each other better
before they acted together in such a fashion. 1 don't know how well the first exercise
worked, as it was a private one between the t^yo of them—just looking at each other and
commg up with five things they could love about the other person. The second one
happened much later in the process and was much more spontaneous. Their primary
scene together was the one in which Kristinefriesto convince Krogstad that their past
33
relationship can now be their future one as well. After mnnmg through the scene a
couple of tunes, I asked them both to sit on the steps out m the audience, I then asked
them to do the scene as if they were sitting on the steps of a porch, outside a party where
they had bumped into each other after a long time, and that they both wanted to rekindle
the flame in spite of their own fears. This proved very fruitful and gave the actors a
much more intunate and sensual feel when they did the scene on the stage again.
Another interesting thing Ifriedthis tune was a read-through halfway through the
rehearsal period. I had the entire cast sit down and read their lines out loud. I asked them
not to speak them from memory, but to actually read them. 1 also asked them to not act
the lines, but to focus just on saying the words that the playwright had given them. As
odd as this may sound, it proved very beneficial. Actors found words that they were not
saying correctly, words that they had left out, and exfra words that they had put in. Also,
because of the lack of concenfration on acting, the actors Ustened to each other and made
some script discoveries. For example, Kristine made the cotmection that when Nora told
her of the nights she had spent doing copy work for money, that it was the same time
period that Torvald thought Nora was working late making decorations for the Christmas
free that the cat mysteriously desfroyed. She and Nora also made the discovery that they
both used the word "naturally" quite a lot in one scene, and that Torvald had used it quite
a bit m the scene before. Making that connection allowed them to emphasize that word
in such a way as to show how Nora mimicked Torvald's choices in everything, and
Kristine was able to use the word ironically to illusfrate this dependence to Nora.
34
The actor playing Krogstad also made an interesting observation during the readthrough. He noticed that no one ever lied to Krogstad. Even Nora, the consummate liar,
tells him the tmth. If there was tmthftil dialogue going on, it was with Kjogstad. This
helped him to key into his own backstory for Krogstad: that he is not an evil person, but a
person who is desperate. He felt that Krogstad was even honest with hunself—he knew
that what he had done was wrong, and that he had to pay the price for redemption.
35
CHAPTER V
THE AFTERMATH
When the fttst cue was called on opening night, my emotions were mbced. I was
excited and nervous about putting our baby out mfrontof an audience for inspection. I
was also sad that I would not be able to tinker anymore: no more workmg with the actors,
meeting with the designers or sitting up nights wondering how to make the play just a
little bit better. Now, I had only one more element to deal with: feedback.
Feedback on this production came from several different directions, including the
audience, student papers or discussions in class, personal opinions that others share with
me, and a departmental post-mortem. One place that I did not receive any feedback from
was the local reviewer. He had tickets for openmg night, but did not show. This seems
to be happening more and more; I suspect that his bosses, like too many others in the
world, place less importance on theafre and would rather he review a new movie. C'est
la vie.
Before I go on to list the things that could have been handled better, I would like
to say this: I am very proud of this production. There are several things that 1 would have
liked to do differently, and I will elaborate on them later in this document; however, I still
feel that a good job was done by all concemed, and I am proud to put my name on this
production. It has been a tme learning experience—for me defmitely and, I suspect, for
others as well. It was a challenging play, and I believe that we answered that challenge
well.
36
As they say, hindsight is 20/20, and there were defmitely things that people did
not like about the production. The good news is that just about everything that someone
did not like, someone else loved. 1 spoke to six different classes after the production
closed and garnered feedback from each one. There did not seem to be any consensus on
what was good and what was bad. We made some bold choices in this production; some
worked and some did not. Some of these things I would change, and some were just a
matter of choice—and since the choice was mine, I liked them. I will address some of
the issues raised, both from the design elements and from the acting elements.
Design Elements
There were several design elements that engendered reactionsfrompeople. Some
did not like the set. They felt that the non-realistic nature of the set detractedfromthe
story. Few people understood why the pulpit area moved. Some members of the faculty
suggested that it should have moved during the play (rather than at the intermissions) so
that people could better get that feeling of the world closing m on Nora. I am not sure
how we would have accomplished this—^we were akeady havmg difficulty getting it to
stay onfrack—^butperhaps if we had considered that earlier m the process, we could have
found a way.
Another set issue was the vagueness of the backgroimd pieces. They were the
same color as the stage (dark blues, violets) and rounded. They did not add to any
specificity of the set and stood in confrast to the angled nature of the rest of the set. This
was the part of the set that the designer had earlier said she did not like because they
looked like icebergs. At that time, the DOT had suggested to her that if she painted them
37
to represent something, they would not look like icebergs. However, she did not take him
up on that suggestion and reaped the consequences. What 1 had originally asked for was
Augments of things - walls, doorways, tables, etc. However, the background pieces did
not look likefiagmentsof anything.
Lighting was another design element that people either loved or hated. Some
thought it was too dark; some didn't understand some of the effects. One effect that did
not play out the way I had hoped was the activating light. It was hoped that it would
seem as though Nora was activating these people by tuming the light on them when she
said their name, or addressed them m some other fashion. However, a combination of
things kept thisfrombeing as clear as it could have been. One was simply the space
within which we were working. Due to the neamess of the ceiling, the lights could not be
focused as narrowly as I would have liked—thus there was lots of bounce light, and
consequently the spaces that the individuals were standing in before the activating light
came on were never very dark. Therefore, the audience could see them enter and stand
there. After awhile, I think the audience came to understand the convention and accepted
that those people were not really there yet, but atfirstit caused confiision. Another
aspect was that the first activatmg light did not happen until well into the second half of
Act One. Thus, the audience was caught by surprise. In refrospect, I would have asked
for it to happen at the very beginning—^perhaps having the children standing still onstage
until the nurse called their names. Oh well, a lesson leamed.
We tried doing some underscoring music in this production, and it did not work
out as well as I would have liked. Again, there were several reasons: first, I don't think
38
the sound designers found enough places to use underscoring to get the audience used to
hearing it. I encouraged them to come to rehearsals early on, and together they came to
more rehearsals than the other designers, but 1 do not think they really knew what to
listen for or how tofindthe perfect piece of music. Another element that hindered the
underscoring potential was the difference in audience size. The sound was set during the
dress rehearsal, but was never changed after that to accommodate for the fact that the
house was full, so, there was some music that no one ever heard. With all itsflaws,I still
like the concept of imderscoring. I mentioned this in the post-mortem, but want to
reiterate it here: I don't think that trymg something and failing is a good enough reason
not to try it again. I hope that more attention will be paid to the sound aspect of plays in
thefirtureand that sound designers will discover more of the art of sound design and not
resign themselves to simply providing sound effects as called for in the script.
Although the costumes were my favorite design element, they caused
considerable consternation amongst some in the audience. It tums out that the costumes
were too realistic in confrast with the other design elements. Again, this is a hindsight
issue. The designer and I both felt that making the majority of each outfit grey, using
costumes that were of different periods, and disregardmg seasonal elements in the
costumes (although it was Christmas in Norway, some had short sleeves, others were just
in sweaters, etc.) made the design non-realistic in nature. However, once the actors put
them on and got on the stage, all the small differences melted away and the costumes
looked very realistic. This was a major lesson leamed for me, as I thmk one of the
foremost duties of a director is to keep the disparate elements in harmony with each
39
other. I thought I was doing that, but the results showed otherwise. In the future, I will
spend much more time and effort on seeing the elements together in my mind before they
show up on the stage.
I had a few challenges to work with throughout the design process. One of the
first was witti the set designer. She was not happy with having to design a non-realistic
set, and I think that stifled her creativity. She seemed ambivalent and reluctant to commit
to any choices. She did notfightme on any suggestions or choices, butratherseemed to
hold any agreement in abeyance. It took quite a while to get any firm sketches and a
modelfromher. Thus, I was working in rehearsals without benefit of a set plan in mind
for several weeks. This held up the lighting designer and the costume designer as well;
mdeed, the costume designer ended up changing his concept after hefinallysaw the set
model. The set designer had repeated to me that she wanted to get things done early so
that they would not be mshed, but that's what ended up happenmg anyway. Things were
still being painted and finishedrightbefore the dress rehearsal.
The costume designer also had some things to re-work after the dress rehearsal.
Nora's bodice was uneven in the back, Krogstad's pant leg was too long and Torvald's
were too short. Some of this is just part of the process—seemg the actors doing their
thing under the lights in proper stage conditions for the first time. However, some of it
seems to comefromnot catching theseflawsduring fittings.
One of the most annoying aspects of dfrecting in the Lab Theafre is the disparity
in many issues between Lab productions and mainstage productions. While the Lab
productions have almost the same number of technical rehearsals as the mainstage, the
40
timing of these rehearsals is problematic. The mainstage technical rehearsals begin on
Monday nights and go throughout the week until fmal dress on Thursday. Lab technical
rehearsals begin on Friday night, two on Saturday, with final dress on Sunday. Although
each gets four rehearsal periods, the lab productions do not get the benefit of an entire
working day within which to resolve problems. I would suggest that the department take
a look at this problem and see if there is a way to make it more workable.
Directorial/Actmg Elements
One of the first things that people talked about was the decision to use a prologue
at the beginning of the play. Most people liked this concept, but a few people had
problems with it. One opinion was that the prologue mined any feeling of suspense. It
was felt that, since they knew Nora would leave Torvald, they lost interest in the play.
Others had problems because they were confused about the tuneline. They did not
realize that there was a prologue and so were puzzled when the play re-started.
To the first opinion, I can only answer that it was a calculated risk. I thought
there might be some people who did not like the use of a prologue-people who would
lose interest at that point—but I wanted to do it anyway. I wanted the story to be deeper
than "what will happen to Nora?" I wanted the audience to concenfrate on the whys and
hows—not the whats. I knew it was probable that not all would understand and/or enjoy
this choice; but for those that did, I believe it worked to take them deeper into the world
of the play. As for the second problem, the only solution I can think of now is to have
put it m the program that there was a prologue. I thought that having the house lights up,
having stark, bright lights on the stage, and havmg all the characters represented on the
41
stage at once would have been enough of an indication that something odd was
happening. However, it seems that I thought wrong. One mteresting suggestion on this
topic was given during the post-mortem: to make the ending of the play exactly like the
prologue. Instead of just having the same words and everything else different, go the
whole way and bring everyone back out on stage to watch Nora leave, have the house
lights brought back up, and have the same stark feel as at the beginning. I think this is a
very interesting idea and I wish that I had known about it in time to incorporate it.
I think that the acting in this show was some of the best I've seen done in this
department. Some of the actors surprised me with new levels to their work, and some
showed new levels that did not surprise me, as I felt they were capable of them all along.
Not all of the actors were myfirstpicks for thefr roles, but they all brought somethmg to
the roles that created a three-dimensional character on the stage.
One of the interesting aspects of working with this group of actors was the
disparity of their experience levels. The acfress playing Nora was fully as obsessed with
the character as I was and brought lots of her own thoughts and creativity to the role. The
commitment level decreased down the line to the children, who were, understandably,
bent only on having a good tune.
I would have liked to see more complexity in the character of Kristine. From my
research I've found that Kristine can either be a stock character that is a confidante for
the sake of exposition, or a complexfigurefilledwith bouts ofrighteousenvy, love and
cmel-to-be-kmd practicality. I wanted to try for the latter, but seemed unable to
communicate this to the acfress. I wish I could have found a way to be more clear and
42
specific on this subtle character. Therefore, I ended up with neither a clear, simple,
expository character, or a complex, layered character. Looking back, I think I probably
needed to spend more tune with this actor and to work harder to share my vision of
Kristine with her.
Torvald is another character that I would have liked to tinker with more. I feel
that there were still tunes where we could have played Torvald as more human and less a
stereotype. The actor playing this part was wonderful m the role, and I would not change
him at all, but he became very ill and missed three days of rehearsal. Unfortunately,
those were days that I had plaimed on really working on the last scenes of the show, and
then we ran into technical rehearsals and could never make the time up. I wanted to see
Torvald break down more when he realizes Nora is really going to leave hun. I wanted
the audience to see the love he had for her and the anguish her leaving would bring him.
Working with children was quite an educational experience. I planned out the
rehearsals to rehearse all their scenes in thefirsthour-and-a-half of the period and then let
them go home. I'm sure this was a little exasperating to the rest of the cast—not to work
in sequence—^but they understood and agreed that it was not efficient to make the
children sit around. We did have to make the mle that if you played with the children,
you had to help cahn them down. Lots of people were eager to play with the kids, but
they weren't the same ones that had to deal with them on the stage!
Conclusion
One of my primary goals wifri this production was to make this classic play
accessible and relevant to a contemporary audience. I'm not quite sure how to measure
43
the success of that goal. I think the production was a good one. There are others who
think the same thing, and there are also those who do not think it was a good production.
I know that people talked about it. These were the same reactions that A Doll's House
had after its premiere production. So maybe that's a way to measure the completion of
the goal; and if it is—^then my work here is done.
44
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Clurman, Harold. Ibsen. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, Inc., 1977.
Fjelde, Rolf, ed. Ibsen: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall, Inc., 1965.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House. Trans. Henrietta Frances Lord. New York:
D. Appleton & Company, 1901.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House. Adapt Frank McGuinness. Dramatists Play Service,
Inc., 1996.
Marker, Frederick J. and Lise-Lone Marker, eds. Ingmar Bergman: A Project for the
Theatre. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1983.
Moritzen, Julius. Henrik Ibsen: His Life, Aim and Influence. Girard: Haldeman-JuUus
Company, 1923.
Rose, Lloyd. Rev. of ^ Doll's House, dir. Anthony Page. The Washington Post.
April 20,1997. PageG02. <users.visi.net'~jhlmd/dollhouserevwpost.html>
Tomqvist, Egil. Ibsen: A Doll's House. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
West End Theafre Guide. "SLew. of A Doll's House, dir. Polly Teale. The Guardian.
November 2000 <www.Albemarle-london.com/dollshouse.html>
Wilder, Thornton. Three Plays by Thornton Wilder: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth,
The Matchmaker. Toronto: Bantam Pathfmder, 1958.
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