Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is a classic and shouldn’t be tampered with, right? Who would dare to mess with it? Well, Ingmar Bergman. He compressed the three-act A Doll’s House into a one-act reduction with no intermission.
Although I’d prefer to see the complete drama, this adaptation is an effective one. (In partial defense of Bergman, his treatment was originally conceived as a motion-picture version where audiences don’t expect an intermission.) Bergman eliminated Nora’s children and the household servants, reducing the 11-character play to a five-person cast. This ensemble iss excellent, especially Kit Carson in the demanding title role.
Nora is a tough assignment because she is a spoiled brat who emerges as a tragic heroine. There’s been a tendency to portray her entirely as victim, but Carson finds a wider spectrum. She’s treated like a fragile doll by her conventional husband, shops extravagantly beyond her means and lies to get what she wants, yet eventually earns our sympathy.
The Helmers are a respectable family in 1898 Norway, comfortable with the assurance that the husband will soon ascend to be manager of his bank. Then a disreputable lawyer appears, who knows that Nora once used illegal means to achieve an admirable end. When her husband was in dire need of medical care, Nora forged her father’s name because women were not allowed to borrow money on their own. The lawyer blackmails Nora, who at the end becomes a prototype for women’s independence.
Michael Mastro’s direction centered the action within a stage filled with miniature houses and he kept supposedly off-stage characters nearby, in shadow, thus heightening the tension. Esther Arroyo provided stunning period costumes.
