Critique Of A Doll House: A Doll's House By Henrik Ibsen

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen is one of the most controversial plays written during the late 1800’s and later premiered at Royal Theater in Denmark. The three-act play had an outstanding message for 19th century women and marriage norms that were created by society. But, even years later this play is still fresh in the minds of many due to directors like Lee Breuer. Lee Breuer’s Doll House is distributed by Alive Media in 2008 with Mabou Mines Theater Company establishing a new version of the play for the audience keeping the original play in mind. The production of Dollhouse was successful in screening the playwright, due to the actors that were well suited for their roles and clear sequence of events that allowed the audience to keep track

Nora was the protagonist of the play, who had qualities of a child and was a doll for the men in the playwright. For example as Nora states in the play, “…I’ve been wronged greatly, Torvald-first by Papa, and then by you….He used to call me his doll-child, and he played with me the way I played with my dolls…” (Ibsen 903). This quotation reveals the truth about Nora’s life and marriage at the end of act three of when she was going to leave Torvald and move on. Nora notices how for the men in her life she always was just a doll and child like person whom never got the respect that she deserved as a woman, a wife, or even a mother of three children. She was often labeled as a child-like wife and child-like daughter for her father that often was a barrier for her growth as a woman. Similarly, Maude Mitchell the actor whom played Nora Helmer was successful in revealing the child like qualities of Nora. For me, it was easy to distinguish in the play of who was Nora and who was Mrs. Linde because Maude did a marvelous job in carrying the character of Nora from the playwright onto the stage. For example, when Mrs. Linde came to Nora’s House I found out right away that the character in the blue with blond hair had to be Nora because of her squeaky childlike voice and moves that continued to portray her like a

There are times when we watch a play or movie and doesn’t meet the expectations that we expected after reading the novel or play because of the failure of production to present it in the correct manner. However, Dollhouse was presented in a clear manner where the audience was able to figure out the characters based on the characteristics portrayed in the playwright. Also, the sequence of events was not a mystery for me but instead was self explanatory keeping away the less detailed information. The new version created by the production has helped me as the audience to wonder if the roles created by the playwright in reality was trying to portray the men as the real dolls of the house of the nineteenth