A Dolls House

A Doll’s House-Henrich Ibsen

We are studying A Doll’s House by Henrich Ibsen who took on a number of Stanislavski’s techniques. A Doll’s House caused quite a lot of controversy when first staged in 1879. This was because unlike most dramas of the time, the play was a portrayal of a ‘normal’ middle class family and the audience was, largely middle class. It highlights financial problems as well as challenging the role of women in the home. In the last scene, Nora walks out on her husband and her family and this was considered an outrage. It meant that in some instances Ibsen was forced to use an alternative ending which saw Nora forgive Trovald and live with him. Writing in the late 1970’s, he would be influenced by women’s suffrage as it was taking its roots in this period. He has received criticism for creating a feminist play with the ending, however, he remained adamant that it was by no means his intention.

To show the social, cultural, historical and political context of the time, we did a short still image on the different audience reactions on the finale of the play where Nora walks out, followed by a ‘thoughts aloud’ by each of us. We were acting as an audience at the time and interpreting what we thought the audience would have felt at the first staging of this play. Two of the other girls showed disgust in their thoughts aloud whereas I showed a sense of respect for what Nora stood up for. The men all seemed outraged by the fact that a woman would walk out on her home and children. However, the interpretation of the play today may be very different, as in society today, as there is more social acceptance of women such as Nora.

Non-verbal communication shows the relationship between the characters, highlighted by the subtext. In class, we had to act out a scene from the play in mime to show non-verbal communication. I worked with Teniola, who played Trovald and I played Nora; we chose to do the last part of the play. As Trovald comes to terms with...