A Doll’s House

 

 

 

 

Stanley BFL Canada Stage to October 5, 2025

Tickets from $29 at 604-687-1644 or www.artsclub.com

Posted  September 18, 2025

This adaptation by Amy Herzog of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House disappointed me from the very start with Amir Ofek’s beautiful, elegant  set. In Ibsen’s 1879 original, Nora Helmer  (Alexandra Lainfiesta) and Torvald Helmer (Daniel Brière) enjoy a comfortable but not affluent lifestyle. Nora, obsessed with money, looks forward to the increase in salary (“tons and tons of money”) that Torvald can expect following his recent promotion. Ofek’s blue-on-blue set spans the entire width of the Stanley stage with three double doorways – each about four metres high; a gorgeous, long, rose-coloured velvet chaise dominates the space. This is all lovely but it cannot be the modest home of Nora and Torvald. It’s far too stylish and it also presents blocking problems with Nora, for example, often far left and Torvald, far right. Thematically, of course, it works: they are emotionally miles apart. But it’s a bit like watching tennis, until the very end when Nora and Torvald sit together – on the floor. That’s not likely.

Herzog contemporizes the language of this classic with “kids” instead of “children” and exclamations like, “Oh gosh, I don’t know.” But pulling this play into the here and now when, according to statistics, almost half of marriages end in divorce, makes the central issue of A Doll’s House – Nora walking out on her husband and her children – not all that shocking today. The play caused a storm of controversy back then and it is said that the sound of the door closing behind Nora sent shockwaves across Europe. Back in late 19^th century Norway, a married woman leaving her husband was simply not done so perhaps it’s best to leave A Doll’s House in the past when it had shock value.

I had the pleasure of being a student of the late Ibsen scholar, Dr. Errol Durbach. In his book, Ibsen: The Romantic, Durbach places Ibsen, heralded as the first ‘modern’ playwright, at the tail end of the Romantic period, a literary, artistic and intellectual movement that celebrated personal expression and freedom of the individual. Melodrama was ‘in’ during the Romantic period and Ibsen used it to advantage. Now, however, melodrama is more likely the stuff of comedy and this production, directed by Anita Rochon, does little to make the play more subtle. Indeed, the night I attended there was unintended laughter at certain points when things went over the top. Ibsen was many things; funny was not one of them.

Ralamy Kneeshaw’s costumes on Mrs. Linde (Carmela Sison), a prim, dark brown long skirt and jacket, dove-grey suit and tie on Torvald, and a slightly more extravagant ensemble on Dr. Rank (Marcus Youssef) are fine but the costumes on Nora are nondescript – until she leaves. And then Kneeshaw puts her in a travelling outfit that really works.

Lighting design by Narda McCarroll features a flash of brilliant white light accompanied by the sound of something like thunder when a new character arrives on stage. Not sure why.

Under Rochon’s direction, Lainfiesta as Nora, in Act 1 is mostly giddy and Torvald’s endearment – “little bird” – is well-deserved. She flits from place to place, never landing for long. Lainfiesta begins at an emotional high almost from the outset. By Act 2, Nora is an emotional wreck as she comes to the realization that she has simply been “performing tricks” for Torvald and that her children have become “her dolls”.  Lainfiesta works hard – and is mostly successful – in sustaining that highly emotional charged state for what seems so long. After Torvald breaks down and screams, “You stupid bitch”, we know she is going to leave so she may as well get on with it. As one reviewer put it, “her eventual departure thuds along.”

Brière’s Torvald is solid, almost but not quite likable. But pity the poor actor who has to remain alone on stage, wailing, and, as the curtain falls, delivers the faint hope, “The most wonderful thing of all …” as if Nora might soon be coming back to her ‘doll’s house’.

An element that is never clear in any production I’ve ever seen is what appears to be a sacrifice on the part of Nora’s friend Kristine Linde (Carmela Sison) when she throws herself at nasty Nils Krogstad (Ron Pederson) to save Nora and Torvald from scandal. Either Linde has truly loved Krogstad for years or it’s a shamefully convenient deus ex machina.

A Doll’s House is one of the most frequently produced plays worldwide. Herzog’s adaptation was  nominated for a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play and won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Adaptation in 2023. She was also a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for her play 4000 Miles.

Presented in partnership with Theatre Calgary, this production moves to Calgary in the spring of 2026. The press release reads, “Henrik Ibsen’s theatrical giant of a play still shocks and exhilarates audiences to this day”, and refers to the adaptation as “fresh, compact and devastatingly contemporary.” Running at the Stanley BFL Canada Stage (the recently renamed Stanley) until October 5, it is “fresh”, could be more “compact” – especially at the end when Nora’s departure is a foregone conclusion – but “devastatingly contemporary” or devastatingly anything it is not.