A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen 1879
A play about relationships (friend, spouse, parent/child) and about mature development, responsibility, freedom and individual identity. Nora, a flip, twittering wife of Torvald Helmer, is caught in a trap of her own creation, the result of borrowing money to save her failing husband. Her false life of wifehood and motherhood( a doll in a doll’s house), is brought to consciousness by her husbands’ friend and her admirer, Dr. Rank who takes responsibility for ending his life afflicted by a fatal illness and by a childhood friend, Christine Lande, who re-enters her life and exposes its falsity. Her husband is the perfect catalyst for her resolve to leave the Doll’s House and make a real life for herself. A classic play often performed 150 years after its debut especially at this time of gender exploration and women’s power.