Fringe 2015: Jo Strømgren's 'Doll's House'

But what did this new production add to the canon? While the staging was fascinating, and the performances strong, I’m not sure I learned something new about the script. It does feel modern — Torvald comes home from work with a bottle of liquor, Nora buys paintbrushes as well as macaroons, the language has been updated, and the characters wear modernish dress.

The story itself is familiar. Nora (Suli Holum) is the spoiled and extravagant wife of Torvald Helmer (Leonard C. Haas), who is about to become a bank manager. He likes to both indulge and control her habits — no eating macaroons, no spending money they have not yet earned. She finds solace in flirting with Dr. Rank (Pearce Bunting), until he falls under her spell and she has to reject him. But Nora has a problem. Years ago she borrowed money from Nils Krogstad (Trey Lyford) by forging a note, and now he wants her help to keep his job or he will reveal her secret. Desperate to keep this from happening, she confides in an old friend, Mrs. Linde (MaryLee Bednarek), who has a history with Krogstad. There’s no mystery here. We know Torvald will learn her secret, forgive her, and she will leave him.

Subtext lost

Director Jo Strømgren has stripped the script down to its essence, so we are not distracted by subplots about costumes for a fancy ball or toys for the children for Christmas. In the process, subtext has been stripped away as well, and we are virtually told what is going on. Torvald has of late become a physical as well as emotional abuser, so we hear his abuse, while Nora has been given a hobby, which she regards as a job, of painting naïve paintings and planning to sell them, although she lets her friend paint one of her canvases.

Krogstad is so much the villain that it is hard to believe Mrs. Linde once had feelings for him. The scene between Mrs. Linde and Krogstad in which they rekindle their romance seemed closest to the original, and yet the scene, necessary to advance the plot, had no resonance; it lacked the spark that would have made his conversion and her decision to stay with him plausible.

Where is the movement going?

The set is as much a character as any of the performers in this production. The house that takes center stage is definitely too small for the actors, seats are child-size, the stove is like an easy-bake oven, even the coffee cups are miniature. The actors spend a lot of time crawling in, on, under, and around the movable pieces that serve as house and peripheral buildings. They also topple and lift the house, turning it into a roof and a boatlike structure. Fascinating, but to what end?

Recent directors who focus on this kind of performance seem to feel the words are only a vehicle for highlighting emotions expressed through movement. We saw this recently in Blanka Ziska’s production of Hamlet at the Wilma Theater, and we see it again in this production. The meaning of the words seems detached from what the character is doing physically. While it is an interesting exercise in accessing the heart of a character, it is often less relevant to the audience than to the actor.

There is an odd misstep in this production as well. At one point Krogstad is dressed in an American Indian headdress and shoots a bow and arrow, and Mrs. Linde also puts on a fringed suede dress with one red feather in her headdress. It’s hard to know where this came from. In this new interpretation, Torvald refers to playing cowboys and Indians with Krogstad as a boy, but in the translation I have at home, he merely says they were friends. Since Torvald is the villain of the piece, to identify him as an Indian seems culturally insensitive in today’s climate.

The actors, most from Philadelphia, have worked with Strømgren to enact his vision. Holum’s Nora is unrelentingly cheerful and determined, as she stands up to her husband and climbs all over the toppled set. A cofounder of the Pig Iron Company, she is no stranger to physical theater and seems at home in the landscape. Bunting finds himself on the floor much of the time, seeming to die many times before his death, which does not take place in this version. Lyford, who has been described as a contemporary clown, is consistently villainous, and Bednarek is a rational although inconsistent Mrs. Linde.

Whatever its flaws, this is a rich, nuanced production, worthy of the Fringe Festival, and the set will be remembered afterward as well as the performances.

For a review of the Jo Strømgren Kompani’s Fringe productions of The Border and There, click here.