A Doll's House - Broadway Tickets, News, Info & More

BROADWAY REVIEW: Jessica Chastain not to be missed in intimate, bare bones staging of Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ - The New York Daily News

The strengths of the show? Depth of intimacy. There is something very arresting about hearing these famous old lines given this kind of immediacy. The cast is made up of highly skilled and experienced actors and it’s really and truly something to hear how well all of them handle the need for dramatic tension to build in their mouths, even if their bodies often seem to writhe against their own director’s constraints. The piece is not boring: it has weight and power and gravitas. And, at times with Chastain, Nora’s mental pain (and Herzog’s deft adaptation focuses strongly on the leading character’s mental health) overflows to the actress’ tear-stained face.

Jessica Chastain Electrifies a No-Frills Broadway Revival of ‘A Doll's House’ - The Daily Beast

Those final moments are in stark contrast to the main body of the play. There is no set decoration, no props. When characters put on dresses, have parties, freak out over letters, and—most infamously in Nora’s case—slam the door on the family home, there are none of those things. The characters say they are doing things, but they are just speaking to each other. The Helmer children, Ivar, Bob, and Emmy are mentioned, they are played with and chided—but they are not seen. This stylistic trickiness is seductive at the start, but its obsessive negation of any conventions begins to annoy; thankfully the excellent actors do not.