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Dollhouse
At
The Goodman Theatre
(Goodman Theatre Website)
170 N. Dearborn Street
Chicago, Illinois 60601
312.443.5151
Robert Falls: Artistic Director
Roche Schulfer: Executive Director
By
Rebecca Gilman
Adapted from the play by: Henrik Ibsen
Starring: Maggie Siff, Anthony Starke, Lance Stuart Baker,
Elizabeth Rich, Firdous Bamji, Charin Alvarez,
Maritza Cervantes, Melody Hollis, Allison Sparrow, Ryan Cowhey,
Matthew Gerdisch, Jordyn Knysz, Emily Leahy
Director: Robert Falls
Set Design: Robert Brill
Lighting Design: James F. Ingalls
Costume Design: Mara Blumenfeld
Original Music and Sound Design: Richard Woodbury
Choreography: Randy Duncan
Video Projections Compilation: Rene Arteaga
New York Casting: Bernard Telsey Casting
Chicago Casting: Adam Belcuore
Dramaturg: Tom Creamer
Production State Manager: Alden Vasquez
Stage Manager: Sascha Connor
Literal Translation: Marte Hvam Hult
Press Associate: Jennifer Dobby
Exclusive Corporate Sponsor: Northern Trust
Production Sponsor: Edith-Marie Appleton Foundation
Scenic Design Sponsor: ABT Electronics
Susan Weinrebe
June 16, 2005
Henrik Ibsen’s scandalous 1879, A Doll’s House, (A Doll’s House, the play), is updated and revamped in Rebecca Gilman’s version, Dollhouse. The change from adjective to noun in the title, is a clue that more than a grammatical skew has taken place.
What was socially shocking, when Somerset Maugham (Maugham Bio) had a father in Of Human Bondage declare he’d rather see his daughters, “…lying dead at my feet than see them listening to the garbage of that shameless fellow…,” has now become topically humorous! It is no longer a looking glass revealing the truth about women’s subservience in society. It is now a mirror that seems to reflect the life and times of the twenty to thirty something’s that made up the audience.
Accoutrements, for an upscale lifestyle, play on a large screen as we wait for the play to begin. It’s a chance to take in the siren call of ads for everything from sexy but angelic lingerie, bird logoed soap and chocolate, to urban war vehicles. This Lincoln Park condo set is where Nora and Terry will act out the conflicts of their relationship.
Superficially, they have all the trappings of success. From their perfectly located and furnished apartment, to their three young children with androgynous names, the couple has what appears to be a dream life. Terry is a banker, newly promoted. Nora used to work for a decorator, but now she’s a stay-at-home mother. That is, when she’s not off spending money and leaving her carefully spaced children with the nanny.
Acquisitiveness and the trouble it spawns is at the heart of Dollhouse. Two of the characters intertwined with Nora and her secrets, stress this theme. Raj has long been suspected of stealing funds from the Young Republicans back in college. Now he is desperately trying to evade indictment for nefarious business practices, and to collect on Nora’s loan or take her down with him. Kristine, though innocent of wrongdoing, is part of the fallout from the Arthur Andersen debacle. (Arthur Andersen fallout)
This is where Rebecca Gilman’s play parts company from the original. Ibsen’s Nora is infantilized and diminished by her husband, in the norm of the time, we are to believe. A “little squirrel,” a “sky-lark,” is not even a wife, much less an equal. It is only when Torvald reviles her and is ready to cast her off that Nora recognizes she is a pet. With this epiphany, she abandons him and her children to go off on her own and discover who she is meant to be.
The Nora of Dollhouse has purchased a health cure for her husband, but in the vernacular of the 21st century, it is for a drug addiction rather than for a disease. With the money borrowed for his rehabilitation, she has included enough extra cash to acquire a condo, furnishings, clothes, and tuition for her children at a private school, household help, and all the extras that are her portal to perfection.
A quarter’s worth of analysis tells us Nora is a person trying to fill a void within herself. Motherless years and a ne’er do well father can do that. “I should have planned more for my life,” is Nora’s wistful musing. Women’s Lib! Where art thou? This young woman is not being prevented by anyone, much less society, from going out and doing whatever she chooses to do. I really wanted her to get a grip. Make a plan. See it through.
Maggie Siff’s Nora is a dippsy-doodle. She tippy-toes so she won’t mar the finish on her beautiful wood floor, and she tippy-toes around Terry’s questions about her spending. She gulps an extravagant truffle, not even tasting it in her effort to stuff it down, before her husband discovers the contraband that could make her fat. Yet, she had the loyalty to stick by Terry, when he was on drugs, and used initiative to get him help. Nora doesn’t need to join the Marines to be all that she can be. She just needs to decide if she’s going to stop playing games.
Ms. Siff’s comedic timing and talent for physical humor add appeal to her character, which is mostly feckless and clueless. It’s funny when she says she’s economizing by shopping at Trader Joe’s instead of Whole Food! The audience seemed to relish the portrayal of someone meant to be familiar to them as well as the many references to Chicago locations
Nora is amusing, but increasingly poignant as she tries to keep Terry from the inevitable: discovering the loan and that he will be implicated in her malfeasance. By the time Ms. Siff dances a frenzied parody of Jennifer Beals in Flashdance, (Flashdance Website) it is as though she is dancing for her life.
In fact, in the original play, Nora performs a tarantella, the frantic dance one, who has been bitten by a spider, must do, until the dancer drops and dies! Unfortunately, the audience missed the fear that propelled Nora’s dance, which was meant to forestall Terry from opening an all-revealing email.
Perhaps the audience missed the nuance, because there had been so much humor leading up to the solo that went on just a little too long.
In a bravura tantrum of a showdown, Anthony Starke, as her husband, Terry, realizes that his reputation and career have been jeopardized by details of Nora’s loan. It’s always an education to see how someone loses his temper; just as it’s informative to observe the kind of person someone is when he’s had too much to drink.
I found Terry’s display of meanness plausible, when he used the handiest of sexual epithets against Nora. But this was because I never had the sense that the he really cared about her. They were coupled, but not bonded. I knew far less about Terry’s part of the relationship than I did Nora’s. His fury, though, was recognizable as that of a thwarted boy rather than a man, and in that, Anthony Starke characterized Terry best.
A revolution was contained in the conclusion of Ibsen’s play, but not so in Dollhouse. It’s difficult to imagine, in fact, what would currently be a shocking enough conclusion to balance the comedy of the play. Something utterly unexpected and ugly perhaps?
Ibsen concocted a softer alternative “German” ending for a tour of his play. Likewise, Ms. Gilman departs from Ibsen’s original conclusion. Given our hopes for Nora, this end is an unsettling note, but one that follows the theme of Dollhouse: anything is possible and fixable – for a price.
Pictured the Goodman Theatre's world premiere production of Rebecca Gilman's "Dollhouse" are Elizabeth Rich (Kristine) and Firdous Bamji (Raj Patel)
Photo courtesy of Michael Brosilow
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