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A Doll's House Review

“I am a student of the University of Hull blogging as part of my assessment for the module Drama, Conflict and Identity. All views expressed here are my own and do not represent the university”. 

How the Summer Light Theatre company maintained a naturalistic performance in their production

A Doll’s House, is a late nineteenth century play written by Henrik Ibsen, that centres itself around the performance technique of naturalistic theatre. The concept of naturalism was implemented into theatre in the nineteenth century, in order to prevent theatre from becoming ‘detached from real life’. 

In maintenance of this, this production from Summer Light Theatre successfully performed their rendition of the play in a naturalistic manner. They achieve this initially through their staging and set design. This was performed in a proscenium arch stage, acting like a photo frame for the audience to look into. They evidently were very influenced by the stage design in Ibsen’s play, as their set matches the description found in scene one of the written play. Their set design epitomises a naturalistic play, through having a traditional designed room, that a late nineteenth century audience would recognise to be similar to the home they had just left; mirroring life a key aspect of naturalism. Wooden walls, wooden chairs and table, paintings on the wall, an old-fashioned clock and candles all featured prominently in this performance, depicting a traditional middle/ upper class, late nineteenth century home. Alongside this, rather than using modern styled lightbulbs, to light parts of the stage, they used electronic candles, which would adhere to their design of making the stage and set look contemporary to when the play was first performed; due to the invention of the lightbulb coming a few years after the production was first performed. Further lighting methods were used also, with stage lighting seemingly acting metaphorically as Nora’s mood and mindset. At the beginning of the production the lighting was quite bright, yet throughout the production the lights slowly became dimmer, which reflected Nora’s mindset as she became more and more unhappy with the way her husband was treating her throughout the play.

Likewise, this production was able to create a naturalistic performance through the actors’ costumes. They were able to reflect the class divide between different characters, whilst also inferring the societal norms of this period; especially when it came to the female costumes. Characters such as Nora and Christine, wore long dresses with long sleeves, which matched the societal norm of that women were not allowed to show lots of skin when this this play premiered. They were able to show the class divide effectively through the difference between Torvald and Krogstad’s attire. Torvald was dressed in a very formal suit, whereas Krogstad was dressed in fingerless gloves, a flat cap and an overcoat; providing the audience with an insight into what the social status and potential attitudes of the characters will already be even before either of them have spoken on stage.

Within this production there were four individual actors, who were performing across 6 different roles. This was possible, as Dr Rank and Krogstad are never in the same scene as one another, resulting in one actor being able to act as both roles and not cause confusion for the audience. This is likely to be influenced from ancient Greek theatre, with their productions only having a maximum of 4 actors, who all played various different roles.

The producers never had any more than 3 characters on the stage at once, which enabled for greater individualisation of each character and helped the audience understand each character and their perspective role, without being overwhelmed with an on flux of various characters at once; matching traits of naturalism ideology. In coherence with this, all casted actors used ‘everyday speech’, used an acting style that mirrors ‘ordinary life’, and avoided melodramatic acting, preventing the performance from becoming too detached from real life.

The production was also adapted for the screen for online viewers. The camera zoomed closer into certain characters alongside certain elements of the set, which would have been for the audience’s benefit. This enabled for facial expressions to be seen more clearly, as due to the performance not being melodramatic from a further distance it wouldn’t have always been physically obvious the emotions that differing characters were undergoing.

How does social status affect the identity of characters. (Act 1, pages 9-15)

During this passage, Nora and Christine have just met following Christine turning up at the Helmer’s home. Throughout this scene the identity of both characters is challenged, as they begin to reveal to each other, and the audience, their backstories. As a result this passage envelopes the antithesis of each character’s identity and moral compass, despite their proposed affinity with one another.

Nora’s identity is surmised in a plethora of variating ways, whether that’s bravery, self-orientation or her lack of emotional intelligence and empathy. Her lack of emotional empathy is likely to stem from her lack of struggle, and how she hasn’t undergone a drastic amount of hardship in her life, due to her lavish lifestyle. Alongside this, she is so hyper fixated on her social appearance and how people view her, she doesn’t tend emotionally to other people. This is evident from her rude and abrupt comments to her friend of, ‘the last eight years have been a happy time for me’, and ‘I feel so relieved and happy’, following Christine’s summary of the struggle and fortitude she has been through since they last spoke nine years ago. The vocative ‘me’, represents her self-centred nature and lack of empathy towards others. The response also indicates her lack of emotional intelligence as it presents her as brushing off what Christine has opened up to her about, and instead indicating her desire to gloat about her own life, in ignorance of other’s struggles.

Whereas this passage provides the opposite conception of Christine’s identity, as it unpicks her to be emotionally intelligent, having a great sense of solicitude and one who always puts others before herself; juxtaposing Nora. Due to her having ‘nine or ten long years’, it would convey the reason why she is so emotionally tenable to others and why she doesn’t have this self-concentrated nature; as she would understand what it’s like to undergo hardship and wouldn’t want anyone to have to face that. She has immense care for others over herself, which is evident through her marrying someone purely in order to gather money so she could look after her younger brothers following her parents’ deaths, putting herself through turmoil by doing so. Alongside this, despite her having gone through all of this, she still wants to hear about Nora’s life and not dwell on her own, once more showing her emotional intelligence.

Having these two contrasting characters identities unveiled during the same passage, heightens the differences between their retrospective mindsets to a higher degree. This juxtaposition can potentially symbolise the differences in moralities between the middle/upper class and working class of this period, concerning how the upper class withhold a lot less care and respect, in comparison to those of the lower classes. This is likely as a result of their experiences within life, potentially representing that the upper class had/ have become detached from the realities of life, leading to them neglecting those below them.