A Doll's House @ BAM

I searched for a thread, so I apologize if someone already started one. I got to see this new production over the weekend and have mixed thoughts about it.

Hattie Morahan is an out of this world Nora, and it's hard not to recommend seeing this just for her performance. This is the type of diva turn that makes you want to prostrate yourself at her feet and worship the goddess that she is. And yes, we all know that final scene is a knockout, but the entire through line of her performance is wonderfully executed. If only the rest of the cast and production were at her level...

As much as I like A Doll's House, Torvald isn't the most well-written character; Nora is so shaded and layered and her husband is practically a cartoon villain. Dominic Rowan tries to make him as sympathetic as possible and by the end I actually believed he wanted to change for Nora, but the role is what it is.

The actors playing Dr. Rank and Krogstad gave middle of the road performances. Kristine was fine, but all three of them seemed to slow down the momentum of play rather than keep pushing Nora closer to action.

The set is on a turntable and spins around a lot, ha. The transitions are pretty cool and the director has some nice tricks up his sleeve, but when the run time is 2 hours and 45 minutes I began to wish he would just get on with it!

The costumes and lighting were first rate.

I'm glad I went, and even happier that my TDF seats weren't in those wretched balcony bar stool seats. Still, I wish I had been able to become more emotionally invested than admiring the leading lady on an intellectual level.

---

I have sat in those balcony seats too many times and I just can't take it anymore! They truly are some of most uncomfortable seats in New York.

I'll be interested to see what you saw about this Torvald then, Henrik.

Something that didn't help with the pacing was that the director placed the intermission between the second and third acts rather than the first and second acts. By the time Nora had her second meeting with Krogstag it was like, "We get it, we get it! Now let us all go to the bathroom already!!"

I love A Doll's House too, and accept that it is a long play, but that makes the issue of pacing all the more important.

On another note, you really have to ask yourself what the fvck Grossman, Prince, Comden and Green were thinking when they put together A Doll's Life. NO ONE is asking what happened after the door slammed. Sure some of the score is good, but talk about a musical that didn't need to exist.

---

Carlos there might be a misread here. A Doll's House is playing at BAM. The flop musical that asks the question what happens to Nora after the final curtain of A Doll's House is, as you probably know, called A Doll's Life. but that's not what's showing at BAM; I doubt very much it ever will be.

Has anyone tried to musicalize A Doll's House? Hedda? Maybe his works might make better operas than musicals, but Nora and Hedda seem like they could "sing."

---

"On another note, you really have to ask yourself what the fvck Grossman, Prince, Comden and Green were thinking when they put together A Doll's Life. NO ONE is asking what happened after the door slammed. Sure some of the score is good, but talk about a musical that didn't need to exist."

My husband was the assistant casting director (working for Joanna Merlin) for A DOLL'S LIFE. I don't know about Grossman, but Comden and Green had reached a point in their careers where their names didn't automatically sell a new musical. I believe they did the show because Prince wanted to do it and his name insured it would be produced. (In scenes such as the opera parody you can see the librettists trying to cram in the sort of thing they did best.)

Having read the script (I stage-managed some of the understudy auditions), I assumed it would be fixed in California, but the show that returned to NYC was essentially the same as the disaster we had read on the page.

Nobody involved seemed to grasp the excruciating incongruity of Ibsen's naturalism colliding with musical comedy. The meeting made the former seem overwrought and the latter seem cartoonish.

***

On another note, I'm so glad the title confusion was resolved. For a while I was baffled by why Whizzer and henrik liked the musical. I now see they meant Ibsen's amazing play.

Are all the seats in the "Gallery" (balcony) bar-stool seats, or only certain rows/locations? I cannot tell from the seating map.

Ah well, I hate to say it (not!) but you're right on all counts. Even the spelling (and I thought I had been careful not to add the h...).

Updated On: 2/26/14 at 03:17 PM

The gallery seats are the worst, they're barstools with a back and arms and the seats have very little cushion. My back is killing me and its only intermission! But on my way in I saw Ben Brantley with the actress who played Aunt Corine in the Urban Cowboy movie.

This production of A Dolls House is fantastic, Hattie Morahan nailed Nora and I've never really liked the character but Hattie manages to make her maybe not likeable but you sort of feel for her by the end, I do agree Torval is the hardest character to pull off but Dominic Rowan did a good job,

Brantley is ecstatic.
...by the end of the London-born Young Vic production of “A Doll’s House,” Ibsen’s watershed drama of 1879, my nerves were ground meat. “I can’t breathe,” said my date for the evening as we were heading back to Manhattan in a taxi. I don’t think either of us expected to get much sleep that night. But when theater is this exciting, it’s well worth a little insomnia.
A Caged Wife, Desperately Spinning Her Wheel

Hattie Morahan is top drawer. A very fine actress. She is wonderful as Nora, worth a visit alone to see Hattie Morahan

I don't know if a Broadway transfer is possible, but I imagine whatever seats were remain for the rest of the BAM run will quickly be snapped up in the wake of that review. Glad I bought a ticket for the final performance last week before the review was published.

---

Didn't roundabout transfer 'Brief Encounter' from BAM?