Chastain stars in A DOLL'S HOUSE On Broadway - Reviews & News Thread — Page 6

All So Ozmopolitan said: ""How do you see her walk out? Is it a camera/projection? Or is the stage door just visible?"

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT:

There is no camera/projection (like Ivo van Hove might have done). Instead, a square panel on stage right slowly raises the same way a garage door would to reveal the sidewalk of 45th Street. I'm thinking this might be the Hudson's loading dock? She crosses upstage, walks onto the sidewalk, pauses, looks around, and walks away as the panel slowly lowers back down. A black car is also seen - presumably trying to block off spectators from the audience's view. A recent video circulating on the internet shows Chastain immediately running back through a different door once the panel is closed to return to the stage for bows.

The common problem with this staging seems to be that folks seated in house left can't see the panel at all. So they see Chastain walking upstage and the crowd starts cheering, but one third of the audience is left wondering what on earth is happening... Fortunately, this wasn't my personal experience as I knew ahead of time to sit center / house right, but it's still disheartening to hear."

Where does one see this video?

chrishuyen said: "So I'm familiar with the story of A Doll's House but I've never actually read it. Would you recommend reading the "standard" translation (if there is one?) before going to see this version? Like how different is it?"

I also went into the play without having read the standard translation, but vaguely knowing the story, and I was fine - I loved it! I looked up the standard translation afterwards, because I wanted to know what they'd changed in this version, and I think the new translation is vastly superior to the previous translations. It doesn't change any of the substantive ideas in the text beyond making it much more accessible (making sentences more clear by using more concise language, etc.). So I don't think you need to read the standard translation to like this piece, and in fact I think the standard translation might have made me a bit more wary going into the piece, expecting the language would be very old time-y or inaccessible, which it wasn't.

They celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Jamie Lloyd Company at the performance last night- James McAvoy came out at curtain call to give a little speech, and then handed out posters to everyone on the way out (they were the regular Doll’s House posters with stickers on them noting the anniversary). They also had a private reception after the show for the company/donors.

I don't think we can point to one particular show and say that's where Nora's exit is cribbed from. The stage door / loading dock exit has been in vogue for years now. The last production of The Glass Menagerie utilized it very effectively. I didn't see Network but I was under the impression there was a similar exit in that production as well.

I won't comment on this production as I won't be able to see it, but I agree that this concept style is also very "in" right now. A View From the Bridge and Menagerie were on Broadway when I was living in NYC and it was very much coded as "edgy, underground theatre" except there's nothing really edgy or underground about it at all, so it often comes across as pretentious. That said, when something is good, it's good and I loved Menagerie.

I was in K 104 of house left, and saw about half of the exit. It was enough to fully appreciate the impact.

I'll just add, it's a great moment because it's accomplished without bombast that might call undue attention to the effect. It's performed with precision but appropriate speed, bringing the show to a satisfying close. I marveled over its integration with the whole design as much as the gasp-inducing audacity. For such a departure, it's an organic concept that meshes with the look of the show, i.e. partly stylized (turntable), partly Our Town theatrical deconstruction (painted Hudson walls). It's a wow because it doesn't announce itself in a showy way.

Updated On: 3/2/23 at 09:58 AM

here's my partner's assessment:

"This play is kind of irritating, tbh. Everyone had their head up their ass, and it was just two hours of talking around each other without actually communicating anything until the very end, when at least one of the characters awakens and rectifies the aforementioned head/ass situation. The whole thing could probably have been shaved down to 20 minutes. Jessica Chastain was good but most everyone else pretty much just whispered the whole time. The whole thing was very subsumed. I only stop short of saying that I want those two hours back because I can now finally say that I’ve seen an Ibsen piece."



andrewsmash said: "I went last night (got a ticket from TDF - sat in the Dress Circle C2 and even then felt it was a little bit too far away). I knew there was no intermission from all the signage and ushers but I didn't realize it would still be roughly 2 hours long. I realize it would be hard to have a point where intermission feels appropriate but dang - that was long. There were people who got up before the show ended.

I'm curious for other people who went, how was the audience? I felt there were beats in the show where the audience wasn't picking up on the correct intended emotion. There were laughs in parts I thought felt weird to laugh. People were laughing pretty loud at the ~very end moment~ and it was so weird to me. Did anyone else experience this?

I thought Jessica was great and so were the other cast members. Glad I paid a TDF price though and not the full price tickets they're going for. I think I would have felt more disappointed."

The night I saw the show you could hear a pin drop. There were giggles but the ones I am used to. The ones born of discomfort when audience members get anxious or tense.


Moayad’s petulant child interpretation at times did get laughs and he might have gone to far with it but it is previews. The cast may shift delivery based on audience reactions.


I agree that Thornton is incredibly touching as the Doctor. I hope he is remembered during awards season.

I did generally like this production. But. The lighting. This is the absolute coldest lighting I have ever seen on Broadway. The bluest fluorescents pointed directly in the actor’s faces. It washes out their expressions and frankly makes it hard to see and appreciate the acting. Anyone in the mezz or balcony, bring some glasses with blue light filters and I think it will genuinely improve your experience.

I don't have any plans to see this, but I will say Jessica's exit at the end out of the theater is VERY cool.

Auggie27 said: “….Her ebbing confidence seemed to trigger a segue to more literal use of Ibsen's words; by the end, she had nothing to rely on but naked truth-speaking. It struck me as Herzog's design rather than an inconsistency."

I think that’s exactly right, but for me the “more literal use of Ibsen’s words” made Nora sound like a daytime talkshow guest explaining how she came to write her best-selling self empowerment book.

I just feel like this trend of minimal and subdued is...not theatrical at all?

This production is in every way theatrical.

Lloyd's central idea -- I won't spoil the more provocative elements -- is positioning Nora as a stationary fixed point, the sole means of audience access; even serving as the de facto unreliable narrator, if only via staging rather than textual confession. If it shorthands Ibsen's world-building, which has always demanded audience omniscience -- what Marsha Norman describes as witnesses acting as judge and jury -- Lloyd makes Nora's niche prism ours. From the preshow to that ending. If it restricts some of the expanding peripheral drama, it tethers us to a protagonist's point of view in unexpected ways. We lean forward to watch the plot quite literally swirl around her.

Though stripped down designs and absence of era and geographic verisimilitude are getting more attention, I see it as radical in the best sense: pushing the text forward without turning the sociopolitical content into agitprop. It's still just thrilling storytelling, and as the world closes in and Nora confronts her own self-destruction as a viable solution, the rewards are palpable. Chastain, emotionally opaque, rises to the occasion memorably.

The fact that so much of the audience misses that final moment is absolutely absurd and infuriating.

I tend to enjoy Jamie Lloyd generally, but what the hell? How are you going to stage a moment like that out of the line of sight for 1/3 of the audience?! Wild.

Updated On: 3/7/23 at 11:45 PM