The creativity and depth of A Dolls House is one to not make assumptions about. The director and designer of this play that was put on by Almeida Theatre, was deep and required the viewers to look deeper than the surface of someone’s personality and life.
Nora, the main character in this play, is portrayed as a lonely housewife who hides her insecurities and expectations by money and materialistic items. The director puts Nora into a narrative that many women feel under their husband as well as the pressures and expectations of society. For example, she purchases Christmas gifts the family cannot afford, though she knows her family is in debt and cannot afford these things until the deal goes through in January. However, she uses her Amex to purchase the children Christmas gifts putting her and her family further into debt without the blink of an eye.
Nora’s coverup personality is to hide her anxieties about her husband’s drug addiction and her performance she puts on for Torvald. She does this due to her feelings of pressures from other people and societies norms. Her entire personality is not genuine and Nora is only living for others for status and likability.
Status is the front that she puts up to accommodate from the pressures of the modern world. She is trapped under this false reality and act that she puts on for others to please their idea of her. Each person she interacts with during the play gets a different side and version of Nora. Thus giving her the persona of a “caged bird”. She cannot escape the pressures of the outside world and the expectations set for her. Her performative personality ends up being the thing that breaks her and leads to her troubles.
The design of how the play was also conducted in was fantastic. The set appeared to be cold and empty, only to be filled with materialistic items which furthered her characters depth. The costume choices such as the skimpy nurse outfit Nora wears is part of the performative side of her. You can feel how the theatre is uncomfortable with this seen as is Nora as a character. Yet, she is still dancing for her husband as to please him which is another action she takes for others not herself.
The “caged bird” in this play is Nora. She is put into this cage by social norms, pressures, and expectations of others. These outside factors push her into this cage where she performs for others, thus filling a false reality for herself and those around her.
Theatre in London U of A 