A Doll’s House Broadway Review: Jessica Chastain Finds Home in Deep Minimalist Revival

At more than a few points during Jamie Lloyd’s hypnotic Broadway revival of Ibsen A dollhouseyou could swear by the stars Jessica Chastain and successorsays Arian Moayed trust in you and whisper their secrets to no one else. This gruff, at times cold production is an eavesdropper’s paradise, so intimate and chatty that all but the most wary of us will be immune to its frequent lures.

Maybe “most guarded” isn’t fair. There are others who might be able to resist the show’s languid pleas. Any aversion to minimalism or even the vague avant-garde could fuel disappointment in this production. There are no period costumes here, no 19th century local furniture or Christmas trees in sight. The dollhouseopening tonight at the Hudson Theater is both suggestion and action, our main character sitting in a chair for most of the play, even as she dances.

But anyone willing to succumb to the sly charm and stealthy magic of this dark, brooding production will find a unique Broadway experience, a clever and captivating experiment in the power of the voice that transports us to places far and wide. transported deep into man. Psyche.

Much credit for this allure goes to playwright Amy Herzog, whose adaptation of the 1879 marriage story has just enough contemporary twists—our protagonist Nora is delighted at the prospect of acquiring “tons of cash”—without the emotional weight or power of more traditionally made translations.

In addition to Jamie Lloyd’s demanding direction, Herzog’s adaptation also poses the question: when does a door not slam a door? This revival finds the perfect answer.

Chastain sits on Soutra Gilmour’s sparse, unfurnished – save for a chair or two – and rather foreboding, her exquisite beauty enhanced by a stunning lighting design (courtesy of Jon Clark) reminiscent of those classic Hollywood George Hurrell portraits, in one of those even squares before the actual game starts. As the circular center of the stage slowly rotates, an empty, seated Chastain is taken along, her Nora from every angle, a manifestation of the metaphorical pedestal on which the character is so famous.

Nora is, of course, the wife of the domineering Torvald (Moayed, playing Stewy slyly) successor). Torvald is a walking, talking example of what we would now call gaslighting, using the expression of love and adoration to express his trophy wife – a crude modern term that author Herzog would never deign to use – both under his Wave your hand as well as to show it off.

Nora’s initial willingness to stay where her husband wants her is crucial to the development of the plot, and Chastain plays her beautifully, her facial expressions and inflections conveying just the tiniest hint of a deep dissatisfaction.

So first this plot: takes place in Norway at the time of Ibsen, A dollhouse features – literally and figuratively – Nora Helmer, an outwardly happy and seemingly “perfect” wife of aspiring bank manager Torvald, whose new job comes with a hefty salary and impressive profile. After years of financial struggle and hardship, the Helmers see their dreams of safety and comfort on the horizon – it’s Christmas time and a promising New Year is approaching.

But Nora is not all that she appears to be (she is actually much more). For one, she has a secret that, if known, could destroy Torvald’s budding career and seemingly happy family life (the Helmers have two young children who are heard but not seen in this production).

We discover the secret early on when Nora – Chastain in that chair, facing the audience for most of the play – reveals it to her visiting childhood friend, Kristine (Jesmille Darbouze), to secure the money needed for a recently dated doctor prescribed order needed family leave to recover from Torvald’s illness, she borrowed money from a loan shark whose main job is at the bank where Torvald stands up and Torvald if he knew both would be shocked and angry. How angry at the end of the marriage.

And all would be well if an ignorant Torvald hadn’t just fired the Staff Shark (Okieriete Onaodowan) who now wanders around the Helmer cottage with visions of blackmail in his mind.

As Nora’s world begins to crumble around her, she is pushed against a wall of despair so great that suicide seems the only solution. She imagines the black, icy depths of the river in a way that is both terrifying and strangely liberating given the narrowness of her life.

Considering the play was written in 1879, spoiler warnings hardly seem necessary, but just in case, spoiler alert. She doesn’t.

When Torvald instead reads the blackmailer’s letter and reacts with the expected indignation and reproach, Nora experiences freedom of a very different kind, which only comes with the revelation of the truth. Recognizing both her own dissatisfaction and the damning restrictions placed on women in society – her only alternative to borrowing that money illegally was to see her husband die – Nora leaves her husband and children, which is shocking at the time of the play (and, at least for the kids, still pretty heartbreaking today).

Theater tradition literally slams the door on his old life in his final act of liberation, an iconic stage moment impossible to achieve on the Hudson Theatre’s bare stage, so director Lloyd and set designer Gilmour must come up with an alternative. Coup for Nora’s departure, and it’s a beauty. Sorry, no real spoilers this time.

The excellent cast – including Tasha Lawrence as nanny Anne-Marie and Michael Patrick Thornton as doomed, dr. Rang – is dressed in black and moves gracefully (or sometimes Is moving, on this revolving floor) on stage like so many chess pieces (Jennifer Rias is the piece’s choreographer; the pounding ambient music by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto sets the unsettling mood). Whether you’re looking at the audience, the back wall, or somewhere in between, each position suggests something larger about each character’s relationship to the others. Only once, late in the play, do Nora and Torvald sit side by side, their physical closeness reflecting a breakthrough in openness, if not romance.

Honesty is too little, too late for this marriage, though, and Nora’s self-actualization will seem a little too abrupt if you haven’t studied Chastain’s facial expressions. Her face reflects Nora’s range of emotions, from nervous, forced satisfaction to a waning confidence that her physical beauty will see her through anything. We watch Nora evolve (or transition) from the smug superiority she proclaims over her broken, widowed friend Kristine, to the panic of an outlaw caught in her own deception, and finally to the terrifying, exhilarating release of freedom ) when there is nothing left. to lose

If anything, Chastain is an equal to Moayed, whose Mr. Helmer is only slightly less sinister than the sexist creep Torvalds we saw earlier. His suffocating condescension boils slowly, but it boils and finally erupts into a womanizing woman who shatters the production’s calm with surprising force.

Darbouze as Nora’s friend conveys compassion even as she sees through her old friend’s self-deception, while Onaodowan as loan shark Krogstad gradually and subtly reveals a depth we didn’t expect. So does Lawrence as nanny Anne-Marie, her own past contains her share of secrets and heartbreak.

Perhaps best of all is Thornton, whose terminally ill Dr. Rank – suffering from a lifelong illness inherited from a syphilitic father – cannot hide an abiding, if inevitably soul-killing, love for the married Nora. It is through his eyes and devotion that we best understand Nora’s magic. Whether the two very devoted friends are talking or not, their love – platonic for one, romantic for the other – rings truer than anything else in Nora’s marriage farce.

To make matters even clearer, Chastain and Thornton seem to modulate their voices – deep sonorous and hauntingly drowsy – to match each other, and their candid conversations take on an almost narcotic tone of quiet intimacy. Their bond, as Ibsen, Herzog and Lloyd would like us to know, is just another missed opportunity for an honest life, another path that could have been walked but not taken. Admitting defeat to the past requires the strength to slam more than a door or two, even if the slam is no louder than the horrified gasp of an audience.