A house heavy with the weight of artifice

Perhaps the central difficulty in this weekend's production of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House rests in the choice to play the text as recommended by its title. A doll house is a contrived space, a theater in miniature. The child's hands arrange the representational figures into stylized scenes of human interaction. Though one need not present every Ibsen play as a study in naturalism, this A Doll House never seems to break from its strictures of fabrication, construction and imitation.

Admittedly, the metaphor of life as theater and representation runs throughout the play. While this theme receives clever and informed attention, the opposing ideas of freedom, truth, and unmasking are rarely accorded similar treatment. If the mannered style of performance is never placed next to its naturalistic counterpoint, it loses its purpose. The artificial and restrained then begs to be looked upon as organic and free. During three acts and two and a half hours, the masquerade goes nearly unabated.

The play opens with the return home of Nora Helmer (Jenny Reddall, MC '97), a spirit much less free than she first appears. Laden with Christmas packages and a small tree, she bursts joyfully into her cream and gilt living room, munching a macaroon and swishing her skirts. But the subterfuge begins with the play's opening line. Nora instructs her maid, "Hide the tree well, Helene. The children mustn't get a glimpse of it till this evening after it's trimmed." As soon as the tree has disappeared from view, the approach of Nora's husband, Torvald (Chad Fitzgerald, SM '98), occasions the concealing of the macaroons; Torvald discourages sweets.

Torvald then engages in a litany of adorable epithets for his wife: lark, squirrel, songbird, spendthrift, dove, featherhead, goose, child, darling, scatterbrains. These endearments, at once dehumanizing, patronizing, and affectionately-meant, serve to cloak Nora's identity. Is she the giddy, twittering girl of her husband's imagination or the smart, strong woman she claims to be?

The arrival of a childhood friend, Mrs. Linde (Meg Brooker, TC '98), throws these questions into sharp relief. As the women catch up and one-up each other about the sacrifices each has made in her life, Nora proudly reveals an act of trickery and dissimulation she committed in the past. Her pride and self-satisfaction at her own "business sense" and ability to "manage" further obscure her character. She's too bubbly to lend credibility to her assertions of her insight and common sense. Her conduct in the later acts only emphasizes these dilemmas.

Though Redall's Nora does suffer the sea change at the play's end, it does not ring as true as it might. Her abrupt shift in character seems merely to be highlighting another facet rather than suggesting a stripping away of pretenses and veils. Instead of demonstrating truth and newfound strength, Nora's last act only emphasizes the emptiness which Torvald, Mrs. Linde, the sinister Krogstad, and the ailing Dr. Rank all speak of earlier in the play. Even the famous slamming-of-the-door sounds muffled.

That said, this production of A Doll House is by no means poor; it merely lacks the commitment to counterpoise which could take it to a higher, more truthful level. The actors negotiate the material with admirable intelligence, but a certain stiffness remains throughout. While director Owen Hughes, SM '95, succeeds in creating interesting inter-character relationships, some of his blocking choices further the artificiality rather than chipping away at it. Silliman Dramatic Attic can certainly be a confounding space in which to work, but the logistical difficulties do not explain why Brooker's Linde must sit with her back to the audience for extended periods or why characters often look out into space rather than at each other.

These problematic stagings and choreographed movements do not prevent the actors from shining in individual moments, but they do seem to cancel the possibility of any consistently excellent performances. Redall is nearly always strong when coyly manipulating, Brooker sometimes shows the depth of hurt and longing beneath her hard-boiled facade, and Fitzgerald's take on Torvald's discomfiting masculinity and sexuality lends spark to the third act. When he says, "I wouldn't be a man if this feminine helplessness didn't make you twice as attractive to me," the audience responds with a full chorus of groans and laughs. In today's political/intellectual climate, A Doll House's tale of a woman sloughing off burdens and finding herself is no longer the proto-feminist shocker it must once have been.

It is still, however, a beautifully structured three-act play. Furthermore, the sight of a character removing her masks to find the undisguised self beneath will always be interesting to watch. The ensemble and its director do a fine job playing within the bounds of their doll house, but they might fare better were they bold enough to overstep its thresholds.