Theatre in Review: Nora (La Femme Theatre Productions/Cherry Lane Theatre)

	Jean Lichty, Larry Bull. Photo: Carol Rosegg

In the end, it's the names attached to Nora that deceive. The prospect of seeing Ingmar Bergman's take on A Doll's House may raise unreasonable expectations: Surely the greatest Scandiniavian theatre and cinema artist of the 20th century will have something insightful to say about the work of his 19th-century counterpart, won't he? Surely Bergman, whose films are marked by an almost unbearable intimacy, is equipped to give us a unique close-up view of Ibsen's masterpiece, right? And surely, Bergman, who returned to the theatre exclusively for the last part of his career, racking up a number of bold and controversial productions, is capable of creating an entirely fresh take on a masterpiece that can seem a little dusty -- otherwise, why would he bother with it?

As it happens, Nora, Bergman's adaption of A Doll's House, is little more than a cut-down version of Ibsen's script that eliminates its minor characters -- servants and children -- and lops about 40 minutes off its running time (a good half of which could be chalked up to two intermissions). Nora also removes much of the connective tissue between scenes, an approach that is aided by the fact that the director, Austin Pendleton, has the actors playing Mrs. Linde, Nora's old friend, and Krogstad, Nora's blackmailer, remain on stage throughout the play. When one encounter ends, another simply begins, without the maid coming in, announcing a visitor.

But that's really it. No translator is credited, but the dialogue is largely straightforward and speakable, except for a bizarre passage in which Nora admits to Mrs. Linde and her friend, Dr. Rank, that she would for once like to tell Torvald, her husband, to "kiss my ass." The action is basically the same: In order to save the life of the ailing Torvald, Nora forged her father's signature to obtain a loan from Krogstad in order to finance a healing trip to Italy. Now Torvald has been appointed manager of a bank and plans to fire Krogstad; the latter threatens to reveal Nora's crime if she doesn't persuade her husband to reverse the decision. The unintended effect of all this scheming to is reveal to Nora that her marriage is built on a foundation of lies.

Some oddities might equally be attributed to Pendleton's direction: Nora, who is supposed to be fending off Dr. Rank's attentions following his declaration of love for her, practically tries to seduce him, running a pair of new stockings across his face and lifting her skirt coquettishly to reveal her legs. When Nora rehearses her tarantella, to be performed at a costume party, for Torvald, she gets up on a tiny circular stage and moves in slow motion -- not really a tarantella at all; it's no wonder that Torvald says that she has forgotten everything he taught her.

Also, Torvald's late-in-the-evening attempt to claim his marital rights with Nora is oddly underplayed here. After their climactic confrontation and Torvald's insulting "forgiveness" of Nora, she waits until the next morning to walk out the door, waiting to confront Torvald in his bed. In my nomination for most gratuitous moment of the season, we have already seen Todd Gearhart, who plays Torvald, strip naked and get under the covers. It's not an uninteresting idea that Nora has a night to make her decision, but it necessitates the elimination of Nora's comment, "I cannot spend the night in a strange man's room."

None of this would matter if the cast and their director were playing Nora for keeps, but the version that emerges at the Cherry Lane is strangely underfelt. Whatever Nora is like on the surface -- girlish, giggly, manipulative -- she should be roiling with terror underneath. Debt and fraud were no small matters in late 19th-century Europe, and Nora runs the risk of a kind of exposure that could destroy her life and ruin Torvald's career; only if she faces this worst-case scenario in all its dread can her eleventh-hour decision to walk out make sense. Jean Lichty's Nora never gets near these deeper feelings -- she can be foolish, flirty, and occasionally charming in her naiveté, but this is a surface reading of the character; when asked to express her inner torment, she merely shouts, sounding more like a harridan than Ibsen's foolish doll wife. Similarly, Gearhart's Torvald is solid in the early scenes, when patronizing Nora and treating her like one more child in the house, but he doesn't rise to the occasion of their final encounter, when she does the unthinkable and abandons him. Not only are his household and sense of well-being destroyed -- when word gets out that Nora has fled, he will, in all probability, become the object of scandal. Gearhart merely seems rather put out.

There are fine contributions by Andrea Cirie, whose Mrs. Linde has been hardened by life and is appalled at what she finds in Nora's parlor; she is particularly good in the scene in which, having decided that Nora and Torvald need a bit of honesty in their marriage, she urges Krogstad not to retrieve an incriminating letter. Larry Bull's Krogstad is skilled in the art of blackmailing, putting intolerable pressure on Nora without having to raise his voice. George Morfogen, who has been a comfort to New York theatregoers lo these many years, is a fine Dr. Rank, filling the room with intimations of mortality and unrequited desire.

The production has an uncommonly handsome look for a production of this size. Harry's Feiner's set, with its dark wallpaper and ornate furnishings, is a model of period style; it looks strange at first, as it appears to be a sitting room with a bed at stage left, but this has apparently been designed to accommodate Bergman's requirement for that final confrontation between Nora and Torvald. Feiner's sensitively rendered lighting also carves out many playing spaces and achieves a cinematic fluidity. Theresa Squire's costumes are beautifully detailed, especially Nora's Italian peasant party costume. Ryan Rumery's sound design makes much of the delicate sound of wind chimes and some melancholy incidental music.

In retrospect, the idea of a vest-pocket Doll's House doesn't seem like the right approach. The two really successful productions that New York has seen in recent years have gone in the other direction. Anthony Page's 1997 Broadway revival was founded on Janet McTeer's larger-than-life Nora, who underwent a soul-shaking transformation. Carrie Cracknell's production at BAM in 2014 featured the supremely anxiety-ridden Nora of Hattie Morahan racing through the whirling rooms of Ian MacNeil's set -- a brilliant case of design supporting the play's underlying tensions. Seen close-up and cut down, we become too aware of the play's contrivances, its clockwork plotting so redolent of the age of the well-made play. In any case, for once, I didn't wonder what would happen to Nora when she walked out the door; for the first time ever, I wasn't sure I cared. -- David Barbour