Theatre Studies – A Doll’s House

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With reference to some of the issues in A Doll’s House, what advice would you give to an actor preparing to play the role of either Torvald or Nora?

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It is appropriate to apply Stanislavski’s ideas on preparation and research to A Doll’s House as the play is a realistic piece of work. The plot is based around feminism in 1879. The husband and wife, Torvald and Nora are trapped within their “doll’s house” as Nora weaves a web of deceit. The theme of what is socially acceptable at this time is also important as the line between what is acceptable and what is not, is crossed on more than one occasion. The figure of Nora is a challenging part for an actor, approaching the year 2000, as the current liberties that seem standard to women must be discarded and the actor must fully understand the implications Nora’s exit had, not only on stage, but in the auditorium too. There are the different personalities of Nora to encompass: romantic, realistic, deceptive, loving and practical.

When advising an actor on how to play the role of Nora, I would start by exploring the text. Ibsen often provides detailed stage directions and the importance of them must be found. For example, when Nora jumps up and claps her hands, she is revealing the younger, more frivolous side of her nature. From the text, the actor can determine the given circumstances for Nora. She is married, with children, her father died before he could approve a loan for Nora and Mrs Linde was a school friend. Going into much more detail than this allows the actor to justify their actions and emotions, both external and internal. Much of the history of the characters is unveiled through retrospective conversations. To become comfortable with this method of revealing a past, I would advise actors to spend time talking together about their childhoods, or recounting an event the week before in detail.

The units and objectives are an important element to identify. They break the text up into manageable chunks on which to work and the aims of Nora become clearer. The recognition of a unit depends on the individual actor, but they often represent a change of view, location, topic or so on. Identifying the objective within the unit for not only Nora, but other characters such as Rank and Mrs Linde too, leads to a fuller understanding of the motives of each person. The objectives can be used as a guide to the super-objective. Each objective is one step on the way to fulfilling the super-objective. For Nora this could be keeping Krogstad from drawing Torvald into the news about the loan, which she ultimately fails to do. It could be making a happier life for herself. Thinking along these lines enables the actor to identify the various themes and issues in the play and judge their impact and role.

To become more familiar with Nora, I would show the actor how to work off the text, using their knowledge of the character to improvise scenes with other members of the cast. Hot-seating the actor establishes the character and facts of the role and the quick thinking involved places the actor more firmly in the shoes of the character. To almost literally become the character is important. Using emotion memory would enable a realistic performance, but Stanislavski later abandoned this idea, so it should be treated with caution if performances become prone to being too self involved. Nora’s main emotions could be said to be childish joy, despair, sexual provocativeness and determination. In order to portray these emotions effectively, I would advise the actor to think back to a time when they experienced these actual emotions. For example, when Krogstad enters when Nora is alone, she is frightened and worried. The actor could use an experience such as waking up from a nightmare or being frightened by a noise in the dark late at night. It is simply a matter of applying the emotion to the situation. As Krogstad begins to threaten Nora, she tries her best to retaliate, reinforcing her own position, not only as the wife of Torvald, but as an individual too, “One isn’t without influence. Just because one’s a woman.” This defiance is vital in showing how Nora has broken down the expectations of society and is standing up for herself. Once again emotion memory plays a part in truly experiencing this empowering emotion, yet still feeling afraid because Nora feels that Krogstad has another trick up his sleeve.

The use of Stanislavski’s magic “if” familiarises the actor even further with the issues of the play and the limitations and strengths of the character. If Nora were to open the door to find Krogstad there, she would be frightened. If she were to open the door to find Krogstad there, when her children were in the room, she would have to cover her alarm. The exercise can be taken to more extreme levels. The cast could explore their characters by presenting each other with situations such as turning round to find a secret admirer offering a bunch of flowers or opening the door to a salesman. It is essential to familiarise yourself fully with the character to be at home in the unfamiliar surroundings of a society where women and men are not equal.

I would encourage the use of basic drama games such as “Liar” to enable the actor to become more at home with the ambivalent nature of Nora. This basic game requires someone to mime an action in the middle of a circle of their peers. The next person asks them what they are doing and is told an obvious lie. This action is then mimed by the person posing the question, and so the game progresses. I would use this game, not as a vital part of preparation, but as a simple and fun way of enabling the actor to see the quick thinking behind Nora’s lies. With such a variety of emotions and façades, Nora’s character changes quickly to suit her company. Her inner and outer tempos would reveal a great deal about how she is feeling. I would ask the actor to take a selection of her lines and clap the rhythm to which she thinks they should be spoken. She should note how this would affect the delivery of the lines. A more psychological approach should then be taken. The same exercise should be repeated, looking at the subtext of the lines, or the inner thoughts of the character. The extent to which they differ would tell the actor a great deal about Nora’s conflicting emotions, or how she is becoming more truthful and aware of her own situation. It would also pay to be aware of the other characters’ subtexts. When Nora and Mrs Linde meet for the first time for years, their conversation is stilted, but it is easy to see a subtext. “You’re paler, Kristine, thinner” says Nora, possibly meaning “You look terrible, how you’ve aged!” or a more sympathetic “Look what time has done to you, you can’t be well.” Mrs Linde replies “Older”, possibly meaning “Yes I know what you mean. Trust you to notice the bad bits about me first.”

There are many times in the text where Nora talks to herself about what she is feeling. In order to make this technical device more effective in terms of showing her isolation within a group consisting of her family and friends, I would show the actor how to develop her circle of attention. This would increase her focus on the stage. A circle could be large enough to encompass the nurse and the children, or small enough only to contain Nora while she has only herself, physically and mentally, for company.

The animal imagery used by Ibsen reveals the duplicitous nature of Nora in a more symbolic way. An actor should be aware of the differences between “my little songbird piping away” and “my little squirrel rustling”. The way that Nora behaves externally should match her inner truth. I would advise an actor to take part in an exercise where they were given an inner thought that they had to reveal through movements while improvising or reading a contrasting scene from the play. This would acclimatise them to revealing inner thoughts while speaking different lines. I believe that the physicality of the role of Nora is vital as it reveals much about her. To become more at ease with the part, I would advise the actor to note the different movements and tempos of the character and how they change. For example, she is happy and childlike at the beginning of the play. However, at the end, she symbolically says “No more fancy dress” from then on, she is serious and determined to do the best for not only herself, but others too. It is a metaphor not only for her physical being, but for her mental being too and this must be appreciated.

The pitch of her voice would play a part in developing the role, along with her movements and reactions to others. A fundamental element of A Doll’s House is its realism. With Stanislavski’s rejection of melodramatic gesture, the emotions of Nora would be much more implicit. I would advise heightened observation on the part of the actor. Watching people in public places would not only improve observational skills, but it would also provide a mine of information about movement and gesture in the real world. Every action should have a purpose, it should be justified. This echoes the point made about understanding the implications of the given stage directions.

In order to become more familiar with the society of the 19th century and the new idea of feminism, I would tell the actor to fully research the time in which the play is set. Not only the society, but fashion, ethics, manners, expectations of children and so on. The role of a woman in marriage and society are issues in the play and in order to fully understand Nora, the actor must see that her own circumstances are completely different in the 20th century. She has freedom, whereas Nora is trapped. She has the opportunity to be an equal in a domestic partnership, but Nora was controlled by Torvald; she often had to use her feminine wiles to achieve her own aims. The research into the society of the 19th century and Ibsen’s ideas behind the text also play an important part in deciding the physical image of Nora. I believe that she would begin the production happy, carefree and lively, growing progressively more determined, yet worried and frightened.

I would advise an actor approaching the role of Nora to do thorough work on the text to explore the different issues arising from it. Not only is there a time difference, but society has changed as a whole. The actor should become comfortable with the change of expectations and limitations. Using off text devices such as improvisation, emotion memory and the magic “if” allow the actor to explore the character of Nora further and be able to face and react to any given situation. I would also stress the point that the actor should involve herself with exercises including the whole cast because, although Nora is often isolated through her actions, or simply because she is different from the person she appears to be, (with whom others are involved), she must understand others’ motivations and actions.

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