A Doll's House: Drama Classics

Nora Helmer, wife to Torvald and mother of three children, appears to enjoy living the life of a pampered, indulged child. But as her economic dependence becomes brutally clear, Nora's acceptance of the status quo undergoes a profound change. To the horror of the bewildered Torvald, himself caught in the tight web of a conservative society which de

Henrik Johan Ibsen was a Norwegian writer and theatre director who lived from 20 March 1828 to 23 May 1906. He is credited with helping to build modernism in theatre. His best-known works are Rosmersholm, The Master Builder, Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, When We Dead Awaken, Emperor and Galilean, and A Doll's House. In Skien, Norway, Henrik Johan Ibsen was born into a wealthy merchant family. His forefathers were mostly wealthy city merchants and shipowners or members of the Upper Telemark "aristocracy of officials." Ibsen quit school when he was fifteen. Henrik Wergeland and Peter Christen Asbjrnsen and Jrgen Moe's Norwegian folktales served as inspiration for him. Under the alias "Brynjolf Bjarme," he published his first play, Catilina (1850), but it was never staged. He would only make a few trips to Norway during the following 27 years, spending most of them in Germany and Italy.After suffering many strokes, Ibsen passed away at his house at Arbins gade 1 in Kristiania (now Oslo) in March 1900. He was laid to rest at Oslo's Vr Frelsers Gravlund, often known as "The Graveyard of Our Savior." Ibsen exclaimed "On the contrary" ("Tvertimod!") as his final words before passing away.

Simon Stephens's agile new version [is] . . . quick and clear and full of subtle touches
A sensible, sensitive and spirited version . . . that chimes with the debt-laden times we're trapped in and poses still-pressing questions
The supple new version of the text by Simon Stephens is [a] great plus point . . . in this definitive take on a classic
An astute, often savagely funny version by Simon Stephens . . . And as the doll at the play's heart and hearth cracks like porcelain and the woman emerges, it's with a force that's shattering.
Simon Stephens's new English-language version of the text . . . makes the characters' anxieties feel contemporary despite the period dress. "Feminism" may not have been in Ibsen's vocabulary, but he was undoubtedly concerned with the roles we all play and why.