A Doll’s House, a play by Henrik Ibsen, is currently on Broadway. The cast includes Jessica Chastain as Nora Helmer and Arian Moayed (from Succession) as her husband, Torvald. The play tells the story of the implosion of their marriage. The minimalist and timeless set allows for greater focus on the script, which is adapted by Amy Herzog.
The story goes like this: Unbeknownst to her husband, Nora Helmer forges her father’s signature to borrow money to pay for Torvald’s recovery from a serious illness. The man she borrows from, Nils Krogstad, an employee of her husband, realizes Nora’s deception and threatens to reveal the truth unless she persuades her husband not to fire him. Nora tries, but Torvald thinks her childish and ignorant. Krogstad tells Torvald everything in a letter. In his anger, Torvald says that Nora is an unfit wife and mother who will continue to live in the house for appearance’s sake. In a second letter, Krogstad expresses regret for having threatened them and returns the evidence. Calmer now, Torvald forgives Nora, but Nora isn’t interested. She decides there and then to leave him and their children.
When the play was first written in 1879, Ibsen was pressured into writing an alternative ending (one he deemed a “barbaric outrage”) because early critics had felt it unrealistic that Nora would abandon her husband and children. This dispute wasn’t so much ideological as dramaturgical.
Though a writer may have whatever ending he prefers, I think those early critics had a point.
Torvald is clueless and condescending in part because Nora keeps important information from him. It’s true that he disappoints her in her time of need and doesn’t reciprocate Nora’s sacrifices. Perhaps he doesn’t truly love her as he ought to. But she has her faults, too.
While their combined shortcomings create hurt and unpleasantness, what’s baffling about Nora’s decision to leave is that she reaches it immediately after communicating her dissatisfaction for the first time. For all his faults, Tovald is capable of tenderness and forgiveness. In the final scene, he is humbled, showing a willingness to listen and an eagerness to reconcile. Their marriage does not seem beyond repair. Moreover, they have three children.
But, of course, Nora’s staying would make for a less dramatic ending. And in this production, it wouldn’t allow for Jessica Chastain’s epic exit — walking through the backstage door and out onto Broadway.
As the performance came to an end, I felt that Nora’s greatest chance at happiness would have been in her working through her marital woes and lovingly raising her children. I got the sense that the New York City audience disagreed.