On April 20 at the Veterans Affairs Memorial Theatre, ETSU put on a production of Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House.”
This play is about a woman, Nora Helmer, who goes behind her husband’s back to borrow money for a trip that ends up saving his life.
Unwilling to divulge this information to her proud husband, Torvald, for fear of the damage it will do to their marriage, Nora ends up at the mercy of the man from whom she borrowed the money, Nils Krogstad.
She sees the danger she is in when Torvald fires Krogstad. Torvald’s explosive condemnation of her when he discovers her actions makes her realize his narrow-mindedness and the extent to which his self-image depends on his superiority to and control over her.
She also realizes how immature she is, after having been sheltered both by Torvald and her father all her life, and she realizes that the only way she can grow is by leaving her husband.
Aubry Shaver, the actress who played Nora, did a wonderful job of portraying her as she was early on in the play. The whiny voice she used perfectly captured Nora’s silly, childlike character, and I loved the way she stroked Torvald, played by C. Glen Williams, as she flattered him to get what she wanted.
Although she had much more influence over Torvald than he realized, she was so afraid of losing his love that she couldn’t even say “bloody hell” to her friends without stuffing a macaroon into her mouth to muffle the words.
However, not only does Nora change by the end of the story, but there is more to her than her silly, immature exterior, as we see by the initiative she took to save her husband’s life.
There wasn’t much evidence of that in Shaver’s performance. There was some evidence of it – as the play progressed toward its end, we could see Shaver becoming quieter and more introspective as her character absorbed the import of what was happening, but Shaver used the same whiny voice she always used when she said she had “31 hours to live,” and at other moments, when it seemed to me that other facets of Nora’s personality ought to have been more apparent.
When I read the play beforehand, I pictured Nora totally transformed by the end of the play from a little girl in an adult’s body to a serious, mature young woman.
Shaver’s performance caused me to re-evaluate that perception. The anger that she showed at the end seemed justifiable for a woman in Nora’s position, but it was a pouty, childish sort of anger.
At first this didn’t seem right to me, but after thinking about it more I could see that a person can’t change as much in such a short amount of time as I had pictured Nora changing. After that, I could see that the way that Shaver did the final scene was appropriate.
I also re-evaluated my view of Williams’ performance as Torvald after some consideration. At first, I was disappointed that Williams wasn’t angrier in the scene when Shaver told him she was leaving.
On the one hand, more anger in that scene would have made for a more satisfying climax after the signs that Williams had already shown us of Torvald’s violent streak.
However, a case could be made that Torvald is the kind of man who uses violence to keep people he perceives as weak under his control, but is easily intimidated by the first serious challenge to his authority. That seems to be how Williams interpreted Torvald’s character.
My favorite scene in the play was between Kristine Linde (Elizabeth Choate) and Nils Krogstad (Everett Tarlton), with whom Linde had had a romantic history.
I was impressed by how well Choate showed Linde’s pain as she remembered what it had cost her to leave Krogstad, and how well Tarlton showed Krogstad’s confusion and later his happiness when Choate proposed marriage.
In general, the whole cast did a wonderful job.

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