A Doll House

Meet the Helmers, a couple so plagued by the looming consequences of their past crimes they can only find relief in the private fantasy world of their marriage. Coppenger’s new, commissioned translation of A Doll’s House vividly restores to the play what a Victorian translation tradition had lost: the intensity of the Helmers’ erotic investment in gendered role play, both as explicit kink, and in their everyday life. Nora and Torvald’s exhibitionist games find a rapt audience in the voyeuristic Dr. Rank; forming a triad fueled by perverse taunting, a kind of teasing torture extended to Rank’s death. Christine and Krogstad’s transgressions are conscious choices demanded by circumstances beyond their control; for them, resolution is found in an honest, equal, and accepting love for each other. In contrast, Nora and Torvald, guilty liars hiding in shared sex addiction, cannot face the consequences of their agency, or embrace each other without delusion as full and flawed humans.

The Private Theatre’s goal in this production is to make radical theatre, theatre that changes us. Doll House was a revolution in its time for daring to imagine a woman rejecting the duties of a wife and mother to try to live an authentic, independent, adult life. Coppenger’s strikingly contemporary dialogue makes the play’s critique of toxic gender roles speak clearly to our own time, when millions seek escape from the pressures of capitalism in tradwife and soft life fantasies. In this reactionary moment, our goal in this process is the ongoing artistic and feminist work of Nora’s revolution.

This site specific production of A Doll House running over the 2024/2025 Holiday season is the culmination of over a decade of workshops and  gives you intimate access to the Helmer’s living room, invites you to be part of their Christmas Eve. To live out the trails and torments of their deceit with them.