THE 1041C Theater Reviews

The BPAC once again. I set my goal while walking down the steps to stay alert for the small details of body language and the flow of the play without props. Before the A Doll’s House began, there were 4 actors on stage with Script Holders. The audience were told that the original play runs for two and a half hours, and the BPAC team has successfully decreased the action to 55 minutes. With this in mind, the invisible curtains rose and the performance began.

The first thing that caught my eye was the facial expressions of Nora and Torvold. Both actors were successful in adding their own personal emotion to the expressions based on the script. The addition of the script holders being on a stand and the actors reading from the script was surprisingly pleasing. The way the actors moved on the stage and used the little room to add feeling and emotion helped the audience feel that the stands were not there. In my opinion, the actors successfully brought in human emotion onto the plain stage.

The beginning of the play included Nora’s character, played by Antoinette LaVechhia, who had to pull off a childish woman who is in a fantasy world packed with money. I loved LaVechbia’s use of body language and sporadic jumps and yelps to express her character’s flaws. I give props to the director who had to work with such a dull stage, I mean the plain light wood color alone makes the audience automatically sleep. A character I did not relate to was Christine. A woman who did not put her heart into the role of the character played Christine. Also, many times it was difficult to actually hear her! I found this very aggravating. I liked how the director sat on a stool on the right side of the stage (stage-right), and acted as multiple minor characters (including the sitter, messenger, and other characters).

As the play was reaching to an end, I was happy because at one point I was feeling the mixed vibes of the audience regarding the lackluster mood and at another point I felt part of the action between Nora’s dilemma. It was influential upon the audience to see how the 19th century mindset infused itself in a home. With the difficult task of getting the audience’s attention at the BPAC and the lack of props, I think A Doll’s House was successful in revealing Ibsen’s points about 19th century culture.