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NEW YORK — As Jessica Chastain circles the stage perched on a wooden chair, the audience sees her from all perspectives, much like you would circle a doll’s house to take a look at all the rooms.
That permeable quality is a hallmark of director Jamie Lloyd’s flawless revival of A Doll’s House. Chairs and a turntable are actually the entire staging that Lloyd offers. The lack of theatrical flourishes speaks volumes: or rather, it’s Henrik Ibsen’s words, faithfully ‘recast’ by Amy Herzog, adding a few choice epithets that are given overarching priority. To achieve this, sound designers Ben and Max Ringham outfit the actors with head mics so sensitive we hear every syllable, every gasp.
Which is important because we want to savor every line. As Nora Helmer, Chastain often spins in this chair onstage during performances — she’s even there when the audience enters the Hudson Theater, where the show officially opened Thursday night. Dressed like all the characters in chic, dark colors by Soutra Gilmour and Enver Chakartash – as if they were guests at a dinner party in a SoHo loft – Nora seems perpetually on display. She is a wife and mother whom her domineering husband Torvald, played by Arian Moayed, calls his “songbird”. A suffocating caged bird at that.
If you’re expecting Ibsen with petticoats and silver service, you’ve come to the wrong place. What you get instead is an ensemble exhilaratingly grappling with lyrics that revolutionized the way people thought about marriage and the limitations it placed on women more than a century ago. Even now, the game snaps as fresh as a clothesline in a chill wind. You can also clearly feel the connection between Ibsen’s time and ours. Chastain doesn’t wear a corset, but her Nora still wears a straitjacket.
“As simple and economical as a statue,” Norwegian author Alexander Kielland wrote of the screenplay after it was published in December 1879. Lloyd, who brought a flaming “Cyrano” to New York with James McAvoy last season, seems to have taken the comment to heart. The parsimony of physicality and the statuesque placement of the actors are at times reminiscent of a production steeped in stylish minimalism. Far more often, however, you are overwhelmed by the attention given to conflict resolution and character exploration.
A Doll’s House is almost as much about money as it is freedom. Nora’s altruistic request for a loan from Nils Krogstad (played by ‘Hamilton’ star Okieriete Onaodowan, here’s a revelation) serves to save her husband’s life. But she has circumvented laws restricting what transactions women are allowed to do, and the consequences are too much for her image-obsessed banker husband. The magnetic Moayed, a stage veteran perhaps best known as Stewy Hosseini on HBO’s “Succession,” infuses Torvald with a fearsome rage that bubbles slowly like molten lava; He’s a civilized volcano, but not a dormant one, as we see.
Around the artificial wall of decency that Torvald insists on, the other characters of A Doll’s House tiptoe, most notably Nora’s old friend Kristine Linde (Jesmille Darbouze) and Torvald’s ailing sidekick Dr. Rank (Michael Patrick Thornton). Darbouze and Thornton provide excellent performances as keen observers of the tensions in Helmer’s household and the domestic pressures that are eroding Nora’s self-esteem. As Anne-Marie, the nanny who raised Nora and now cares for Nora’s three children, Tasha Lawrence is also a lively character who struggles to hide her sadness at having left her own child to take care of Nora to work.
Lloyd makes Chastain the guiding star in this constellation. Observing Nora at length, we find that Torvald’s infantilizing characterization had not flattered her at all. The suspicion arises that her famous escape in the final seconds of the drama – cleverly done here – is by no means an impulsive act. In Chastain’s stunningly fine-tuned performance, the march to self-discovery picks up momentum scene after scene throughout the evening.
The role completes an intriguing pairing for Chastain with the only other Broadway role she has played: that of Catherine Sloper in a 2012 revival of The Heiress. At the end of this play, Catherine closes the front door on the man, who is after her money. In “A Doll’s House,” Nora walks out the front door, leaving behind the man who guaranteed her material comforts.
The notion that women understand their own power and resist being controlled (and worse) by men remains remarkably relevant. Witness the critical success of “Women Talking,” a film about a community of religious women who have long suffered physical abuse from their husbands and vote to pick up their children and just leave. One imagines them attending this play and being strengthened by the bravery of their sister Nora.
A dollhouse, by Henrik Ibsen, in a new version by Amy Herzog. Directed by Jamie Lloyd. Set, Sotra Gilmour; costumes, Gilmour and Enver Chakartash; Lighting, Jon Clark; Ton, Ben and Max Ringham; Music, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto. About 1 hour 50 minutes. Until June 10 at the Hudson Theater, 141 W. 44th St., New York. adollshousebroadway.com.
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