The intrusion of her old friend Kristine (Jesmille Darbouze) and the vengeful Krogstad (Okieriete Onaodowan) mixes things up, of course, but only as much as this production of lifeless gray and whispered lines will allow.īoth actors have forceful presences, but are scarily clinical here - Terminators searching for Nora, instead of Sarah Connor. The story, therefore, stays even-keeled with a slow-and-steady pace, like an animatronic ride called “It’s A Doll’s World After All.” Nora’s marriage to Torvald, a proud banker, comes across as immediately doomed and loveless, because Chastain’s Nora is especially aloof and Moayed, while charismatic, plays the hubby as a contemporary jerk out of a Judd Apatow movie. Before the play starts, Chastain rotates around the stage for several minutes. Rather, we get an all-around mood of resignation. There is hardly any suspense or sense of surprise.
But that instant self-awareness introduces another problem: the production jumps the gun on the ending. The pre-show spin cycle is surely a shout-out to Nora’s climactic famous early-feminist speech in which she comes to the realization she has merely been “performing tricks” for her husband Torvald (Arian Moayed), who views his wife and the mother of his children as little more than a flesh-and-blood ornament.
The actress almost never leaves her seat for the entire 100 minutes. Photo credit: Emilio MadridĪs the audience shuffles into its seats at the Hudson Theatre, they gawk and snap pictures of Chastain sitting silently in a chair - Marina Abramović style - while a turntable rotates the A-lister around. Jessica Chastain stays mostly seated while she plays Nora Helmer in “A Doll’s House” on Broadway. Want to see “A Doll’s House” on Broadway? Grab tickets here. All things considered, it’s a lot of high-minded ideas that never cohere into a riveting whole.Įven before the play starts, a Nordic chill settles over Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s classic 1879 tale of Nora Helmer, a repressed housewife with a destructive secret. The cast speaks softly into body mikes, which gives the play an NPR calmness. The set of wooden seats is dimly lit by eye-straining fluorescents. Instead, everybody here wears drab, metropolitan black clothes. If only the actors donned colorful blue medical scrubs. 44th St.ĭespite an absorbing performance from the “ Eyes of Tammy Faye” actress, British director Jamie Lloyd’s staging is as sterile as an operating room.
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