Nora rebels again in "A Doll's House"

A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen's classic, returns to Barcelona's billboard. This time, Sala Atrium has been in charge of hosting this classic piece that breaks with the model of the perfect woman-wife-mother to present us with a woman who becomes aware of herself and decides to empower herself.

A Doll's House, or how a woman rethinks and prioritizes herself

This Ibsen play is a classic in European theater. And it is that, in a totally innovative way for its time, the playwright chose to break the rules of society of the time by presenting a woman who decides to abandon her family to find herself. And this final twist, this brave and moving decision, is one of the most brilliant scenes of this version that we can now enjoy in Sala Atrium. A moment full of truth, anger, sincerity and reunion where Anna Maruny moves and encourages us.

But let's start at the beginning... In Sala Atrium's A Doll's House we find Nora preparing for Christmas Eve. She seems very happy within her imaginary world where she has created the perfect, idyllic and beautiful setting to play her role as a perfect woman, a perfect mother and a perfect doll. Torvald, her husband, admires her as if she were a relic: Nora is not seen or treated as a woman of flesh and blood, but as a very beautiful toy with whom to laugh, play and pass the time. Nothing more.

This well-assembled and organized world breaks on Christmas Eve when a decision by Nora will have its consequences. And, from here, the entire sandcastle that had been created around her life begins to sink. Nora, desperate, will try to save her world, but, in the end, she will end up accepting her destiny and that is when she will see the stage where she has acted all her life.

Good interpretations, credible, natural and energetic

The cast of A Doll's House defends their role very well. Special mention to Anna Maruny who manages to give great nuances to her interpretation: we see the doll, but we also see the desperate woman, the frightened woman and, finally, the empowered woman who decides to free herself.

During the first part of the play, this character grates on us due to her artificiality and superficiality; but, as the plot progresses, we begin to see all the faces of the kaleidoscope and we find a complete, complex woman full of contradictions.

Beautiful set design, but impractical

Kike Blanco presents us with a scenography that, halfway through the play, surprises us. The dollhouse appears before us and, behind the glass, we see Nora's life as if it were a shop window. This symbolic and aesthetically beautiful resource ends up being impractical for the course of the play.

And it is that it prevents the public from being able to see well everything that happens inside the house and that the sound of the voices is hindered by that "wall" that has been installed before us. Finally, the experiment ends up being a bit irregular. Personally, I was sitting in one of the seats closest to the wall and had to change chairs to be able to see well.

Despite this small inconvenience, the Sala Atrium's version of Casa de nines is worth seeing. Especially for the final scene where Nora takes off her mask and makes us vibrate with an awakening and a truth that shakes our soul.