by Jenny Madorsky The beauty of live performance is in the changes. No matter how long and hard one rehearses and prepares for a live performance, things will inevitably change once the lights go up and the audience locks in. Breaking character is no longer an option. Any discomfort, unexpected technical mishap, or personal thoughts/feelings […]
In our research for the Nora “biography,” a version of this will be in the program and on the LINK wall, Kim and I found a video project titled Nora, Leaving Torvald. This nine minute film ran at Scotiabank Nuit Blanche in Toronto in October 2010, sponsored by Laluqu Atelier Gallery and Blackcurrent Productions. The […]
The image below is from feminist and critical race theorist bell hooks (if you aren’t already, you should get familiar). It’s been making the rounds on Facebook and I share it here because it touches on the continued debate over whether Nora’s uniquely female position makes her a feminist figure and, by extension, Ibsen a […]
Blog # 1 by Caitlin O’Neill When Nora and Torvald interact, the power dynamic is startlingly disturbing. The deeply seated power plays prior to Act 3 were rather hazy to me in my first few readings of the play. However, upon watching the exchanges between the actors as they puzzle through the psyches of their […]
by Jenny Madorsky Tonight was an important rehearsal. We began by walking through Act I simply to see if we could do our lines without too many breaks. We were then asked to speed it all up to a level where it was “almost too fast.” As the scenes unfolded, I, as Nora felt myself […]
Kim’s previous post surveyed the range of (negative) critical reaction to A Doll’s House when it premiered. In the years since, the play has proven a potent story for women who struggle with gendered constraints in public and private. In the past couple of weeks, there have been a couple of news stories that have […]
My post title might be a tad misleading. I’m actually using this space to draw attention to feminism more than Ibsen, specifically, to let you know about an initiative happening this year in Duke’s Women’s Studies Program: The Future of the Feminist 70s. I’ll let them explain the impetus behind their programming: We are interested […]
by Jenny Madorsky Yesterday in Jeff’s Intro to Acting class we talked about the importance of characterization–figuring out the ins and outs of one’s character. This process includes discerning and imagining what one’s character is like based on facts from the script, as well as the things that are unmentioned. To help us through this […]