Jessica Chastain, Like Her Character, Is Trapped in This ‘Doll’s House’

Anyone wishing to behold the gorgeous, Oscar-winning actress Jessica Chastain live and in person likely won’t get a better opportunity than the one offered by a new revival of “A Doll’s House.” Not only does Ms. Chastain, who’s returning to Broadway for the first time in more than a decade, remain onstage throughout the production, but she’s present for about 20 minutes before the dialogue begins — seated in a chair on Soutra Gilmour’s bare, revolving set, silent and immobile, her face devoid of expression. For anyone even vaguely familiar with Ibsen’s classic account of a coddled, oppressed housewife, the symbolism is as loud as the despair that will eventually envelop Ms. Chastain’s iconic character, Nora Helmer, dutiful “bird” to her smug husband, Torvald, as she comes to realize she is trapped in a gilded cage.In this assiduously stripped-down production, Ms. Chastain and her British director, Jamie Lloyd — whose New York credits in recent years include a similarly spare reading of Pinter’s “Betrayal” and a stunning re-imagining of “Cyrano de Bergerac” — aim to acknowledge Nora’s own complicity in her plight, even as they emphasize her lack of agency. Indeed, this leading lady remains glued to her chair through most of the performance, and doesn’t actually stand up until the story requires it.Mr. Lloyd’s staging features a new adaptation by Obie Award winner Amy Herzog, who in her own plays has addressed women’s (and men’s) struggles and aspirations with both sharp wit and an open heart. Here the wit is very much at the fore, especially in her dialogue for Nora and Torvald; the latter, played by the stage and screen veteran Arian Moayed, not only lavishes his wife with condescending avian metaphors, but refers to her as his “little nut” and his “little lunatic.” Mr. Moayed slam-dunks these lines, and others, but his finely tuned comic dexterity is accompanied by a more disturbing quality. However cringe-inducing the actor makes Torvald’s arrogance, it’s emphasized that this accomplished lawyer and bank manager may not be as utterly lacking in self-awareness as he seems — or at least, that his cluelessness is willful, and rooted in a deep-seated fear of failure. This is as funny and as patently neurotic a Torvald as I’ve seen, but that only makes his eventual explosion seem more monstrous, and his efforts to mitigate the damage more pitiable. Ms. Chastain’s Nora is, alas, less of a revelation — and more of a piece with the overall production, which can threaten to drown its aspirations in understatement. Like the other actors, the star is costumed by Ms. Gilmour and Enver Chakartash entirely in black, in a long dress that suggests no particular style or era, though the numbers “1879,” the year of the play’s first production, inexplicably mark the set. No props are provided, and the Helmers’ three young children are heard but not seen, so that the audience cannot witness their adoring, scared mother interacting with them. Ms. Chastain has clearly been encouraged to keep her delivery soft and dry; when this Nora waxes mischievous — as Ms. Herzog’s text allows her to do, happily — she sparkles like champagne. But in more harrowing moments, the sense of repression can seem exaggerated, and the eventual letting go, ironically, a bit sentimental in contrast. The performance, and Mr. Lloyd’s direction, are more consistently effective in highlighting Nora’s yearning for autonomy, and her awareness of all she’s done to undermine it. Okieriete Onaodowan turns in a chilling performance as her conflicted blackmailer, Nils Krogstad, Torvald’s subordinate at the bank and his wife’s colleague in illegal transactions. And Ms. Chastain manages an effervescent chemistry with Michael Patrick Thornton, who plays Dr. Rank, Torvald’s ailing friend and Nora’s not-so-secret admirer.For all its superficial starkness, in fact, this “A Doll’s House” reminds us that this most famous of proto-feminist dramas is not a tragedy. The production ends with, literally, color and light — and with a figurative raised fist for all of Nora’s inheritors.

Jessica Chastain, Like Her Character, Is Trapped in This ‘Doll’s House’

Jessica Chastain, Like Her Character, Is Trapped in This ‘Doll’s House’

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