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Nora : A Doll's House: (New Edition)
'You've lies in the whites of your eyes, Nora. What have you done…?'
Nora is the perfect wife and mother. She is dutiful, beautiful and everything is always in its right place. But when a secret from her past comes back to haunt her, her life rapidly unravels. Over the course of three days, Nora must fight to protect herself and her family or risk losing everything.
Henrik Ibsen's brutal portrayal of womanhood caused outrage when it was first performed in 1879. This bold new version by Stef Smith reframes the drama in three different time periods. The fight for women's suffrage, the Swinging Sixties and the modern day intertwine in this urgent, poetic play that asks how far have we really come in the past hundred years?
Nora : A Doll's House was first produced by the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, in 2019, at Tramway, Glasgow. It was revived at the Young Vic, London, in February 2020.
It is a finalist for the 2020 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, awarded annually to celebrate women who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre.
'Stef Smith's excellent adaptation... a provocation infused with Ibsen's radical spirit' - Guardian
'A beautiful and explosively significant piece of theatre' - Scotsman
Nora is the perfect wife and mother. She is dutiful, beautiful and everything is always in its right place. But when a secret from her past comes back to haunt her, her life rapidly unravels. Over the course of three days, Nora must fight to protect herself and her family or risk losing everything.
Henrik Ibsen's brutal portrayal of womanhood caused outrage when it was first performed in 1879. This bold new version by Stef Smith reframes the drama in three different time periods. The fight for women's suffrage, the Swinging Sixties and the modern day intertwine in this urgent, poetic play that asks how far have we really come in the past hundred years?
Nora : A Doll's House was first produced by the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, in 2019, at Tramway, Glasgow. It was revived at the Young Vic, London, in February 2020.
It is a finalist for the 2020 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, awarded annually to celebrate women who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre.
'Stef Smith's excellent adaptation... a provocation infused with Ibsen's radical spirit' - Guardian
'A beautiful and explosively significant piece of theatre' - Scotsman
131 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 13, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
May 25, 2023
3.9 stars, rounded up
Guys... this is important.
✨✨✨✨Max's theatre reviews ✨✨✨✨
Welcome to the inaugural review of ✨max's theatre reviews✨, where I find the scripts of shows that I have seen and review them, part critique of the text and part critique of the show that was put on. As such, this review will concern details specific to the production which I gave gone and seen, as produced by my school. With that being said, let's begin.
Nora as a play is adapted from the play A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, which follows the Helmer family, Nora at its head, as they and a peripheral cast navigate a scandal where Nora illegally borrowed money to save her husband and doesn't want to reveal it to her family for fear of it crumbling the façade of a happy family that she has worked so hard to maintain. Naturally, this adaptation retains many of the strong feminist messages that the initial text had, and handles them deftly. In fact, messaging and calls to action in this text are one of its very strong points: in addition to the great feminist message, this text more effectively explores sexuality, abortion and other current issues that could only be executed with such a modern play.
This adaptation's big gimmick was the splitting of the story over 3 distinct timelines: the 20's, which was the original decade for the show, the 60's, and the 2010's. Here is where a lot of my critique of the text comes in, as I'm not sure that this gimmick was really warranted. Throughout the play, lines are lifted directly from the original text a load of times, and are only modified slightly to fit the theme of three periods every now and then, which admittedly was satisfying in order to show the differences between standards for women over the years. Otherwise, there wasn't any deviation from the original sequence of events, which left me confused as to whether this splitting of timelines was really justified.
It felt as if perhaps the playwright was looking to adapt a doll's house but felt they needed something more to add on, so they tacked this on retroactively. I understand the want to explore more modern issues in the context of this text, but then why not drop the 60's aspect (despite the fact that the 60's storyline with the pills, credit cards and lesbians was my favourite in writing)? Plus, even the modern addition felt somewhat contrived, as the dialogue between the years felt almost homogenous: there was barely anything distinguishing the written dialogue for the modern couple from the other time periods, except for swear words once or twice. Especially the Nora asides, where everyone was talking very poetically, I could not have told you which Nora was saying what.
I think that maybe this concept could have been saved with some creative staging, but that brings me to the performance I watched itself. The biggest issue I had was the recycling of the set from Pride and Prejudice. I understand the want to save money, but when you have a concept such as this with the three time periods, so much more could have been done! Especially when the well known production of the base text had such a fantastic set, I was expecting so much more from this show! Following lovely bones, as the year 11 production last year, even more pressure was on this show to pull out something really cool, monopolizing on the distinction between these 3 eras, but I was thoroughly disappointed.
However, in other ways, this cohort brought much needed life to the text. The dance number at the beginning, a trademark of this cohort, was sublime. Truly, it brought this show to life, and being led by a duet from two exceedingly talented dancers elevated it even higher. It was such a creative way to set tone for the show, and left me begging for more, which I did get in some way. Following an awkwardly timed intermission, it reopened act two with a fuckton of energy and some really cool audience bits that tore me to shreds, as did the 3rd and final dance i.e the Tarantella dance, which was important to the show but was criminally cut short. The choreography was easily one of my favourite parts of this show, and I adore whoever put it together.
Furthermore, with a lacking set and a very dialogue heavy script, this show was truly left in the hands of the performers, and they really carried the show on their backs. The three Noras were flawlessly cast, and although a couple were somewhat tense at the beginning of the show, by the end I was thoroughly sold. The big Nora "leaving monologue" was truly fantastic, with emotion coming in lots of different ways across the cast. There was a moment from the 60's Nora in this scene that gave me goosebumps, but truly each one was very impressive. The 20's Nora perhaps had the most difficult job to complete given that there was a precedent for her character from the initial script. However, this actor fucking excelled here, with ups and downs in her performance which I was enthralled by, from the hilarious sugar gimmick to her stoic self-assured moments to her frantic and hysterical begging to Thomas; I was very impressed.
Acting across from Nora must have been a challenge, but each of the Thomasses did well in their own different ways. 20's Thomas was attention grabbing, hilarious and fantastically portrayed, while 60's Thomas was sleazy and uncomfortable and played to a tee. 2018 Thomas opened the show fantastically and almost had me rooting for their relationship, and played a drunk dude really well. The supporting cast was also fantastic, with a spotlight on 60's Christine, whose micro expressions and general acting blew me away and pushed me over the edge when saying that the 60's was probably my favourite era execution-wise, although that's hard to say when I consider how interesting and enthralling of a dynamic the 20's couple had and how truly transcendent that opening duet from the 2018 couple was.
Despite the fact that I did have critiques, it's important to say that I did really enjoy this production and I thought the cohort did really well. There's a lot that I didn't mention and I should commend the whole cast for putting this together and following the behemoth that was Pride and Prejudice (a review of which is coming soon) in a very different - apart from set - and really enjoyable way. Good job everyone, though I doubt anyone has read this far into the review.
Also someone tell me why 2018 Nora couldn't put her shoes on I'm truly interested.
Guys... this is important.
✨✨✨✨Max's theatre reviews ✨✨✨✨
Welcome to the inaugural review of ✨max's theatre reviews✨, where I find the scripts of shows that I have seen and review them, part critique of the text and part critique of the show that was put on. As such, this review will concern details specific to the production which I gave gone and seen, as produced by my school. With that being said, let's begin.
Nora as a play is adapted from the play A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, which follows the Helmer family, Nora at its head, as they and a peripheral cast navigate a scandal where Nora illegally borrowed money to save her husband and doesn't want to reveal it to her family for fear of it crumbling the façade of a happy family that she has worked so hard to maintain. Naturally, this adaptation retains many of the strong feminist messages that the initial text had, and handles them deftly. In fact, messaging and calls to action in this text are one of its very strong points: in addition to the great feminist message, this text more effectively explores sexuality, abortion and other current issues that could only be executed with such a modern play.
This adaptation's big gimmick was the splitting of the story over 3 distinct timelines: the 20's, which was the original decade for the show, the 60's, and the 2010's. Here is where a lot of my critique of the text comes in, as I'm not sure that this gimmick was really warranted. Throughout the play, lines are lifted directly from the original text a load of times, and are only modified slightly to fit the theme of three periods every now and then, which admittedly was satisfying in order to show the differences between standards for women over the years. Otherwise, there wasn't any deviation from the original sequence of events, which left me confused as to whether this splitting of timelines was really justified.
It felt as if perhaps the playwright was looking to adapt a doll's house but felt they needed something more to add on, so they tacked this on retroactively. I understand the want to explore more modern issues in the context of this text, but then why not drop the 60's aspect (despite the fact that the 60's storyline with the pills, credit cards and lesbians was my favourite in writing)? Plus, even the modern addition felt somewhat contrived, as the dialogue between the years felt almost homogenous: there was barely anything distinguishing the written dialogue for the modern couple from the other time periods, except for swear words once or twice. Especially the Nora asides, where everyone was talking very poetically, I could not have told you which Nora was saying what.
I think that maybe this concept could have been saved with some creative staging, but that brings me to the performance I watched itself. The biggest issue I had was the recycling of the set from Pride and Prejudice. I understand the want to save money, but when you have a concept such as this with the three time periods, so much more could have been done! Especially when the well known production of the base text had such a fantastic set, I was expecting so much more from this show! Following lovely bones, as the year 11 production last year, even more pressure was on this show to pull out something really cool, monopolizing on the distinction between these 3 eras, but I was thoroughly disappointed.
However, in other ways, this cohort brought much needed life to the text. The dance number at the beginning, a trademark of this cohort, was sublime. Truly, it brought this show to life, and being led by a duet from two exceedingly talented dancers elevated it even higher. It was such a creative way to set tone for the show, and left me begging for more, which I did get in some way. Following an awkwardly timed intermission, it reopened act two with a fuckton of energy and some really cool audience bits that tore me to shreds, as did the 3rd and final dance i.e the Tarantella dance, which was important to the show but was criminally cut short. The choreography was easily one of my favourite parts of this show, and I adore whoever put it together.
Furthermore, with a lacking set and a very dialogue heavy script, this show was truly left in the hands of the performers, and they really carried the show on their backs. The three Noras were flawlessly cast, and although a couple were somewhat tense at the beginning of the show, by the end I was thoroughly sold. The big Nora "leaving monologue" was truly fantastic, with emotion coming in lots of different ways across the cast. There was a moment from the 60's Nora in this scene that gave me goosebumps, but truly each one was very impressive. The 20's Nora perhaps had the most difficult job to complete given that there was a precedent for her character from the initial script. However, this actor fucking excelled here, with ups and downs in her performance which I was enthralled by, from the hilarious sugar gimmick to her stoic self-assured moments to her frantic and hysterical begging to Thomas; I was very impressed.
Acting across from Nora must have been a challenge, but each of the Thomasses did well in their own different ways. 20's Thomas was attention grabbing, hilarious and fantastically portrayed, while 60's Thomas was sleazy and uncomfortable and played to a tee. 2018 Thomas opened the show fantastically and almost had me rooting for their relationship, and played a drunk dude really well. The supporting cast was also fantastic, with a spotlight on 60's Christine, whose micro expressions and general acting blew me away and pushed me over the edge when saying that the 60's was probably my favourite era execution-wise, although that's hard to say when I consider how interesting and enthralling of a dynamic the 20's couple had and how truly transcendent that opening duet from the 2018 couple was.
Despite the fact that I did have critiques, it's important to say that I did really enjoy this production and I thought the cohort did really well. There's a lot that I didn't mention and I should commend the whole cast for putting this together and following the behemoth that was Pride and Prejudice (a review of which is coming soon) in a very different - apart from set - and really enjoyable way. Good job everyone, though I doubt anyone has read this far into the review.
Also someone tell me why 2018 Nora couldn't put her shoes on I'm truly interested.
March 27, 2021
I read a LOT of reviews of this play - like, probably all of them- and only one of them ever so briefly mentioned the queer Christine storyline which is a damn shame cause it's the best part of this play. Absolutely didn't expect the representation to be as explicit as it is.
I think Smith did a good job of creating a Nora in 1918, 1968, and 2018 simultaneously, and selecting the appropriate chunks of text to correspond with each one. It's certainly interesting, and I like the different ideas it brings to the table. Sometimes it's difficult to read with all three switching and changing lines, but plays are meant to be watched, so I won't fault the script for that.
The dialogue can be clunky and unnatural in bits, but I will forgive it entirely for this exchange:
I'll be thinking about that for weeks.
I think Smith did a good job of creating a Nora in 1918, 1968, and 2018 simultaneously, and selecting the appropriate chunks of text to correspond with each one. It's certainly interesting, and I like the different ideas it brings to the table. Sometimes it's difficult to read with all three switching and changing lines, but plays are meant to be watched, so I won't fault the script for that.
The dialogue can be clunky and unnatural in bits, but I will forgive it entirely for this exchange:
CHRISTINE 2: But what...what if love...what if I love you?
Silence.
NORA 2: But what if love is not enough?
What if - sometimes - love is not enough?
I'll be thinking about that for weeks.
December 7, 2025
deadbeatmotherism as perhaps the ultimate feminist praxis
July 1, 2023
im behind on my reading goal alright
May 29, 2023
i liked this better than the original and i cried twice
January 8, 2025
Amazing. Absolutely amazing. I didn’t think Ibsen’s Doll’s House could be improved and I’m so happy to be wrong. This was a modern retelling with three seperate narratives that was incredible to read!
March 6, 2022
'A woman walks out of her home and she just ...'
Powerful! A great adaption of Ibsen's A Doll's House.
Powerful! A great adaption of Ibsen's A Doll's House.
October 9, 2022
never thought i'd ever have to see the word skylark again in my life but here we are
November 12, 2023
for school
April 20, 2025
clever dissection of A Dolls House, although the era specific references would probably feel less crowbarred in on stage than they do on paper
April 21, 2024
About: a feminist play - a spinoff of ibsens ‘a dolls house’ modernised with three timelines running through and three different Nora’s each the same age in the same house with her husband and three kids. 1918, 1968, 2018. It shows how things have changed but how in many ways we are still trapped in the same problems.
Opinion: LOVED it, a beautifully nuanced feminist piece. Highlights the lack of change throughout time - well not lack of but there's much more work to be done. I love that there 3 timelines it’s so interesting to see what changed between the times and how each Nora acts differently and can do more or less of things. So easy to read and so fun to pull apart the script too. I’d love to direct this show.
My explanation and review of this doesn’t do it justice but it’s great.
Opinion: LOVED it, a beautifully nuanced feminist piece. Highlights the lack of change throughout time - well not lack of but there's much more work to be done. I love that there 3 timelines it’s so interesting to see what changed between the times and how each Nora acts differently and can do more or less of things. So easy to read and so fun to pull apart the script too. I’d love to direct this show.
My explanation and review of this doesn’t do it justice but it’s great.
December 2, 2025
The shifting between the characters was done so seamlessly. It’s fascinating how this play was able to jump time periods yet still keep a linear storyline.
September 30, 2023
Captivating read. The dynamics of the world, worlds, Smith takes us through is unique and playful and theatre. The story is slightly duller than the premise, but I haven’t read Ibsen’s original so perhaps that was simply something that couldn’t be changed. The chorus-like dialogue sweeps you through time and emotion.
EDIT: Since reading the original, the changes to the plot aside from the timey wimey bits are excellent additions that enhance Ibsen’s original message. Clearly the underlying point of this play has remained relevant throughout the ages. And the tenacity of women is constant.
EDIT: Since reading the original, the changes to the plot aside from the timey wimey bits are excellent additions that enhance Ibsen’s original message. Clearly the underlying point of this play has remained relevant throughout the ages. And the tenacity of women is constant.
November 14, 2024
i really enjoyed reading this play. it's beautiful, unique, and heartbreaking. the only thing that took me out of the reading experience was that i kept having to double back and recheck that I was associating the correct things with the correct noras. regardless, it was gorgeous and worth the confusion! i also expect that this issue will be smoothed over in witnessing the production of it.
i read this for an audition, and the character i was most captured by was christine 2. i was so delighted to be cast for that same role, and i am overwhelmingly excited to get to perform such an interesting role in such a beautiful play!!
i read this for an audition, and the character i was most captured by was christine 2. i was so delighted to be cast for that same role, and i am overwhelmingly excited to get to perform such an interesting role in such a beautiful play!!
May 29, 2022
Motivational. Smiths adaptation on a Ibsen’s original Dolls House is a classic spun through a modern, feminist lends.
As the title segments, the play focuses on Nora- one of the protagonists from Ibsen’s Dolls House. The play is broken into three time frame- modern (2018), yesterday (1968) and historic (1918). Each time period reflecting a significant moment for female history: Women getting the vote (1918), abortion and contraception pills legalised (1968) and the rise of the ‘Me Too’ movement (2018).
We watch/read how a women of each time navigates her chalenges- we see how in a world where so much has supposedly progressed for women, it looks as though nothing has changed at all.
The play tackles themes of intersectionality, motherhood, marriage, LGBTQ+ relationships, and finding independence in self.
It’s poignant yet inspiring, clever and rich in possibility’s to be staged.
As the title segments, the play focuses on Nora- one of the protagonists from Ibsen’s Dolls House. The play is broken into three time frame- modern (2018), yesterday (1968) and historic (1918). Each time period reflecting a significant moment for female history: Women getting the vote (1918), abortion and contraception pills legalised (1968) and the rise of the ‘Me Too’ movement (2018).
We watch/read how a women of each time navigates her chalenges- we see how in a world where so much has supposedly progressed for women, it looks as though nothing has changed at all.
The play tackles themes of intersectionality, motherhood, marriage, LGBTQ+ relationships, and finding independence in self.
It’s poignant yet inspiring, clever and rich in possibility’s to be staged.
May 24, 2020
It is interesting how Ibsen showed an abnormal situation , i really was surprised at the end of the stroy !
November 5, 2020
I was so hurt by this play 😭
December 31, 2025
3.5 stars
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews