Nora
(Photo © Arno Declair)
Similar signs won't likely be posted anywhere as a result of Berlin director Thomas Ostermeier's skirmish with Ibsen's century-old text, known in Germany as Nora. Still, ticket buyers who are eager to keep abreast of the latest avant-garde shenanigans on the Continent may leave BAM's Harvey Theater heatedly arguing the merits of what they've seen as well as what they've heard. (The decibel level of the production is frequently ear-splitting.) This despite the 36-year-old Ostermeier's having said in at least one interview, "In Germany I'm considered a very conventional, even conservative director."
I know what he means. From some perspectives, Ostermeier is conventional and conservative. He tries hard to stun the complacent bourgeoisie with his Nora innovations, yet all of the rambunctious activity has a "been there, done that" quality. This includes the new ending, which calls for Nora Helmer to wave a gun where Ibsen has her merely slam the front door as she leaves her domineering husband. In terms of reconstituted Ibsen, we've been there and done that as recently as the Mabou Mines Doll's House last season and Ivo van Hove's recently closed Hedda Gabler.
Ostermeier's updated specifics for the production from Berlin's Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz involve, firstly, Jan Pappelbaum's Bauhaus set. Two of Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona chairs and a Mies footstool sit prominently downstage; a huge aquarium, populated at one end by real fish, rivets the eye a bit farther upstage. The multi-level, generously appointed domicile, featuring a living-room runway, is extremely elaborate and even shifts frequently to lend the hyperactive carryings-on a cinematic flair. It's a contemporary enough arena in which the upscale Helmers and friends can cavort -- yet, when you think about it, the Bauhaus look is something you might have seen in any home anytime during the past 70 years. To some extent, the revolving set is a metaphor for something that's intended to look ultra-modern but isn't.
In this environ -- which Nora (the kinetic, game Anne Tismer) calls a "Barbie house" even though Barbie has slammed a few doors herself -- she's initially Ibsen's docile wife and mother, his (ugh!) "little rabbit." But when she realizes that she could be revealed to her cellphone-happy hubby Torvald (the properly scornful Jörg Hartmann) as a forger indebted to the conniving Krogstad (Kay Bartholomäus Schulze, with steam coming out of both ears), she quickly reaches the point of a nervous breakdown. Before long, she's dancing the hootchie-coo in front of those assembled and climbing into the aquarium to wet herself down before hiking her skirt and inserting it into her panties. (The outfit that costume designer Almut Eppinger gives her to wear about the house is of the trendy midriff-baring variety.) When the time comes for Nora to attend a costume party, she gets herself up in gun-moll garb, complete with caked blood. According to the press materials, she's going as Lara Croft!
Of everyone else populating the Helmer household, shouting and laughing with circus-clown boisterousness, only Nora's old friend Mrs. Linde (Jenny Schily) maintains her calm. The others -- and this includes the kiddies (Milena Bühring, Constantin Fischer, Robin Meisner) -- behave as if their inhibitions have long since evaporated. There's an early toy gun battle that music designer Lars Eidinger makes especially raucous with heavy metal rock tapes; the fracas is intended to foreshadow Nora's later gun toting. (Annie Lennox, another of our age's angst emblems, eventually is heard singing "Don't Ask Me Why.") The men are especially frisky. Torvald, who's increasingly disturbed, also takes a fully clothed bath in the handy aquarium and is positively giddy when he learns that Krogstad is retracting his threats. Both Krogstad and Dr. Rank (the nicely scary Lars Eidinger), who's evidently dying of AIDS and wears angel's togs for the party, attack Nora as they clumse near the white Barcelona chairs. Oddly enough, although family members often eavesdrop, no one comes to Nora's aid when Krogstad loudly attempts to rape her.