Certain things in my life bring me fear: rejection, spiders, and actors who garnered fame through films taking on the stage. So when it was announced that Jessica Chastain, the 2021 winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress, would take on the main character role of Nole in the Henrik Ibsen classic A Doll’s House on Broadway, I started to fear. As someone who loved the play, the last thing I wanted is someone to undersize the vast range of emotions that Nora faces throughout the play.
However, I could not be more wrong. Throughout the play, the range of emotions Chastian explores is riveting. The play revolves around Nora who takes out a loan to save the life of her husband — which, at the extremely patriarchal time in which the play takes place — was seen as despicable. First, Chastain portrays herself as the main character Nora, a girl who is interested in the minute, and perhaps hedonistic, details in life. She talks about her excitement over her husband’s promotion, or expresses her longing for caviar as she glosses over what she has done.
As Torvald (played by Arian Moayed) expresses his love of Nora because of her innocence, he continues to bash Krogstad, a worker, for his dishonesty and fraudulence. He continues to say how dishonest people are a bad influence on children. The morose nature of that statement only heightens once we hear the young voices of their children, and even more once we understand that Torvald sees Nora strictly as a caretaker for her children.
Krogstad is the only one who knows of Nora’s action, and he threatens her that if he gets fired, he will tell Torvald what he has done. After he gets fired, Chastain displays her skill to panic on stage through crying and moving aimlessly.
The play arrives at its highly-acclaimed ending when Nora lectures Torvald on how her sole duty is not to just be an innocent caretaker. Once she realizes that she cannot live with a man so deluded by sexism, she leaves her home. Director Jamie Llyod ends the play by having Chastain leave through a hidden door at the end of the stage, and once Chastain chooses to leave, the door opens to Times Square, which in a way can resemble the parallels of the patriarchal world Ibsen depicted of in the 19th century and that of today.
What impressed me the most about A Doll’s House was Chastain’s ability to be in a vulnerable state of panic that one can only experience in their private life. Through theater, Chastain portrays the panic attack in a vivid and innovative way that will live on in the minds of audiences for years after.