The Istoriaphile’s Corner

For most people believe plays are just another form of entertainment. An audience goes to a theatre and pays for the actors to entertain them. If the performance is acceptable, the company is praised with applause.  That’s a fairly simple transaction but it’s also a limiting one.  Theatre, great theatre does more than make people happy, it makes them think.  This would upset the audiences who only want to be entertained, if many of them hadn’t learned to watch a play while ignoring what it has to say.  Then, a play like Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” appears with meaning that can’t be ignored and the world turns upside down. The world of Europe in the 1800’s could safely be described as belonging to men.  Males held most of the money and power and almost all of the “good” jobs. (Even a monarch like Queen Victoria had substantially limited power.) Women were expected to be decorative, passive guests in mens’ lives. Enter Nora Helmer, a little woman with a big, serious secret.  Years ago when her father was ill and her husband close to death, she took matters in her own hands. She illegally borrowed the money needed to heal her…