Nora oder Ein Puppenhaus [A Doll’s House]

Nora, with her sweet tooth. Nora, the squirrel. Nora, the doll in the doll’s house. The sexualized wish-fulfilment dreams of a bigoted world of men explode in Herbert Fritsch’s production into a gaudy nightmare, which makes previous incarnations of Ibsen’s classic emancipation piece seem rather old and uptight. As a giggling princess of a prima ballerina with a shock of carrot red hair the confident and sexy Oberhausen Lulu hops through a Nosferatu-like selection of blood-sucking lechers, cynics and other examples of frustrated manhood. If anyone is deserving of the much quoted label ‘post-feminist’ then it is Fritsch and his leading actress Manja Kuhl. Here a well known psychological drama is spanned across a ghost train aesthetic with merciless thoroughness: it’s horrifying, fun and wickedly bitter. A ‘Nora’ seen in the glittering light of marriage hell, a perfectly choreographed bourgeois farce of largely lifeless automatons who insist on claiming to be human.

Vasco Boenisch

Cast

Directed by / Stage Design Herbert Fritsch
Costume Design Victoria Behr
Music Otto Beatus
Dramaturgy Tilman Raabke

Manja Kuhl Nora
Nora Buzalka Mrs. Linde
Torsten Bauer Helmer
Henry Meyer Doctor Krank
Jürgen Sarkiss Lawyer Krogstad