Joanie Schultz refines and revisits A DOLL’S HOUSE for Everyman
For anyone who’s been required to sit through a production of Henrik Ibsen’s now-iconic domestic drama, A Doll’s House, or maybe been assigned to read it for a class, and found it either cumbersomely lengthy or maybe a little unbalanced in its sympathies, well your time has come.
Until September 28th, Baltimore’s Everyman Theatre is performing the canonical classic in a brisker, breezier version than you’ve ever experienced, adapted and directed by Joanie Schultz. Clocking in at just 95 minutes (no intermission), Schultz aims to keep audiences fully immersed in the play’s central dilemma right along with the characters and get you out of there in under two hours–all while keeping the essential elements of the original.
Along with thinning out some of the play’s antiquated verbal underbrush, Schultz returned to earlier drafts that the playwright crafted as part of his initial project to challenge and balance audience sympathies–before he was compelled to exaggerate character flaws to compensate for the prevailing, overwhelming bias and misogyny of his day.
Hear what director & adapter Joanie Schultz has to say about all this when she spoke with me this week:
And you can read more about the process and results, and acquire tickets to see for yourself, at https://everymantheatre.org/event/a-dolls-house/
