Today's session we went through 'A Doll's House', a play by Hendrik Ibsen, 1879. We were devising a scene in Act one using the props and space. 'A Doll's house' portrays the power and dominion of husband over women, how women are perceived in households, and also the society and homes of a Norwegian life. The idea of feminism comes into play. Nora seems to be the 'ideal' wife at home and succumbs to her husband. However, later in the play, she realised that she was just a 'toy', or perhaps a 'doll' of her father and Helmer and claimed that she has not fulfill any of her dreams. Helmer called her names such as 'Little song bird' or 'little squirrel' and made no attempts to treat her with mutual respect. She started to fight back and left the house eventually to become an independent woman.
Description of play
Three act play on a realistic story in a Norwegian family. Consists of Nora (wife), Torvald Helmer (Husband/ lawyer), Dr Rank, Nils Krogstad (Barrister), Mrs Linde, Helmer's three small children, Anna Maria (nurse), Housemaid and potter.
Basically, it is about Nora who illegally borrowed money from Krogstad using her father's name. It was kept secret from Helmer. Nora told Mrs Linde, who has some relationship ties with Krogstad, about this matter and Mrs Linde said to help Nora with this burden by speaking to her old flame, Krogstad. After Krogstad met Mrs Linde and their love rekindled, he promised to let this matter rest. While in the home of Nora, Helmer discovered the note from Krogstad about the borrowing and was enraged. Before that, there was an irony that Helmer wished Nora was in some kind of trouble so that he will save her from it. But apparently, he did not keep his word. After Krogstad replied that he no longer wants to pursue the matter, Helmer rejoices and called her the 'little song bird' again. Nora, who was stunned, realised the truth about Helmer's love for her and decides to leave in order to find her true identity as a woman in society.
Devising script
It was interesting how the different groups portrayed Helmer and Nora. The first group portrayed Helmer as a strict man with a little sarcasm in his speech, suggesting that Helmer is just calling her sweet names just for the sake of pleasing her.
The second group had Helmer as the pleasing type, trying all means to please her with names and jokes. It was very interesting how Shah, who plays as Nora, becomes the maid when Mrs Linde came in. Shehanna then assumed the role of Nora. The audience was a little confused by the sudden change, but I guess it utilizes everyone to be part of the play.
Third group has the maid's presence very prominent in this scene. The maid was cleaning while the scene is taking place. The third character, though it is within the play, played a very strong presence in this scene.
Performance Discussion
We went to our respective groups to discuss on what plays we wanted to do. We did not know what 'ism' we wanted to take, except knowing that we did not want to work with feminism again. We wanted to do symbolism and were deciding between The Intruder and The Blind by Maurice Maeterlinck.
Research on Artaud and Theatre
Artaud felt that Theatre should not be a an appreciation to arts where actors are merely putting on a false front and audiences watching, or a stage where it mirrored everyday life. Simon & Ryan stated that 'Instead, he wanted theatre to provoke and confront spectators so that they could directly unleash what he saw as the primal, raw and real qualities in human behaviour' (Para 3) His view on theatre was not merely to solve social or psychological conflicts but to discover the hard truths of our real lives. Because of culture conditioning, we lived behind masks of our true selves. Therefore, he injected fear, violence, anxiety, pain in theatre as a mean to uncover the hidden truths, stripping away our masks and making us realize our true selves.
During my research project, I am going to look into Interculturalism, the impact of Balinese theater and Kabuki influences upon the western theatre, especially Artaud's theater of cruelty. Hence, most of my research will be on Artaud's theatre concepts. Artaud's theatre concepts were influenced by cultures of the East, which had a big influence on the Euro-American theatre scenes. Frankly, he did not like the ideas of the traditions of the Euro-American theatre, where it is characterised by psychological, intellectual, dialogues, texts that limits possibilities and a way to solve everyday conflicts. Artaud declares that the West has lost it's idea of theatre and needed to rebuild it's idea of theatre.
Artaud maintains that theatre should not be a reflection of everyday's life and dealing it with the most reasonable, ignorant and straightforward way. Instead, theatre should draw the deep within the deep and expose truths that are hidden.
Artaud (1989) claimed that 'A real stage play disturbs our peace of mind, releases our repressed subconscious, drives us to a kind of potential rebellion...' ( Pg 116) Hence the coming up with the concept of Theatre and Cruelty, where it is a 'rediscovering a little of the poetry in the ferment of the great, agitated crowds hurled against one another, sensations only too rare nowadays...' (Pg 108) He also stated that theatre should appeal to the senses first instead of the mind, where plot must be felt by the senses instead of the intellectual mind. In order to do that, theatre has to be filled with the language of spatial poetry, where gestures, symbols, signs and sounds are used, rather than language poetry, where dialogues and texts are involved. He was inspired by the Eastern theatre, especially Balinese theatre, where a variety of gestures, sounds, costumes and minimal language were used. He was intrigued and wanted to apply to Western theatre.
Bibliography
Schumacher, C., Ed. (1989) Artaud on Theatre. London: Methuen Drama.
Simon & Ryan, D. ACU National. Retrieved from http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/staffhome/siryan/academy/theatres/artaud,%20antonin.htm
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