Jessica Chastain isn’t playing around in Broadway’s ‘A Doll’s House’
A Doll’s House, reconceived in a new version by Amy Herzog. A modern take from the mind of buzzy British director Jamie Lloyd, whose pared-down revivals of Betrayal and Cyrano de Bergerac both found critical acclaim in New York.
Lloyd’s thriller-like staging sees an ensemble cast circling Chastain’s mostly stationary Nora Helmer as decades worth of deception come to a head, and she is forced to confront buried secrets, a longstanding debt, and the painful fictions which underpin her marriage to the controlling Torvald (Succession’s Arian Moayed).Chastain is the main draw here, and the Oscar-winning headliner does not disappoint.
Her Nora overflows with thrilling contradictions. Genuine warmth and kindness toward her friend Dr. Rank (Michael Patrick Thornton) will be supplanted, with barely a blink, by an exaggerated and self-mocking performance of “chirping songbird” upon Torvald’s entrance.
This Nora has cunning too but is constantly torn on when or how to use it, her calculations seeming to shift line by line.Particularly thrilling is Nora’s early reunion with old schoolmate Kristine (Jesmille Darbouze), who arrives seeking help in finding a job.
