In A Doll’s House, Nora Helmer strives to appear as the perfect wife amid the extreme constraints of familial and societal oppression.
But as much as the play is Nora’s story, it’s her home that holds the titular role and offers a window into her inner world.
“A dollhouse is an object, but if you read between those words, it is about the psychology of this person on stage and the world that [her husband] creates for her, the world she’s trying to fit inside of,” said Gillian Gallow, set and costume designer for Canadian Stage’s new take on the Ibsen classic.
Set to run at the 868-seat Bluma Appel Theatre, director Brendan Healy’s pared-back rendition uses Amy Herzog’s 2023 adaptation, which modernizes the language but tells the familiar story of Nora slowly awakening to her own courage, wants, and desires.
When it came to designing the space, Herzog’s script offered few suggestions, allowing Gallow to consider not just Nora’s reality but her mental and emotional relationship to it. The text never clearly suggests if the house the audience sees is really the house that exists, or if it’s merely the house from Nora’s unique perspective.
“ It is more about how Nora feels inside the space,” Gallow said. “It’s also that difference between house and home — the house is the object, but the home is actually the feeling.”
In the text’s Victorian-era house, Nora feels constrained, demeaned, desperate.
And so, instead of a traditional three-walled space, Gallow designed an angular set in the shape of a corner. Considering the many intimate scenes where Nora feels trapped with no escape, this shape seemed appropriate.
“ We were able to really create a claustrophobia and a stifling space that makes you feel a bit of the oppression,” Gallow said. “ You don’t see the full space, you don’t know what the full room is, but you get what Nora experiences, which is just this bird-in-a-cage feeling.”
Because of the central placement of the set’s single door, anyone who enters the stage is immediately in full view — vulnerable and exposed.
“ There’s nowhere to hide on that set,” said Hailey Gillis, who plays Nora. “I’ve tried.”
The production unfolds solely in the living room of the Helmers’ apartment, emphasizing the confinement Nora experiences in her life of domesticity. While many key events occur offstage in other locations, with characters shifting in and out of the space, the audience’s view remains within the boundaries of this single room.
And while Herzog has removed some of the Victorian language from the script to give it a contemporary edge, the period’s design style remains: a style that, as Gallow noted, is overwhelming and stifling to our modern eyes.
It’s also the visual manifestation of a society that prioritizes convention and prestige over personal expression — and Nora faces the immense pressure of keeping up appearances without the financial means to do so. The Helmers may live at the right address, but what’s inside their house tells a different story. The living room is somewhat bare and in need of fixing up, though they don’t have the means to do so.
“They’re living in a place where people have money but they don’t, and we’re trying to show what that does to your psychology,” Gallow said. “The house is a bit sad.”
We watch the characters set up tables and chairs and take them down without ever getting to experience the Christmas celebrations or dinner parties in between. Nora’s life is centred around presentation and appearance without the substance and authenticity a good, happy life requires. She’s a strong and resourceful woman, but, at the play’s start, resigned to being treated as a helpless doll.
Nora’s appearance also helps paint a picture of her inner world. Thanks to her feminine, doll-like costume, audiences are meant to understand that her husband, as well as the oppressive housewife role she is expected to play, have made her feel fragile and vulnerable, even if that’s not reflective of who she really is.
“Gray Powell, who plays [Nora’s husband] Torvald, is constantly adjusting me, presenting me — even to himself,” Gillis said.
According to Gillis, this idea of “presenting” will be a constant throughout the production, from Torvald presenting Nora, to Nora presenting their children, to the presentational quality of Christmas, to the curtain that presents the house to the audience and a large frame that surrounds the set.
The frame is not Victorian, however; it’s a contemporary gold picture frame. Gillis said the intention is to emphasize the distance between the Victorian time period and the present day, and encourage the audience to consider how the play remains relevant so many decades later.
As Nora eventually gains the immense bravery required to liberate herself from her suffocating life, it’s ultimately the house — and the person she is expected to be within it — she feels she must escape.
“What she does is extremely courageous and bold, at that time but also today,” said Gallow of Nora’s fearless final act. “That hasn’t changed.”
A Doll’s House runs from January 17 to February 1. More information is available here.
Canadian Stage is an Intermission partner. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
WRITTEN BY
Mira Miller
Mira is an arts, lifestyle, and health freelance writer based in Toronto. She covers intersectional feminism, issues affecting the 2SLGBTQ+ community, theatre, body image, and more. In her spare time, you can find her listening to the soundtrack of a musical, watching Broad City, or dreaming about her next meal.
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