I’LL RIP OUT YOUR TONGUE

 

 “What makes life worth living?”
 

From 16 April at the Nikos Kourkoulos New Stage of the Ziller Building, the National Theatre of Greece presents Doll, a production based on Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, directed by Maria Panourgia, an almost otherworldly visit inside one of the most significant homes in world drama.

It is Christmas. Through windows and half-open doors, the interior of a house is glimpsed as if from the outside. Behind its walls, the fabric of realism is torn open, revealing or hiding – with acerbic humour – the dark aspects and cruel actions of the characters, their awkward pauses, and the words they dare to articulate. Confrontation is as constant as the need to escape and the absurdity of human nature.

At the heart of this dark and insidiously violent work is a married couple bound by an unequal sexual relationship and a pervasive sense of financial insecurity — and between them, a secret. When it is revealed, the ensuing conflict brings to the surface deep existential questions that can be answered neither through reason nor instinct.

The family’s children live mainly outside the world of adults, beyond the confines of the house, which they watch, desire, and fear, sometimes quiet and otherworldly, and sometimes hyperactive and talkative. The governess looks after the children as if they are pets; the moneylender becomes a catalyst for the truth to be revealed; the doctor, who is also the only friend of the family, is terminally ill; an acquaintance from the past suddenly intrudes, asking for protection. Meanwhile, the husband is constantly calculating numbers, counting money, and checking the weight of his wife, Nora. She, in turn, eats incessantly and her emotional hunger grows into something intense and uncontrollable.

Christmas – and life in the house in general – are stripped of anything spiritual. Money rules supreme and determines people’s fate and their relationships. Everyone is praying for salvation to the one true god, mammon.

Nora does not fall apart merely to piece herself back together again, but to claim the right to dream of a better world. To answer the question: “What makes life worth living?” She transforms from a doll into a demon not because she is the embodiment of evil, but because she claims the choice and responsibility that freedom demands. The final rupture is not merely a departure from the house. It is an explosion!

Undeniably relevant even today, the great Norwegian dramatist’s work highlights how women in male-dominated societies all over the world are looked down on and manipulated. The play takes on a near-mythic, supernatural dimension, because these are issues that remain unresolved to this day. It is striking how little conditions for women have changed since 1879, when the play – groundbreaking for its time – was written.

“In Bunraku, a type of Japanese puppet theatre, in plays with supernatural themes, a puppet may be constructed so that its face can quickly transform into that of a demon.”
Roland Barthes

“For women, only one standard of female beauty is sanctioned: the girl.”
Susan Sontag