A Doll's House

'I think I'm a human being before anything else. I don't care what other people say. I don't care what people write in books. I need to think for myself.'
Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House premiered in 1879 in Copenhagen, the second in a series of realist plays by Ibsen, and immediately provoked controversy with its apparently feminist message and exposure of the hypocrisy of Victorian middle-class marriage. In Ibsen's play, Nora Helmer has secretly (and deceptively) borrowed a large sum of money to pay for her husband, Torvald, to recover from illness on a sabbatical in Italy. Torvald's perception of Nora is of a silly, naive spendthrift, so it is only when the truth begins to emerge, and Torvald appreciates the initiative behind his wife, that unmendable cracks appear in their marriage.
This compelling new version of Ibsen's masterpiece by playwright Simon Stephens premiered at the Young Vic Theatre, London, on 29 June 2012.
'Ibsen's great feminist drama' Daily Telegraph

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) was a Norwegian dramatist and poet, who has often been called the father of modern drama. In his mature works Ibsen used naturalistic settings and dialogue to expose the corruption and hypocrisy of middle-class life. His work is valued for its technical mastery, penetrating psychological insight, and profound symbolism.
His first play, the romantic Catilina (1850), written under the pseudonym of Brynjolf Bjarme, was followed by several historical dramas in verse; these included The Burial Mound (1854) and The Feast of Solhoug (1856), inspired by Norwegian folk songs. His most impressive works were written after he left Norway. The verse tragedy Brand was published to considerable acclaim in 1866 while Peer Gynt (1867; first staged 1876), a portrait of the author as an undisciplined and unprincipled young man, established his international reputation. In 1871 Ibsen began the play that he considered his greatest work, Emperor and Galilean (1876), a 10-act 'double drama' based on the life of Julian the Apostate. It has seldom been revived.
The first of his four social plays, the works that represent the essence of Ibsenism, was Pillars of Society (1877). This was followed by A Doll's House (1879), which remains the most widely performed of his works, Ghosts (1881), which uses sexually transmitted disease as a symbol of the guilt of a corrupt society, and An Enemy of the People (1882). Hedda Gabler (1890) explores the isolation of the individual, while The Master Builder (1892) focuses on the psychology of the artist.