Valley of the dolls

Terry Martin plays nine roles in “Absolute Brightness’

A new old ‘Doll’s House’ at WTT; being gay in Uptown; DTC returns to Truvy’s

ARNOLD WAYNE JONES | Executive Editor
jones@dallasvoice.com

Who can honestly account for micro-trends in theater? Mass hypnosis? Zeitgeist? Cultural tipping points? What could really explain why WaterTower Theatre opened this week a new adaptation of Ibsen’s 1879 drama A Doll’s House just weeks before Stage West presents its version of Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2 (which purports to update the story of Nora); and just a few months after Blake Hackler wrote his own redux of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People (rebranded Enemies/People) for Second Thought? I guess chalk it up to the adage, where there’s a will, there’s a Norway.

There certainly could be a baseline to explain, or even just dimly illuminate, this explosion. Ibsen is credited as the father of modernism in theater, whose plays attacked social issues among mostly ordinary (though comparatively well-heeled) people like sexual equality and the environment at a time when most plays were silly melodramas, light musical revues or high-falutin tragedy among royals. And here in the first quarter of the 21st century, those same issues resonate, perhaps even more strongly. Look no further than Brett Kavanaugh, Harvey Weinstein and climate change deniers to swallow your hearty dose of sad reality.

The current political system would certainly justify someone like Joanie Schultz, artistic director at WTT, to write her own adaptation of the first feminist stagebound tract since Lysistrata for the MeToo era. (And updating really is called for over mere revival; Ibsen might have been modern, but modern to 140 years ago; the contemporary audience has different sensibilities.) And so, we are treated to a brisk 90-minute revisit to the Helmer house, in a Norwegian town where Nora (Kate Paulsen) appears to be a spendthrift and flibbertigibbet, whose wasteful purchases of trinkets and indulgences lead her loving but chastising banker-husband Torvald (Sam Henderson) to castigate her like a child run loose in a candy store.

The sudden arrival of Nora’s childhood friend Kristine (Gloria Benavides), rebounding from the financially devastating death of her husband, leads Nora to confess that she’s not the improvident spender she appears. She’s actually secretly paying off a loan she fraudulently obtained when Torvald was near death to pay for his recovery and his from her husband. Now her lender, Krogstad (Clay Wheeler), is threatening her with exposure unless he can convince Torvald to spare his job.

The coincidences and conceits fly fast and loose in A Doll’s House, the plot barely rises above a Perils of Pauline-level knuckle-biter, but that’s because its goalposts are character and society more than story. Nora is a bit naive and behaves rashly; she’s also trying her best in a world where women without men or money are all but invisible. She forged her dying father’s signature to save her husband’s life and has paid back the loan arduously — how can that kind of sacrifice be condemned by the law?

 

While Krogstad is a blackmailer, it’s Torvald whom we come to see as the actual villain, a man who infantilizes women (Nora is always his “squirrel” or his “songbird”) and smothers her self-realization behind a patriarchal facade. Why shouldn’t Nora be allowed to make mistakes… or even behave nobly? There are moments in this smart, lovely production when Torvald seems not some 19th century snob but a Ted Cruz Republican aghast at the very notion that a mere woman should be allowed to accuse an actual judge of sexual assault!

Unfortunately, Henderson’s performance strikes many discordant notes along the way; he seems wooden and robotic, not patronizing and superior. But Paulsen — with her darting eyes, suppressed nervousness and eventual resolve — carries the show (though Benavides does noticeably excellent work in her scenes). Her Nora, despite some frustrating decision, undergoes a transformation by the end, one made more believable by her performance than in Ibsen’s plotting. Her refusal to be someone’s thing anymore — a doll being toyed with in a stranger’s house — feels very contemporary. It also stings when you look at the Supreme Court and realize not a whole lot has changed besides her.

The opening night of A Doll’s House was preceded by the dedication of the space at WTT as the Terry Martin Mainstage, in honor of the company’s former artistic director. But to see the real Terry Martin tearing it up himself onstage, head over to Bryant Hall on the Kalita Humphreys campus this weekend for the last few performances of The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey (which is performed, in rep with Straight, as part of Uptown Players’ Gay History Month Festival). Nine characters — male and female, young and old — appear in the play… all of them in the person of Martin.

One-actor plays are often labeled (when done well) as tour-de-forces, but Martin’s skill as an actor doesn’t make this a showy vanity project but a thoughtful, often humorous look at a hate crime and its unexpectedly transformative effect on a Jersey town.

The story is told from the POV of Chuck DeSantis, an experienced police detective, who is approached by Ellen, a blowsy salon owner and her moody daughter Phoebe about the disappearance of a boy who had been living with them. Leonard was only about 13 — a flamboyant, demonstrative kid who had already lived a hard life, but who embraced the rainbow with gusto. When he goes missing, DeSantis agrees to look into the matter but doesn’t make it much of a priority… until Ellen hounds him. Just because he was a little gay orphan doesn’t mean his life wasn’t worth celebrating. He’s owed justice. And by the end of its 75 minutes, justice is achieved.

As a mystery, the play is adequately plotted, but it’s the way playwright James Lecesne doles out the information — in clues projected on a screen and laid out on a table live as evidence — and how Martin will spin around to become different characters (a nosy neighbor, an elderly immigrant clockmaker, a hostile classmate) to become yet another Jerseyite that keeps the play so vivid and surprising.

There’s just one set for A Doll’s House and Absolute Brightness, as well as another play closing this weekend, Dallas Theater Center’s Steel Magnolias at the Wyly. I know a ton of people who, upon learning that DTC was reviving this community-theater staple for its season-opener, sniffed and sneered at the craven unambitiousness of this comedy-drama buzzsaw about six women in a Louisiana beauty parlor, circa mid-’80s. Yes, it’s mawkish. Yes, it’s about as familiar as pumpkin-spiced latte. But it’s also a solidly constructed tearjerker with tons of memorable lines. (If you’re gay, you don’t need me to tell you any of them; you already know, Steve.) This gossipy Southern clucker may not be Tennessee Williams — heck, it may not even be Tennessee Ernie Ford — but its charms ooze through.

And not, in this production, where you might expect. The casting of Liz Mikel as Truvy seems misguided; she’s such a stentorian powerhouse, you never believe she’s the conspiratorial confidant with whom people share their intimate secrets, and Tiana Kaye Blair seems wrong as the headstrong young girl who won’t let a weak body slow her down. But they are compensated by good work from Sally Nystuen-Vahle as the ornery Ouizer and Ana Hagedorn as the bubblegum-brained new cut-and-curl girl at Truvy’s. By the end, when the light comedy takes a dark turn, I dare you not to choke up. Manipulative? Maybe. But effective.

A Doll’s House at the Addison Theatre Centre, 15650 Addison Road. Through Nov. 4. WaterTowerTheatre.org. The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey (Gay History Month Festival) at Bryant Hall on the Kalita Humphreys campus, 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd, Through Sunday. UptownPlayers.org. Steel Magnolias at the Wyly Theatre, 2400 Flora St. Through Sunday. DallasTheaterCenter.org.