THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
Henrik Ibsen’s Doll House
As told by August Strindberg and adapted by Robert Greer
March 26, 2026 – April 5, 2026
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets – $20, Students & Seniors $15
Run time: 2 hours, plus intermission
CINO THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003
Directions
Robert Greer, Artistic Director of August Strindberg Rep, has always longed to re-write and stage Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” into a version that Strindberg would have approved of. That is the genesis for his new adaptation, “Henrik Ibsen’s Doll House as told by August Strindberg and adapted by Robert Greer.” Theater for the New City, where Strindberg Rep is a resident company, will present this daring new proposition March 26 to April 5.
In Ibsen’s 1879 drama, Nora Helmer, a devoted mother and wife of a bank manager, has secretly borrowed money to save the life of her husband, Torvald, by forging the signature of her dying father on a loan guarantee. When the lender, a man named Krogstad, threatens exposure, Nora confronts the fragility of her marriage and Torvald’s patronizing attitudes toward her. As Torvald reacts with anger, sanctimony and self-interest, Nora realizes she has been treated like a “doll” her whole life. Determined to understand herself and the world independently, she makes the shocking choice to leave her husband and children, walking out in search of autonomy.
“A Doll House” was the first of Ibsen’s plays to create a sensation and is now perhaps his most famous play. It was highly controversial when first published, as it is sharply critical of 19th Century marriage norms. The piece follows the formula of well-made play up until the final act, when it breaks convention. Instead of a standard dramatic collapse and restoration, the play ends with a serious philosophical discussion between Nora and Torvald about marriage, identity, and freedom. Rather than resolving the marriage or restoring order, Nora walks out. This is one of the reasons the ending was so shocking in 1879: audiences were denied emotional closure and forced to sit with the implications. It is often called the first true feminist play, although Ibsen denied this.
The play’s exact title has always been in dispute. The original Norwegian and Danish manuscripts didn’t have the possessive word “Doll’s” in their titles. But Ibsen’s first and most popular translator, William Archer, added the apostrophe. This diluted the meaning of the title, whose intention was to say that Nora was like a toy doll living in the house that was bought for her by her husband.
Strindberg issued a withering critique of “A Doll’s House” in his preface to “Getting Married” (Swedish title “Giftas,” 1884), a collection of short stories on various topics. At the time, Strindberg was fully committed to naturalism and devoted to literature as a form of social autopsy: illuminating social forces and scientific truths. He accused his Norwegian idol of sentimentality and moral simplification and objected to the play as essentially formulaic, since its heroine achieved moral clarity. Furthermore, her final act, “the door slam heard round the world,” was theatrically powerful but intellectually insufficient. It all was too clean, too symbolic and too reformist.
Robert Greer has built a new adaptation of Ibsen’s masterpiece by building upon the translation by R. Farquarson Sharp, who was Keeper of Printed Books at British Museum from 1924 to 1929. Greer says, “Nobody could improve Sharp’s translation.” The overall tone of Greer’s adaptation comes from it, but about a quarter of the text is from Greer listening to it and thinking “That’s not right.” He says, “Strindberg was whispering in my ear.”
The goal of the production is to accept Strindberg’s criticisms and to make key adjustments that fulfill Strindberg’s arguments in the introduction to “Getting Married,” his volume of short stories, in which he:
· Attacks the institution of marriage as a social and economic arrangement rather than a sacred or romantic bond.
· Frames marriage as a legal contract shaped by property, religion, and gender inequality, rather than mutual love.
· Criticizes bourgeois morality, arguing that it enforces hypocrisy, especially regarding sexuality.
· Suggests that women are both oppressed and complicit in maintaining conventional structures.
· Defends literature’s role as a tool of social analysis, not moral instruction.
· Positions himself as a naturalist writer, influenced by scientific thinking and social realism.
· Rejects sentimental idealization in favor of exposing uncomfortable truths.
CAST
Charles Everrett – Torvald Helmer
Natalie Menna – as his wife, Nora
Jane Cortney – as Mrs. Linde, Nora’s childhood friend
Chris Hahn – as Doctor Rank, a close, trusted friend of the Helmers
Tom Paul Ryan – as Krogstad
PRODUCTION
Lighting design is by Alexander Bartenieff
Costume design is by Billy Little
Robert Greer (translator/director) is Artistic Director of August Strindberg Rep, which is a resident company of TNC. He has staged 18 Strindberg plays with the company to-date as well as English-language premières of contemporary Scandinavian playwrights, including Denmark’s Stig Dalager; Sweden’s Kristina Lugn, Marianne Goldman, Helena Sigander, Cecilia Sidenbladh, Hans Hederberg, Oravsky and Larsen, and Margareta Garpe; and Norway’s Edvard Rønning. He has also directed classics by Henrik Ibsen, Victoria Benedictsson, Laura Kieler, Anne Charlotte Leffler, and Amalie Skram. His productions have been presented at the Strindberg Museum and Strindberg Festival, Stockholm; Edinburgh and NY Fringe Festivals; Barnard College, Columbia University, Rutgers, and UCLA; Miranda, Pulse and Theater Row Theaters, La MaMa, Manhattan Theatre Source, Tribeca Lab, Synchronicity, TSI, and BargeMusic in NY; and The Duplex in LA. He has directed plays by Mario Fratti, Sartre and Corneille here in New York. He is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, Actors’ Equity Association and Swedish Translators in North America.
August Strindberg Repertory Theatre, under the direction of Robert Greer, is committed to productions of Nordic plays in new translations and interpretations that illuminate the works for today’s American audience. That is why TNC has taken this repertory into its family. Mr. Greer writes, “The Strindberg Rep is deeply grateful to Crystal Field for having made us a resident company. Ms. Field’s support of new plays (and plays newly translated) has been a godsend to us. Her knowledge and experience of theater is a beacon guiding us and her unflagging devotion to the art of the drama and its artists is a role model for leaders of all cultural institutions. (https://Strindbergrep.com)