Claudio Di Palma directs and performs at the Mercadante Theater "Doll's House" by Ibsen, in the adaptation by Raffaele La Capria
When Henrik Ibsen wrote in the 1879 Doll house, in the warm and Mediterranean Amalfi, could not know that his drama would become not only a world-famous theatrical masterpiece, among the most represented classics in the world, included in the 2001 by UNESCO in the List of World Memories, but also a ante litteram testimony of female emancipation. A clear sign of refusal on the part of women to necessarily adhere to marriage as a social scheme and convention, made up of rules, obligations and moral duties.
Or maybe yes. Because the Norwegian author himself stated, speaking of his work: "The object of contention is not the aesthetic value of the drama, but the moral problem it poses. I knew in advance that it was contested by many; if the Nordic public had been so much evolved that it did not raise dissensions on the problem, it would have been superfluous to write the work ». The fact is that from that first representation to the public of Doll House, which took place in Copenhagen in December of the 1879, something has really changed in the conception of the marital relationship but, above all, in the perception of the role not only of the woman, but also of the individual in society.
Today the director Claudio Di Palma leads to Teatro Mercadante (in national premiere and scheduled until 17 April 2016), Doll House, in the adaptation of Raffaele La Capria which extrapolates from the original text a main and still current meaning, around which the whole story and the dramaturgy of all the characters move: "Doll's house is also a splendid meditation on the right of everyone to freely choose their own destiny".
In a staging characterized by a clear and limpid photography, a minimal scenography structured on two asymmetrical levels on which the characters enter and exit, luminous magisterial effects that underline the drama of every moment, the story of Nora, interpreted by a splendid Gaia Aprea, the apparently cheerful wife, full of life and in love with her husband Torvald Helmer (interpreted by the director himself Claudio Di Palma).
A couple that represents the standards of the bourgeois spouses of the time, in which the man has an excellent job to make his wife and three children live in full economic well-being, while the woman leads a wealthy life, including Christmas shopping, masked balls and pleasant to the guests at home, like the family friend, the Dr. Rank (Giacinto Palmarini) helped by her nanny Anne Marie (Alessandra Borgia).
Ma Nora she is not like all other women and, when a very secret past begins to emerge, she relies on confessions with her friend Kristine Linde (interpreted by Autilia Ranieri) to solve problems she had created years ago just for the sake of her husband, incarnated by the arrival of the Prosecutor Krogstad (Paolo Serra). The evolution of the story, which faithfully follows Ibsen's text, finds its cornerstone in a sentence pronounced by Kristine Linde: «We must live, and so we become selfish ". One might think that every character in the drama will come to elaborate his final decisions based on this phrase.
At the end of the story, Nora decides to abandon her Torvald because she realizes she does not really love him, because he, together with the whole society, confined the woman in a role that does not give freedom to his character and his will. And to the egoism shown several times by Torvald or his father who always considered it as a "doll", to play with as in a "game room", without bothering to know his real personality, Nora responds with same selfishness, but also with courage. Abandoning his role as wife and mother, he also abandons his role as a woman in a hypocritical and false society. He agrees to be selfish to survive without knowing what will go against it, but with the knowledge that any person will become will be the true identity of Nora to come out. In the name of healthy selfishness, but above all of dignity.
The version of Doll House proposed by Claudio Di Palma it is modern, very current, with a rhythm of jokes and action in an ascending climax towards an expected and hoped final, which consecrates Nora among the heroines of our times.
