'Nora' outdoes Ibsen's original in intrigue and drama

It's a rare adaptation that betters the original, but the intense 1981 Nora by Ingmar Bergman surpasses Henrik Ibsen's 1879 masterpiece A Doll's House in theatricality, thematic sweep, intrigue, and in how his version leaves Ibsen's absolutist ending open to interpretation.

In the suspense-filled, superbly directed production at Delaware Theatre Company, it's easy to see Bergman's mastery.

Bergman cut Ibsen's three-act, evening-length script to a 100-minute one-act, eliminating six characters and condensing the action around the fragile fault line in the marriage of Nora (Kim Carson, at once delicate and powerful in her role) and Torvald (David Arrow). Nora once committed an immoral and criminal action to save her husband's health; years later, it still threatens to unravel her home, even as her husband's career takes off and their economic life improves.

Michael Mastro's brilliant direction displays this in an ominous blocking of the central players. The love-struck Doctor Rank (Kevin Bergen), the scheming moneylender Krogstad (Chris Thorn), and Nora's intervening childhood friend Mrs. Linde (Susan Riley Stevens) all circle the backdrop of Alexis Distler's open set, weaving in and out of Nora's living room in their attempts to hold sway over her life.

Mastro's staging enables Carson and this potent cast to maintain much of the sense of Ibsen's long-winded scenes of familial drama. When Torvald wants to move Nora physically, the set gives him a lot of room to drag her. When Nora needs to escape unwanted affections, the distance she puts between her and another spans an enormous, psychologically powerful gulf.

Ibsen clearly articulates how 19th-century law and tradition inhibit Nora's (and every other woman's) agency. But in Bergman's streamlined script, Nora's inability to navigate disputes with her husband and other men come down to a more relevant, contentious theme. She (and Torvald) struggle to reconcile the differences between a principled, masculine morality, and a compassion-and-anecdote-driven feminine approach.

And while circumstances and a strict society hem in Ibsen's poor Nora at every turn, Bergman packs his play with a bit more gender realism: Carson's Nora delights in her domestic scheming, and she doesn't blame herself for her legal failing.

She's not the dummy Ibsen painted, and when she utters the lines "It's your fault I've never amounted to anything" and "I've been greatly wronged," well . . . Ibsen's ears would hear the truth in that. But Bergman, in this intriguing production, lets us decide for ourselves.

Nora

Through Feb. 22 at Delaware Theatre Company, 200 Water St., Wilmington.

Tickets: $30-$45.

Information: 302-594-1100 or www.delawaretheatre.org

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