PREVIEW: “A DOLL’S HOUSE” - EXPLORING CHARACTER AND COMPLEXITIES WITH AARON JOEL CRAIG AND STEPHANIE HOPE LAWLOR
After their successful staging of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet last year, the creative minds and talents of Rook’s Theatre and Same Boat Theatre are back with another heavy hitter that seeks to challenge the hearts and confront the minds of Hamiltonian audiences.
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House centres on the life of Nora Helmer who navigates the complexities of her marriage and identity in a patriarchal society. Set during the Christmas season, the play opens with Nora preparing for the holidays, reflecting the constraints imposed on her by her husband, who views her more as a cherished possession than an equal partner. The narrative unfolds as Nora grapples with a secret from her past and the consequences of her choices.
I had the pleasure of a virtual interview with Aaron Joel Craig, one of the founders of Rook’s Theatre and this play’s director and script adapter, and Stephanie Hope Lawlor, who steps into the complex role of Nora Helmer. Together, we discuss the highlights and challenges of staging Ibsen’s work, the themes and complexities of the story and their continued impact on modern audiences.
What inspired this second collaboration between Same Boat Theatre and Rook’s Theatre?
Aaron: I wish there was a more interesting answer than this, but we just really like working together. Our first collaboration, 2024’s Hamlet, was really fulfilling artistically, and we found that it connected with our audience and community in ways we weren’t necessarily expecting, and we were eager to return to more work that might tap into that same energy.
Stephanie: When you find a fellow artist whose artistic voice and sensibilities resonate and align with yours, there’s such an exciting desire to collaborate and see what can develop from a partnership. Working on Hamlet was so fulfilling because it brought together our complementary skills and let us run with them. There’s a shared language and company feel between the folks in the room, and to have that implicit sense of play, safety, and joy in creating be such a large part of the process has made the other things easy. We were eager to see how we could approach another seminal theatrical work and what we could discover in it.
What is your favourite thing about Henrik Ibsen’s work?
Aaron: Ibsen’s focus on the specific is really compelling. His curiosity around issues of class, wealth, and gender are explored through these really tight plays that offer great opportunities for both actors and audiences to grapple with difficult ideas, while staying grounded in a very particular problem.
Stephanie: Ibsen took the inner life of women very seriously at a time when many people didn’t. His writing is psychologically so precise. He takes domestic situations and explores the well of tensions underneath them. His characters are real… they’re flawed and human and alive, which is why I think we keep returning to them. Even today, his plays invite us to look at our own complicity in the systems we live under. A Doll’s House asks really hard questions about duty and sacrifice, and what happens when we choose not to no longer buy into those expectations. It’s uncomfortable and, at times ugly, but it’s true and no less real today than it was in the 1870s.
How does this production explore the themes of marriage, gender inequality and identity in a patriarchal society?
Stephanie: I hope our production explores how the social expectations that confined Nora still exist today, albeit in a different context and era. Nora’s life is a performance built on patriarchal roles that both she and her husband, Torvald, have inherited and internalized. Nora’s identity has been shaped by being “someone’s wife,” and Torvald’s sense of masculinity depends entirely on maintaining control.
The idea of subscribing to a particular role in society isn’t a new one, and we definitely see that today. I subscribe to my own identities within my world, and I’d love to say that I can just exist authentically in that framework, but I don’t — I play roles, and work to live up to certain ideals that I, or others, have set up. So the question A Doll’s House asks, is when these structures (in this case, of marriage and gender expectations) fall away, who are you, really? Nora’s final choice isn’t only an act of rebellion, but of self-definition. As a woman, that journey is genuinely thrilling to explore.
What have been some highlights and challenges of staging the play?
Aaron: Because Ibsen is so specific in his setting and dialogue, there isn’t a ton of information about who these characters are outside of a few expositional moments, so it can be a bit of an uphill battle finding the interior life of these people.
We’re also staging a very intimate production, just 50 seats, completely in the round, which leaves performers quite exposed, leaving no where to hide. This makes for a really compelling immersive experience for everyone involved - we’re aiming to create something that audiences in Hamilton rarely get to enjoy.
Stephanie: This is a small, intimate telling of what is an enormous, paradigm-shifting moment in Nora’s life. As an actor working in the round, it feels claustrophobic and intense. No matter where I look, there are eyes on me. Nora’s a bird in a cage, set there to be admired.
I’ve loved discovering Nora’s depth. She shares this surface frivolity and charm, but underneath there’s this constant pull between who she is and who she’s expected to be. Working in that tension has been incredibly rewarding as an actor.
Another highlight has been the ensemble itself. Because the play hinges so much on relationships, it’s been thrilling to explore the dynamics between characters, especially as we play with the power shifts and unspoken rules that govern their world. The cast is stacked with generous, playful Hamilton-based actors who bring so much depth to their roles, and I find so much support in them in rehearsals.
The biggest challenge has been sustaining Nora’s emotional journey with honesty. Her arc demands so much vulnerability and stamina. It’s easy to treat A Doll’s House like a corseted museum piece, but it really does feel more alive than ever. Her decision at the end of the play isn’t some symbol or metaphor, but it’s a genuine, authentic, desperate grasp at a life she hasn’t been allowed to live. To get there has demanded precise moment-to-moment work so that her discovery feels earned and real.
For those unfamiliar with “A Doll’s House,” how does the play speak to audiences and what do you hope audiences take away from seeing this production?
Aaron: One of the things we’ve been returning to throughout this process is how prescient Ibsen’s work is. This is, at its foundation, a play about people whose lives didn’t turn out the way they were told to expect. They’re all learning that the systems they were taught to trust aren’t there to serve them but they’re still left to deal with the consequences. This, unfortunately, feels as true now as in 1879 when the play was originally produced.
I think our hope is that the audience will come away with a sense of empathy, for folks on the underside of powerful systems, but also with a sense of curiosity for how we might step out of those ‘expected’ outcomes. Artistically, I hope that people will walk out appreciating that we’re a pair of companies committed to doing ambitious work at an approachable scale and price, that lifts up the city’s artistic scene and inspires others to think creatively about how we can make work in new and unexpected ways.
Stephanie: The story feels instantly recognizable… it’s about a woman awakening to the realization that her life has been defined by other people’s expectations. What I love is that Ibsen doesn’t paint Nora as a perfect ideal — in fact she’s quite the opposite: she’s a flawed and complicated human. That’s what makes her choices so radical: she steps outside of the role society that she has so deeply obeyed and starts to ask who she is beyond it.
I hope audiences leave the theatre reflecting on how much (or how little) has changed. The pressures to conform, to please, to perform still exist, even if they look different now. I hope they’re excited by the work we’re doing so we can keep doing more of it!
Thank you, Aaron and Stephanie, for your wonderful shared insights about what sounds like a truly provocative piece of theatre. I, too, hope Hamilton audiences get out to experience your collaborative efforts and talents. A Doll’s House runs from November 13- 22 and has very limited seating so be sure to secure your tickets soon!
Stephanie Hope Lawlor as Nora
