The Kennedy Center presents Mabou Mines DollHouse in the Eisenhower Theater from October 20-22, 2011. Conceived and directed by Lee Breuer and adapted by Lee Breuer and Maude Mitchell, Mabou Mines DollHouse adapts the classic Ibsen story of A Doll's House in a production featuring original music and a collage of Edvard Grieg's piano works assembled by Eve Beglarian. Press night is Thursday, October 20 at 7:30 p.m.
In Mabou Mines DollHouse, Ibsen's feminism is metaphorically rendered as a parable of scale. Nora comes home with a Christmas present, a dollhouse so large that a child could play inside. All the period furniture, the crockery, the knick-knacks are the right size for the three-foot tall children. In this production, the men, Torvald, Rank, and Krogstad, are the same height as the children. The dollhouse symbolizes a man's world where only doll-like women, who allow their men to feel grand, can hope to live in it. It also symbolizes the world of patriarchy; the world in which a woman never fits. Both Torvald and Nora are trapped in a meta-narrative, playing out an illusion of male power. Both pay the price: the death of love.
Director and co-adapter Lee Breuer is the founding co-artistic director of Mabou Mines. He is a writer, director, poet, playwright, adapter, and lyricist engaged in a lifelong procession of incendiary experimental theater projects across Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America. He is most widely known for his revelatory, upending adaptations of classic works of theater including Mabou Mines DollHouse, adapted from Ibsen; The Gospel at Colonus, adapted from Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus; Peter & Wendy, adapted by Liza Lorwin from J.M. Barrie's novel Peter And Wendy. All continue to tour festivals and theaters around the world. Mr. Breuer is also noted for his extensive work with puppets. It is Breuer's deep purpose to bring puppetry into serious American theater. He recently directed his first film, a further-adapted version of his Ibsen adaptation, Mabou Mines DollHouse, filmed live on stage at King's Theater in Edinburgh, Scotland, and released on DVD in 2009. The disk includes the companion documentary, Looking for a Miracle, which features extensive interviews with the director and members of the cast. His upcoming work includes La Divina Caricatura which draws on his Ecco Porco, Shaggy Dog Animation, A Prelude to a Death in Venice and An Epidog, to create a trilogy of fictions with animals in the starring roles. Lee Breuer is a MacArthur Fellow, a Bunting Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and twice a Fulbright Fellow. He has collected many OBIES as well as the prestigious Golden Herald of the Edinburgh International Festival, the French Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and the Helen Hayes Award.
Maude Mitchell (Co-adaptor/Nora) received an OBIE Award for Performance in the 2003-2004 season, Garland Award in 2007, and Drama League nomination in 2009. She is a graduate of Oberlin College and The Neighborhood Playhouse where she studied with Sanford Meisner. Her work has run the gamut from Sophocles to Dr. Seuss, including teaching Meisner workshops in Europe and Asia and Russia, a stint as a guest artist at Julliard, and two seasons at The Sundance Theatre Lab. Maude Mitchell has collaborated with numerous writer/directors including Lee Breuer, Joe Calarco, Moises Kaufman (The Laramie Project), and Adam Rapp. She is currently co-writing with Ibsen scholar Susan Mason, Playing Nora: The door slam heard 'round the world which took into account 30 interviews with actors who have performed the role of Nora, past and present. Maude has spoken on Ibsen in performance at the International Ibsen Conference in Oslo, Norway 2006, The Edinburgh Festival 2007, and the Festival Iberoamericano in Bogotá, Colombia 2008. The ARTE commissioned film of Mabou Mines DollHouse was shown on French and German television and had its first theatrical run in Paris in February 2009. Maude was the dramaturg and acting couch for the Comédie Française production of Un tramway nommé Désir directed by Lee Breuer, in Paris in February 2011. Glass Guingnol a new work starring Maude Mitchell and Greg Mehrten examining the relationship between Williams and his sister Rose taken directly from the author's texts and directed by Lee Breuer was just previewed at the Tennessee Williams Festival in Provincetown.
Performances of Mabou Mines DollHouse will run October 20-22, 2011 in the Eisenhower Theater at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are on sale and start at $30. Purchases can be made in-person at the box office, online, or by calling (202) 467-4600 or (800) 444-1324. Subscription packages are available for purchase by calling (202) 416-8500 or by visiting kennedy-center.org.
