Ibsen play starts tonight

Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House" will open at the John Waldron Arts Center tonight at 8 p.m. and will run until Oct. 26. The show is produced by the Bloomington Area Arts Council and in cooperation with Detour Productions. It is the second production commemorating the 10th anniversary of the John Waldron Arts Center.\nAs Ibsen wrote it in his original script, there is a youthful woman named Nora (played by Stephanie Harrison) who becomes spiritually aware because of a series of encounters she has with those from the outside world, and also through a disappointing event with her husband Torvald (Mike Price).\nThroughout their lives together, Nora and Torvald were never blessed with money, but Torvald gets a new job and will earn a lot more money. The future is bright.\nWhen the middle-class world that the married pair enters proves to be based on a few deceptions, threatening darkness shadows their once bright light. Could marriage, family, middle-class respectability and social justice turn out to be fictions? Could the world of financial freedom Nora glimpses at the play's beginning become a prison? For Nora to find the answers she must sort out her obligations to her family, but also to herself.\nWhile Ibsen wrote the work originally in 1879, the Detour Productions version fast forwards itself in time to the 1950s, using a 1997 Tony Award winning adaptation by Frank McGuiness. Director Terrance Hartnett says the Detour version addresses "what women and men experience when relationships are overshadowed by economic concerns."\nFort Wayne resident Harvey Cocks, a Broadway veteran who lived the life of a pro in New York for more than 25 year, saw the 1997 Frank McGuiness adaptation of "A Doll's House," and said there is little difference between the original script and the McGuiness piece. \n"God, it was just a marvelous production," Cocks said. \nHe said the only changes were updating the script and getting rid of the melodrama Ibsen used. A new structure was created. "A Doll's House" slaps tradition in the face. At the time, it was normal to have the first act offer an exposition or character development. The second act would show a situation, and finally the third act would show the unraveling. Ibsen got rid of the unraveling part, and turned it into a discussion.\nThe unraveling is where the pace slows down and a conclusion comes into play. Ibsen just decided to have a discussion. For instance, Nora tells Torvald they should sit down and talk about what happened between them. \nAndrew Welfle, a stage manager for a Fort Wayne theater company, said "A Doll's House" is a realist play keeping with Ibsen's style. \n"The theme of the play revolves around the idea that people aren't happy when they fall into the mold of someone else," Welfle said. "To be happy, people have to know themselves. Nora followed her father and husband through her whole life and never learned to know herself."\nSeries tickets for the 10th Anniversary Performance Series and individual tickets for "A Doll's House" are available at the John Waldron Arts Center located at 122 S. Walnut St. Telephone (812)-334-3100 ext. 102. You may also purchase tickets at the Sunrise Box Office at 112 E. Kirkwood Ave. (812)-339-7641. Tickets are $12 general admission, and $10 for students and seniors. Members of the BAAC receive a discount. Performance dates are Oct. 11,12, 17-19, 25 and 26 at 8 pm. Matinees are Oct.13 and 20 beginning at 2 p.m.