Expanding the tableaux
Today we presented our expanded set of tableaux. We seemed to effectively get the gist of the story across, and make it clear that Torvald and Nora don't see eye-to-eye. Physically, we blocked it so that Torvald enters stage left and exits stage right. Matt suggested we try not having him move so much. Which we could try. But I like the visual idea of showing Torvald trying to get to his office on stage right, with Nora stopping him. Then they can rotate so now she's trying to stop him from filing Krogstad's dismissal papers. We'll have to see how this stuff plays out.
Starting the scene
Marie and I chose to do a Torvald-and-Nora scene from
A Doll's House. In this scene, Torvald comes home to his wife Nora who's trying to persuade him not to fire Krogstad, a lawyer who's blackmailing her. She starts off by trying to butter him up, but he soon figures out what she's after. He explains that he has to fire Krogstad because he calls him by his first name, a "petty" reason in her view. He gets angry and, to show her who's boss, sends off the paperwork then and there. He tries to assuage her fears, not understanding the gravity of the situation, and walks off thinking everything is just fine.
Well our first attempt at tableaux came across as "vaudevillian". We think the tableaux are just going to look overacted for a while until we get some context.
We tried running through it a couple times to see how blocking would work. One thing I'm not sure of is how to manage closeness to her and distance myself at the right moments.
Another issue is figuring out the subtleties relationship between Nora and Torvald. Why has she stayed with him so long when he stifles her? How bad a guy is he? There's temptation to play him up as a wife-beating insensitive clod, but there's another option: What if he really does care about her and sees himself as her caretaker?
