Princeton Summer Theatre closes a dynamic season with 'A Doll's House'

Drama’s original desperate housewife slams the door on the 19th century status quo in Henrik Ibsen’s "A Doll’s House" translated by Rolf Fjelde playing at Princeton Summer Theater Aug. 4-7 and 11-14. This exhilarating classic drama directed by PST’s executive producing director, Kelvin Dinkins Jr. brings an exciting end to the company’s 2011 season, dedicated to the examination of love and the strength of the human spirit. The critics have agreed, PST’s “high-powered” company has been a dynamic force this summer, creating theater that engages, enraptures and entices. Each production this season magnifies and dissects the complexity of human emotion. A Doll’s House takes its audience to the late 19th century in a society bounded by convention. Here we meet Nora, a woman driven and torn by love and duty and liberated through her own self-discovery and strength. "A Doll’s House" is brought passionately to the stage by the Princeton Summer Theater Company members and guest artists. The dynamic cast features Jenny Grace (Nora) and Jack Berenholtz (Torvald), along with Princeton’s Christopher Beard (Dr. Rank), David Bevis (Delivery Boy), Katherine Grant-Suttie (Anne-Marie), Claire Helene (Mrs. Linde), Adam Zivkovic (Krogstad) and Princeton’s Kathryn Rickman (Helene & Ibsen’s "A Doll’s House" plays on the Princeton Summer Theater main stage Aug. 4-7 and 11-14, Thursday–Saturday at 8 p.m. and Saturday-Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Hamilton Murray Theater in Murray Dodge Hall on Princeton University’s campus. Tickets can be purchased online at www.SmartTix.com or by calling toll-free, 1-877-238-5596.

Drama’s original desperate housewife slams the door on the 19th century status quo in Henrik Ibsen’s "A Doll’s House" translated by Rolf Fjelde playing at Princeton Summer Theater Aug. 4-7 and 11-14. This exhilarating classic drama directed by PST’s executive producing director, Kelvin Dinkins Jr. brings an exciting end to the company’s 2011 season, dedicated to the examination of love and the strength of the human spirit. The critics have agreed, PST’s “high-powered” company has been a dynamic force this summer, creating theater that engages, enraptures and entices. Each production this season magnifies and dissects the complexity of human emotion. A Doll’s House takes its audience to the late 19th century in a society bounded by convention. Here we meet Nora, a woman driven and torn by love and duty and liberated through her own self-discovery and strength. "A Doll’s House" is brought passionately to the stage by the Princeton Summer Theater Company members and guest artists. The dynamic cast features Jenny Grace (Nora) and Jack Berenholtz (Torvald), along with Princeton’s Christopher Beard (Dr. Rank), David Bevis (Delivery Boy), Katherine Grant-Suttie (Anne-Marie), Claire Helene (Mrs. Linde), Adam Zivkovic (Krogstad) and Princeton’s Kathryn Rickman (Helene & Ibsen’s "A Doll’s House" plays on the Princeton Summer Theater main stage Aug. 4-7 and 11-14, Thursday–Saturday at 8 p.m. and Saturday-Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Hamilton Murray Theater in Murray Dodge Hall on Princeton University’s campus. Tickets can be purchased online at www.SmartTix.com or by calling toll-free, 1-877-238-5596.

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, Williamstown Theatre Festival ...

Michael Miller, editor/publisher of New York Arts and The Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts, was trained as a classicist and art historian, worked in the art world for many years as a curator and dealer, and contributed reviews of art exhibitions and classical music to Master Drawings, Drawing, and Threshold, and North American Opera Journal, as well as numerous articles for scholarly and popular periodicals. He has taught courses in classics, the English language, and art history at Oberlin, Rutgers, New York University, the New School, and Williams. Currently, when he is not at work on The Berkshire Review for the Arts writes fiction and pursues photographic work.

Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life (Read Huntley Dent's review of The Tree of Life in the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts.) Cast: Mr. O’Brien, Brad Pitt Mrs. O’Brien, Jessica Chastain Young Jack O’Brien, Hunter McCracken Adult Jack O’Brien, Sean Penn R. L. (Middle Son), Laramie Eppler Steve (Youngest Son), Tye Sheridan […] the production was meticulously detailed, scrupulously respectful of the play (whatever liberties might have been taken), and full of life, thanks to some vivid performances by outstanding actors. Jenny Gersten's WTF seems to be hitting its stride in these physically small, but richly imagined performances, a new feature of the Festival since the construction of the "62 Center. Perhaps we should remember that what is now the subsidiary Nikos stage used to be the Adams Memorial Theater, and that an attempt to stage Chekhov's Three Sisters on the Main Stage as a luxury production was a notable failure, not that there haven't been some outstanding successes there as well.

When I go to see a classic nineteenth century play in almost any theater, I go prepared for some egregious flaw that will almost vitiate the whole enterprise—usually the result of making it a vehicle for some producer's idea of a "star," but anachronisms, gimmicky interpretations, or just a few weak actors rank high as well. There seems inevitably to be that moment which will make one cringe. That moment never came in Gold's A Doll's House —and that seemed almost like one of those miracles Nora was going on about. For one thing Ibsen isn't easy to bring off, although I've never seen an Ibsen production that was a total flop.