60 Fun Facts About A Doll's House

Who wrote A Doll's House?

The Norwegian playwright is often called the father of modern drama.

In which city did A Doll's House have its world premiere on 21 December 1879?

Every performance of the Royal Danish Theatre run sold out.

The action of A Doll's House takes place in a small town in which country?

The whole action takes place in the Helmers' living room over the Christmas holiday.

What is the play's original Norwegian and Danish title?

Some American scholars prefer the translation A Doll House.

What is Torvald Helmer's newly won position at the start of the play?

The promotion means Nora feels the family can finally spend a little at Christmas.

How many children do Nora and Torvald Helmer have?

They are Ivar, Bobby and Emmy, looked after by the nanny Anne Marie.

What crime did Nora commit to obtain the loan that paid for Torvald's rest cure?

Women could not conduct such financial business without a man's endorsement, and her father was already dead.

To which country did the Helmers travel for Torvald's health, using the secretly borrowed money?

Nora told Torvald her father had provided the money.

Who lent Nora the money and later blackmails her?

He is a lower-level employee at Torvald's bank whom Torvald intends to fire.

Which old school friend of Nora's arrives seeking work at the start of Act One?

She is a widow who has fallen into poverty and once had a relationship with Krogstad.

What is Dr. Rank dying of?

The dialogue implies the illness stems from a venereal disease his father contracted.

What does Dr. Rank confess to Nora in Act Two?

The confession stops her from asking him the favour she had planned.

What does the porter deliver to the Helmer household at the very start of the play?

The play begins just before Christmas with Nora returning laden with presents.

Which dance does Nora rehearse frantically to keep Torvald from the letter box?

Critics have read the frenzied wordless dance as a metaphor for her inner terror.

Where does Krogstad leave his written account of Nora's crime?

Nora keeps Torvald from opening it by feigning anxiety about the dance.

Which two of Torvald's pet names for Nora are among the animals he calls her?

He also calls her his little bird; the names emphasise how he treats her as a plaything.

Why does Nora's husband insist on firing the blackmailer even after deciding he is a decent worker?

Their past friendship makes Krogstad address him casually, which Torvald finds intolerable.

Why did Mrs. Linde marry her late husband, as she tells Krogstad in the last act?

She offers Krogstad her love again, and he agrees to withdraw his letter.

Why does Mrs. Linde tell Krogstad not to take back his letter after all?

She believes the marriage can only survive if the secret comes out.

How does Torvald react on first reading Krogstad's letter?

He says their marriage will from now on be only a matter of appearances.

What does Torvald do with the returned bond and Krogstad's letters?

He then declares he is saved and forgives his wife, which is when Nora sees him clearly.

What had Nora expected Torvald to do when the scandal broke?

She had planned to kill herself to prevent him making that sacrifice.

What two things does Nora leave behind when she walks out?

Torvald breaks down and cries, baffled by what has happened.

What sound ends the play?

James Huneker wrote in 1905 that the slammed door reverberated across the roof of the world.

What phrase does Nora use for the change that would be needed for her to return to Torvald?

Torvald repeats it to himself, hopefully, a second before the door closes.

Why did Ibsen write an alternative ending in which Nora stays?

Hedwig Raabe declared she would never leave her children; Ibsen called the result a barbaric outrage.

In the alternative ending, what makes Nora collapse and stay?

The version played in Flensburg, Hamburg and Berlin before protests restored the original.

Which friend of Ibsen's, committed to an asylum by her husband over a forged loan, inspired Nora?

She had asked Ibsen to intervene in her scandal; he declined and wrote the play instead.

What did the real-life model for Nora need her illegal loan for?

She later became a well-known Danish author and lived to 83, resenting being known only as Ibsen's Nora.

How did Ibsen describe the play in a note written in Rome in October 1878?

He argued that a woman cannot be herself in an exclusively male society with laws made by men.

How large was the first printed edition of A Doll's House in December 1879?

It sold out within a month; two more editions followed by March.

Who played Nora at the world premiere?

A former ballet dancer, she went on to play Hedvig, Hedda Gabler and other Ibsen heroines.

Under what title was the play first allowed on the London stage in 1884, heavily rewritten?

H. L. Mencken said Ibsen was thrown to the fishes and the curtain fell upon a happy home.

Which two Ibsen champions played Nora and Krogstad in an 1886 private London production?

It took place in Marx's lodgings; the first public British production came in 1889.

In which US city was A Doll's House first performed, in 1883?

Helena Modjeska played Nora; Broadway did not see it until 1889.

Which Swedish playwright attacked Nora's walkout in his 1884 collection Getting Married?

He thought her forgery and lies were crimes that should count against her when she judged her husband.

In a 1898 speech to the Norwegian Association for Women's Rights, what did Ibsen disclaim?

He said his task had been the description of humanity, not propaganda.

Which Chinese writer gave a 1923 speech titled 'What happens after Nora leaves home'?

He compared Nora's lack of economic independence to China's own repression.

Which actress played Nora in Joseph Losey's 1973 film, shot on location in Røros?

She clashed with Losey, accusing him of anti-feminist remarks to the press.

Who played Torvald opposite Claire Bloom in the other 1973 film, directed by Patrick Garland?

Ralph Richardson played Dr. Rank; Bloom won a BAFTA-nominated Best Actress prize.

Which director staged a shortened 1989 reworking titled Nora that cut the servants and children entirely?

Critics felt it downplayed the feminist themes to focus on the Nora-Torvald power struggle.

Who wrote A Doll's House, Part 2, the 2017 sequel in which Nora returns after 15 years?

It earned eight Tony nominations; Laurie Metcalf won Best Actress as Nora.

Which Hollywood star played Nora in the Jamie Lloyd production that opened on Broadway in March 2023?

It had been due to open in London in 2020 before the pandemic intervened.

What honour did UNESCO give Ibsen's autographed manuscripts of A Doll's House in 2001?

In 2006, the centenary of Ibsen's death, it was the world's most performed play.

Where was Nora Helmer's husband working when he first met her?

He was a civil servant at the time.

Which 1881 Ibsen play has a widow reveal her marriage's evils to her pastor?

The Norwegian authorities would not allow it to be performed for 20 years.

How many acts does A Doll's House have?

The Danish and Bokmål title Et dukkehjem is sometimes rendered A Doll House in English.

In 2006, the centenary of Ibsen's death, A Doll's House held what distinction?

UNESCO had already inscribed Ibsen's autographed manuscripts on the Memory of the World Register in 2001.

What are the names of the Helmers' three children?

Their nanny Anne Marie had also been Nora's own nurse as a child.

Where did A Doll's House have its world premiere on 21 December 1879?

Emil Poulsen played Torvald opposite Betty Hennings; Stockholm followed on 8 January 1880.

In which German city did the altered 'happy ending' version first open in February 1880?

Actress Hedwig Niemann-Raabe toured it to Hamburg, Dresden, Hanover and Berlin before restoring the original after protests.

Which London venue hosted the first public British production of the play in June 1889?

Janet Achurch played Nora and took the production to Australia the same year.

Which Polish-born actress played Nora in the first US production, in Louisville in 1883?

Broadway followed on 21 December 1889 with Beatrice Cameron as Nora at Palmer's Theatre.

Which American playwright wrote the acting script for the 1937 US production with Ruth Gordon?

Later US stagings starred Claire Bloom in 1971 and Janet McTeer in 1997.

Who starred as Nora in the 1922 lost silent film of A Doll's House?

A 1959 live US TV version featured Julie Harris, Christopher Plummer, Hume Cronyn and Jason Robards.

Which actress played Nora in Zinnie Harris's 2009 Donmar Warehouse adaptation?

Toby Stephens, Anton Lesser and Christopher Eccleston were also in the cast.

Tanika Gupta's 2019 Lyric Hammersmith adaptation moved the play to which setting?

Her earlier BBC Radio 3 version renamed Nora 'Niru', married to an Englishman in the Calcutta colonial administration.

Stef Smith's 2019 reworking Nora: A Doll's House had three actors play Nora in which years?

The Citizens Theatre in Glasgow staged it, later transferring to London's Young Vic.

Wendy Swallow's 2019 novel Searching for Nora follows Nora after the play to which US state?

It draws on 19th-century Norwegian emigration, taking Nora from Christiania to a prairie homestead by boat, train and wagon.

Stina Quagebeur's 2019 English National Ballet piece Nora is set to music by which composer?

Crystal Costa danced Nora and Jeffrey Cirio Torvald to Glass's Tirol Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.