Ibsen’s timeless play of female empowerment gets a strong staging in the Springs.

Millibo Art Theatre (MAT) brings Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House to Colorado Springs theatre for the first time in 25 years. The nearly 150-year-old play — a modern theatre staple about a woman’s journey to an authentic life — gets a first-rate staging in this production.

Nora Helmer (Katie Medved), the protagonist, lives in a world that is, to all appearances, happy and secure. She and her husband, Torvald (Sammie Joe Kinnett), have a harmonious marriage with three children — and he’s about to get a promotion and a raise. Krogstad (Michael Alexander Lee) barges into this placid bourgeois domesticity, threatening to blackmail Nora with evidence that she once forged her father’s signature to get a loan.

The knotty plot involves unraveling the fact that Nora’s misdeed was committed to finance badly needed rest and relaxation for Torvald, who, knowing nothing of Nora’s previous machinations, is now about to fire Krogstad from his job. If Nora can persuade Torvald to keep Krogstad employed, she can ward off exposure of her past.

There’s a hint of melodrama in all of this. Could Torvald really be so wedded to the appearance of propriety that he would refuse to forgive his wife for acting, however illegally, to protect his health? After all, as a female in that time and place, she could not get a loan on her own. Still, the action revolves around Nora’s choices, making it one of the early and great female leads.

Katie Medved and Rachel Fey | Photo: Christian O’Shaughnessy

Leaned-down script

MAT uses an edited script, eliminating several smaller roles such as porter, housemaid and the Helmers’ children. These expeditious choices kept the play moving along. The drawback is that since the children (who have no lines in the original script) are never seen, it diminishes the impact of Nora’s final decision.

The production offered genuine spectacle in Nora’s exuberant Tarantella, choreographed by Mary Ripper Baker. The moment reveals the seductive power of Nora’s charm, a power that Torvald has indulged and, he believes, captured.

The cast was strong. The early blackmail showdown between Krogstad and Nora was well done by both actors. Michael Alexander Lee, a veteran of Springs stages, makes an excellent Krogstad. When the motivations underneath his initial villainy are revealed, it’s easy to accept a more well-rounded character. Lee isn’t, perhaps, a natural “heavy” but overall, his portrayal is convincing at each moment of the character’s development.

As Nora, Medved was a consistently compelling presence. What didn’t come across as strongly was the duality typically associated with the role. Torvald continually refers to Nora as a squirrel, a lark and other terms to suggest a diminutive, fragile creature. The early Nora plays along with these characterizations.

Medved’s Nora comes across as a changeable role-player, certainly, but the portrayal doesn’t have the slightly skittish feel that the descriptors suggest. When Nora’s moment of decision arrives and the character pivots to a new authenticity and resolve, it lacks the transformative turn that the play insists is happening.

Michaela Wojcik and Lin Michele Larson contribute fine set and costume design, respectively, anchoring the play in an authentic 19^th century milieu.

All in all, the production is a welcome opportunity to experience of a modern classic. With it, MAT proves again what an asset it is to the Colorado Springs theatre scene.