Ingmar Bergman's 'Nora' opens in Sarasota

Most people know Ingmar Bergman as one of the great film directors of all time. So it may be a little surprising to see that the next production from the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training is "Nora," a play that Bergman wrote in 1981.

"Not only did he write plays, but he directed plays," said Andrei Malaev-Babel, who's directing the conservatory staging. "He was probably just as prolific as a theater director as he was as a movie director. As a playwright, he basically adapted his own screenplays for the stage, 'Scenes From a Marriage,' for example, or he had a vision of how to interpret someone else's play."

"Nora" is Bergman's adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House,"

"A Doll's House" is, of course, widely considered one of the greatest and most ground-breaking plays ever written. It's a feminist drama that predated feminism by decades.

But as revolutionary as "A Doll's House" was in 1879, Malaev-Babel said, it was still a product of its era.

"Bergman adapted a three-hour 'Doll's House' into a two-hour 'Doll's House,'" Malaev-Babel said. "Ibsen said 'I can help Ibsen free himself from the conventions of his time.' "

Some reviewers have said that Bergman essentially just trimmed "A Dolls' House" of its excesses, but Malaev-Babel said he did much more than that.

The most significant difference, he said, is that Bergman's Nora isn't the weak and put-upon character that she is in "A Doll's House," or at least in most productions of it.

"Nora is a much stronger Nora than you're used to seeing," he said. "She is, from the very beginning, very strong and very dissatisfied."

Malaev-Babel said that the idea of Nora as timid creature who suddenly, for no apparent reason, becomes powerful enough to leave an overbearing husband isn't true to Ibsen's words. It has developed from 137 years of directors' interpretations, and most of those were based in part of previous directors' interpretations. So the prevailing vision of Nora is not what Ibsen had in mind.

It took a genius like Bergman, Malaev-Babel said, to get rid of all the baggage that Nora had accumulated over the decades.

"By removing all this disinformation," he said, "Bergman is making Nora truer to Bergman's intention. It begins to make sense. She doesn't have this miraculous transformation that comes out of nowhere." Some people who know "Nora" also note that Bergman makes Torvald, Nora's husband, a much more likeable character, instead of the brute that he is in most productions of "A Doll's House."

Bergman's plan was to produce three classic works that deal with a similar theme -- August Strindberg's "Miss Julie" and his own "Nora" and Scenes From a Marriage" -- all together, in one full day of theater. But that never happened. "In the end, Malaev-Babel said, "he had to settle for producing them in repertory."

Details: April 13-May 1, Cook Theatre at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Show times: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday- Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $14-$29. Information: 941-351-8000, asolorep.org.

Marty Clear, features writer/columnist, can be reached at 941-708-7919.

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This story was originally published April 8, 2016 at 5:03 PM with the headline "Ingmar Bergman's 'Nora' opens in Sarasota ."