Mabou Mines DollHouse

"So fascinating—that it must be seen."—New York Times

Delightfully funny, genuinely thought provoking, and winner of two Obie Awards, Mabou Mines DollHouse is "a dizzying visual commentary on sexual politics" and "a wonderland of mismatched proportions" (New York Times). With its stunning sets, visual stage magic, and barbed satire, this production directed by Lee Breuer transforms and radically updates Ibsen's protofeminist classic. In Mabou Mines DollHouse, women are Amazonian figures in the six-foot range while men's roles are portrayed by actors under four-and-a half feet tall. By giving physical form to the equation of power, status, and scale that underscores Ibsen's text, Breuer dramatizes the absurdity of the patriarchal men's attempts to domineer their female counterparts, while also giving fresh nuance to the relationships by revealing touching vulnerabilities.

Mabou Mines DollHouse is Breuer's latest deconstruction of a classic theater text. Previously he has reimagined Sophocles in Gospel at Colonus with the famed Blind Boys of Alabama and created a gender-reversed Lear. In DollHouse, the performance is enlivened by Eve Beglarian's Edvard Grieg–inspired score, which gives a silent movie feel to each scene, and Martha Clarke's choreography, which brings the actors' melodramatic posturing into the realm of dance. One of the major highlights of our season, Mabou Mines DollHouse may be one of the most imaginative shows you've ever experienced.