Performing Arts

Guys and Doll's House

AS Nora in the International Festival's production of A Doll's House, Maude Mitchell slams the door on her marriage, her martinet husband and their children. It's a towering performance - in every sense. In the avant-garde theatre company Mabou Mines' deconstruction of Henrik Ibsen's 1879 play, all the male characters are played by very short men, actors who range in height from 3ft 4ins to 4ft 5in, while the women seem impossibly tall, positively Amazonian.

Mabou Mines DollHouse comes to Edinburgh trailing clouds of glorious reviews, which must come as a relief to Mitchell and her partner Lee Breuer, who co-adapted Ibsen's text together. It was quite a risk, after all, open to accusations of bad taste and exploitation. But Breuer - still, at 70, a wild man of avant-garde theatre - insists that at no point in this radical production did he patronise his male actors, Mark Povinelli, Richardo Gil and Kristopher Medina, who play Ibsen's Victorian "masters of the universe". "I really want to make it clear that I'm not insulting these guys at all," he says. "They're the most wonderful people and they took a great imaginative leap with us."

"Exactly!" interjects Mitchell, who, off stage, is actually rather slight and boyishly slender. "They are among the most marvellous actors I've worked with. Every step of the way, we asked them to trust us and they did. But it's interesting, isn't it, that everyone always focuses on the men and their feelings.

"From the day Lee conceived this production, we've bent over backwards to prove that at no point are we simply 'using' short actors as a gimmick. But I'm fascinated that whenever I'm interviewed, no-one asks how I feel about playing a woman whose father treated her like a doll, whose husband treats her like a doll and who, therefore, treats her own children as dolls. The depth of her manipulation! The subjugation she suffers!

"Always, always there are those questions about the men's dignity. Of course we're using people who are differently able and we do not wish to compromise them. I respect them all so much, but what about my dignity? Everyone wants to protect the men, to make sure they're OK. Yet I don't feel the same sense of people wondering whether my dignity has been compromised.

"Do I feel protected? No! Why does no-one ever ask how I feel? How I cope with playing a child-bride night after night? People watch this play, about a woman who suffers a painful abnegation, and yet afterwards they always want to discuss the men, even with me.

"I find that people need to talk about this piece," she continues. "They come to me - men and women - saying they must speak to me. A lot of women, for instance, have been disturbed by the fact that I play Nora in the early scenes with a very high voice - only towards the end does it come down in register. Despite all these misgivings, this role is the most enormous gift I've ever been given."

Mabou Mines DollHouse opened at New York's St Ann's Warehouse in 2003, has toured internationally ever since and will be filmed in Glasgow at the end of its Edinburgh run, the show's final performances. Now, Mitchell sighs, she's forever asking herself what she'll do after her Nora closes that famous door for the last time - a sound that, as it was famously put over a century ago, "reverberated across the roof of the world". It has, says Mitchell, resonated across her own personal universe, making her think afresh about gender issues and sexual politics.

Several US critics have pointed out the decision to use only actors less than 5ft tall creates a dizzying visual commentary on sexual politics - "Victorian women are from Mars, while their men are from Lilliput".

Where did the idea come from? From puppetry, Breuer explains: the director has staged many plays with puppets, most famously Peter and Wendy, his version of Peter Pan. "I've learnt a lot about how size works on stage, although I never treated my actors in DollHouse like puppets," he says. "I cast them because I wanted to give some truly marvellous short actors the opportunity to play huge roles in a classic. Usually they're cast only as freaks or elves. Indeed, as we speak, Mark is in Hollywood playing his 35th elf in a blockbuster movie, despite being this handsome Italian, very sexy guy."

When Nora slammed that front door behind her on the opening night of A Doll's House, she fired the opening salvo in the battle for women's rights, Mitchell says. Despite over a century of progress, however, many women today still identify with Nora, who she regards as the role of her life, "after spending 20 years in the swamp between commerce and art". "I think they will understand that feeling of diminishing one's self in hopes of enlarging one's partner," says Mitchell. "We've all been there, haven't we? So I've fully given myself to this production. I discovered that I had a lot to say; I've found my own voice."

Breuer adds: "What you really see in Mabou Mines DollHouse is how small a man the character of Torvald is. Which is why the women are quite literally belittled, often having to crawl on their knees into the doll's house set, in which the men fit perfectly, while rendering the women utterly powerless."

Although Mabou Mines has staged and toured other work alongside DollHouse, Breuer has constantly re-worked the production, especially while on tour to Rome and Singapore, before coming to Edinburgh. "Oh yeah, I've a lot of tweaking to do," he says. "I've gone on tinkering with it because I'm kind of an obsessive anyway.

"We've taken DollHouse to 22 venues across the world, although we can't get back to New York with it because the show's already been reviewed there. That grieves me because I'd like to show this radically tweaked version. I never stop playing around with my work, so this production is 100 per cent different from the one we premiered in New York."

Breuer was recently named a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture, while the Mabou Mines company won an Edwin Booth Award in May for its "outstanding contribution to the New York City/American theatre and performance community". "The film of DollHouse marks the end of an amazing journey of discovery for us," says Breuer, who says he is brewing up a host of exciting new pieces - some destined for Edinburgh.

So what has he learnt from DollHouse? "That to have a successful relationship, every man and woman has to play out the third act of Ibsen's drama," he replies. And he should know. Breuer has loved many women, fathering five children with various lovers, although he and Mitchell have been together for seven years.

"Maude's the love of my life, because she's an artist," he says, gift-wrapping Mitchell in his still-brawny arms. "She's not only a great actress, she's a great dramaturg. I'm this kooky, on-the-edge writer and director. So together, we just try to make great art."

• Mabou Mines DollHouse is at the King's Theatre, 24-28 August.

Related topic

• Edinburgh International Film Festival
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Last updated: 08-Aug-07 00:46 BST