Nora's trajectory toward self-realization, simultaneously cathartic and tragic, is familiar to most theatergoers. By accepting responsibility for her actions (including forging her father's signature on a contract), she unravels a tightly-woven cocoon that has insulated her from adult responses -- principally toward her domineering and patronizing husband. To help understand the choices available to Nora in A Doll's House, Ibsen plants numerous signposts along the way. Her maid left a bad marriage but managed to raise her children, and friend Mrs. Linde has coped on her own albeit with difficulty.
The well-chosen cast has tightened their delivery so much that the few pauses inserted by director Marton Laszlo are extremely telling. Laszlo has full confidence in Ibsen's story, and he exposes the characters' raw emotions rather than creating an artificially restrained faux-Scandinavia bourgeois calm. As the title character, Eniko Eszenyi offers a radiant and engaging Nora whose mercurial temperament is crystal clear, including the requisite recklessness in the tarantella scene. Nora's husband Helmer is an educated boor, and Geza D. Hegedus frequently approaches exaggeration to underline Helmer's shortcomings. Laszlo pushes him over the top in a strident finale done to a slow and unnecessary strip. Frequently written out in American and Western European productions, three adorable kids round out the Helmer family. Kudos to master actor Miklos Benedek for a well-nuanced Doctor Rank. Mari Kiss is perhaps too mousy as Mrs. Linde, while Laszlo Galffi reduces Krogstad's humanity with a portrayal that is extremely driven.
One of the pleasures of this highly realistic production is Csorsz Khell's detailed set that fills the full width and height of the Vigszinhaz stage. Marta Jhanoskuti's costumes second the late-nineteenth century ambience.
Perhaps the most grand of Budapest's 52 active theaters, the Vigszinhaz (Comedy Theater) offers three to four new productions each year plus revivals in repertory. The fare is traditional productions of theater classics gauged for wide appeal. Popular prices ensure capacity audiences, and there were many young people at this performance. A renovation in 1994 restored the red plush rococo-revival interior to its original orchestra, plus two levels of boxes and gallery and brightened the light Beaux-arts exterior. The company actors also appear at the smaller sister theater Pesti Szinhaz.
