A Doll's House. Henrik Ibsen
OTHER BOOKS BY THORNTON WILDER AVAILABLE FROM TCG
The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume I
INCLUDES:
The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden
The Long Christmas Dinner
Love and How to Cure It
Pullman Car Hiawatha
Queens of France
Such Things Only Happen in Books
“The Seven Deadly Sins”:
The Drunken Sisters
Bernice
The Wreck on the Five-Twenty-Five
A Ringing of Doorbells
In Shakespeare and the Bible
Someone from Assisi
Cement Hands
“The Seven Ages of Man”:
Infancy
Childhood
Youth
The Rivers Under the Earth
The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume II
INCLUDES:
The Alcestiad
And the Sea Shall Give Up Its Dead
The Angel on the Ship
The Angel That Troubled the Waters
Brother Fire
Centaurs
Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came
The Drunken Sisters
Scenes from The Emporium
Fanny Otcott
The Flight into Egypt
Hast Thou Considered My Servant Job?
Leviathan
The Marriage We Deplore
The Message and Jehanne
Mozart and the Gray Steward
Nascuntur Poetae . . .
Now the Servant’s Name Was Malchus
The Penny That Beauty Spent
Prosperpina and the Devil
The Unerring Instinct
A Doll’s House is copyright © 1969 by The Wilder Family LLC
The preface and appendix are copyright © 2016 by A. Tappan Wilder
A Doll’s House is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc.,
520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty. All rights, including but not limited to, professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of readings and all uses of this book by educational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the author’s representative: The Barbara Hogenson Agency, 165 West End Avenue, New York, NY 10023, 212-874-8084.
Images: Wilder Family Collection, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Library (p. 112); Cincinnati Enquirer, October 17, 1937 (p. 117); Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism (*ZAN-*T282) 1937/38, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (p. 119); The Houghton Library, Harvard University, permission by The Wilder Family LLC (p.120).
The publication of A Doll’s House by Thornton Wilder, through TCG’s Book Program, is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC
ISBN 978-1-55936-850-6 (ebook)
Book design and composition by Lisa Govan
Cover design by Carol Devine Carson
Cover image by jvphoto / Alamy Photo
First Edition, May 2016
Contents
Preface
By A. Tappan Wilder
A DOLL’S HOUSE
APPENDIX
Afterword
By A. Tappan Wilder
Note on Sources
Press Quotes for A Doll’s House, 1937
JUST FIVE WEEKS before the New York premiere of Our Town, Thornton Wilder’s “new acting version” of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House opened on Broadway, after a highly successful out-of-town run, with a cast of four major stars led by Ruth Gordon as Nora. Both plays were directed and produced by the legendary Jed Harris, and both productions found enormous success with audiences and critics.
What then happened to Thornton Wilder’s first hit on Broadway and his most successful translation-adaptation? The play vanished from sight. This first-ever publication of the script, issued alongside its first production since 1937, by Theatre for a New Audience, returns Wilder’s A Doll’s House to life.
In 1997, at the time of the Thornton Wilder Centenary, Theatre Communications Group issued two volumes composed of Wilder’s published and unpublished one-acts, playlets and miscellaneous dramatic pieces, volumes still very much in print. To the Wilder collection, TCG now adds this third, significant, new title. May its run be as long and exciting.
Finally, we hope the brief Afterword will satisfy reader curiosity about the story of where Wilder’s first success on The Great White Way came from, how it unfolded before audiences, then disappeared, and is now back “in play.”
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