Theater: Conservatory to Close Out Season with Ingmar Bergman Play

Posted Friday, April 8, 2016 12:00 am

Staff Report

BRADENTON – The FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training will cap off its 2015-16 season with multiple Academy and Golden Globe Award-winning playwright and screenwriter Ingmar Bergman's Nora, an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's 19th-century play, A Doll's House. It opens April 13 in the Cook Theatre at the FSU Center for Performing Arts.

Nora's husband, Torvald, has received a promotion to become the new manager of the Cooperative Bank, and Nora is elated with the anticipation of ending their financial struggles and living a life free of worry. However, when her husband intends to fire the lawyer Krogstad, who holds a secret from Nora's past, Krogstad blackmails her into begging Torvald to restore his position. Ignorant of Krogstad's threats, Torvald refuses, and everything is laid bare in an explosive climax revealing far more than Nora's secrets.

Directed by FSU/Asolo Conservatory first-year acting professor, Andrei Malaev-Babel, the play will preview on Tuesday, April 12 at 7:30pm with a special "Pay What You Can Performance," and officially opens the following night.

"Bergman did not consider his Nora an interpretation or an independent concept based on A Doll's House," said Malaev-Babel. "He considered it an insight into Ibsen's original intentions. His Nora is a conscious prisoner of the doll's house, and the entire action is nothing but Nora's nightmare–an oppressive dream with other characters popping in and out unexpectedly, like ghosts. The final scene was seen by Bergman as Nora's costly victory and Torvald's tragedy."

Mike Perez and Jessie Taylor. Photo by Natasha Goetz.

Malaev-Babel is the Head of Acting at the FSU/Asolo Conservatory. He co-founded and served as an Artistic Director for the Chamber Forms Theatre in Moscow, and the Stanislavsky Theater Studio. He is on the board of the Michael Chekhov Association in NYC, and on the advisory board of Stanislavski Centre. Andrei’s performances have been presented by the United Nations, the World Bank, the Kennedy Center and the National Theatre. Visit Asolo's website for more information and show times.