What Happened After Nora Left Her Husband
“I’m not a woman abandoned by her husband. I’m a woman who has fled from herself. I am Nora—Nora from Ibsen’s play. For now, I want to take refuge in a job to escape a confused state of mind.”
This is how What Happened After Nora Left Her Husband or The Pillars of Society begins—the first play written by Elfriede Jelinek, Nobel Prize in Literature 2004.
What Happened After Nora Left Her Husband or The Pillars of Society picks up the thread of A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen’s masterpiece. Nora Helmer has made the drastic decision to leave her husband and children in search of personal fulfillment. How many times have audiences wondered what became of poor Nora after that famous door slam? A century after the play’s 1879 premiere, Jelinek offers her own version—dark, merciless, yet in line with the sharpest satirical theatre—imagining what might have happened to Nora in 1920s Germany.
An intertextual play—theatre within theatre—in which Jelinek twists and reshapes Ibsen’s characters and situations at will, exploring themes of language, identity, and the feminism that defines much of her work.
Text excerpted from the TNC website
Playwright: Elfriede Jelinek
Translation: Ramon Farrés – Theres Moser
Direction Carme Portaceli
Cast: Manel Barceló – Lluïsa Castell – Gabriela Flores – Carme Gonzàlez – Llorenç Gonzàlez – Carlota Olcina – Albert Pérez – Montse Perez – Xavi Saez – Cristina Sirvent
Musicians: Miquel Àngel Cordero – Dani Nel·lo – Jordi Prats – Marc Vila
Movement: Marta Carrasco
Set & Lighting Design: Paco Azorín
Costume Design: Antonio Belart, Emma Escolano
Music: Dani Nel·lo
Musical Arrangements: Jordi Prats
Musical Direction: Dani Nel·lo
Sound Design: Marc Romagosa
Assistant Director: Toni Martín
Physical Trainers: Verónica Cendoya, Gema Díaz
Make-up & Hair: Toni Santos
Photography: David Ruano
Executive Production
Centre d’Arts Escèniques de Reus (CAER)
Production
National Theatre of Catalonia
Centre dArts Escèniques de Reus (CAER)
