I went to see A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen at ACT tonight. The play is amazing and very modern, even though Ibsen wrote it in 1879.

When Torvald yells "Nora, Nora!", it made me think of Stanley in "A Street Car Named Desire" yelling "Stella, Stella!", and Tennessee Williams ripping on Ibsen.

I studied this play in college, and have seen it several times before and tonight the play seemed to be about choice. Two women, two perspectives on marriage and a women's role in it, and the idea of choice.

Is it better to choose to be in a marriage for several years, never knowing it's a prison and being cheerful about it and blissfully unaware, and then one day waking up to the realization that it's a prison from which you must escape at all costs?

Or, is it better to choose to go into a marriage with eyes wide open, knowing you're going into it because you have certain needs like money, or like being needed, or because you're lonely, or because you need someone or some cause to live for and you die at the thought of being in the prison of having nothing to live for but yourself ?

Ibsen presents both scenarios, and maybe it's my modern girl thinking, but either choice seems bleak. There are two love stories in this play; Nora and Torvald and Krogstad and Kristine. And is in real life, there are no victims only choices which can only be judged in hindsight as good or bad.