Bhopal: A play ‘Gudiya Ghar’ which deals with the fate of a married woman at the time when they lacked reasonable opportunities for self-fulfilment in a male dominated world was staged at Tribal Museum on Friday.
Based on play ‘A Doll’s House’, penned by Henrik Ibsen, the play was directed by Priya Bhadauriya and Rang Sagar Sanstha, Bhopal. The three-act play is significant for the way it deals with the fate of a married woman. It aroused a great sensation at the time, and caused a “storm of outraged controversy” that went beyond the theatre to the world newspapers and society. It premiered at Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month. The play is set in a Norwegian town, circa 1879.
In 2006, the centennial of Ibsen’s death, ‘A Doll’s House’ held the distinction of being the world’s most performed play for that year. UNESCO has inscribed Ibsen’s autographed manuscript of ‘A Doll’s House’ on the Memory of the World Register in 2001, in recognition of its historical value.
It is noteworthy that Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as ‘the father of realism’ and is one of the founders of modernism in theatre. He is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare and by the early 20th century ‘A Doll’s House’ became the world’s most performed play. He is often ranked as one of the most distinguished playwrights in the European tradition. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, When We Dead Awaken, Pillars of Society, The Lady from the Sea, Rosmersholm etc.
