A Global Doll's House Ibsen and Distant Visions [Hardcover]

This book addresses a deceptively simple question: what accounts for the global success of A Dolls House, Henrik Ibsens most popular play? Using maps, networks, and images to explore the world history of the plays production, this question is considered from two angles: cultural transmission and adaptation. Analysing the plays transmission reveals the social, economic, and political forces that have secured its place in the canon of world drama; a comparative study of the plays 135-year production history across five continents offers new insights into theatrical adaptation. Key areas of research include the global tours of nineteenth-century actress-managers, Norways soft diplomacy in promoting gender equality, representations of the female performing body, and the sexual vectors of social change in theatre.A Global Doll's House: A Digital Humanities Approach explores a very simple question: 'What accounts for the global success of A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen?' Nora rivals Antigone, Carmen, Medea and Juliet as the most performed, discussed and debated female character on the international stage; and with over 2,500 global productions, A Doll's House is one of the most performed plays in the world. This new book offers an original methodological approach to the play, interrogating the entire global production history of the play using tools from the digital humanities. These tools build on past Ibsen scholarship to produce fascinating new knowledge about the dynamic forces that shape world drama.