October 28, 2011 | Theatre,

Check out these books, music and films related to DOLLHOUSE

BOOKS

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1848)

Written in 1848 by the least known of the Brontë sisters, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the story of Helen Graham, who escapes her abusive, alcoholic husband, and is considered by many to be the first sustained feminist novel. Unlike the more Gothic style of her sisters, Emily and Charlotte, Anne’s pioneering use of realism foreshadowed the literary style of the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Painfully sincere at times, but also strangely modern, the novel gives us the remarkable Helen, a devoutly humble, but unapologetic heroine. Tenant was incredibly popular and controversial mainly for Brontë’s progressive ideas about the rights of women in the mid-1800s. It even contains a slamming door (just like Ibsen) when Helen takes her child and leaves her corrupt husband. The writer and suffragist May Sinclair said that it was “a slam that reverberated throughout Victorian England.”

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1920)

I have to confess that Edith Wharton is one of my favorite authors so I will take any chance to recommend her. No other American author managed to create a more immediate sense of time and place than did Wharton in her dissectionof turn-of-the-century New York in The Age of Innocence. The reader feels transported to the world of Newland Archer, a clever young man, all ready to settle into a proper if soulless marriage to the lovely May Welland. But when he falls passionately in love with May’s ostracized cousin, Ellen, Newland comes to understand the unforgiving brutality of New York society. Wharton, who had firsthand knowledge of the upper classes, has constructed a blistering commentary and love story that is difficult to forget.

 A Village Affair by Joanna Trollope (1989)

Once a successful painter, Alice has put those pursuits aside in favor of being a wife and mother to three children in a quaint English village. Her perfect if vacuous life is upset by the wild child daughter of a local squire with whom Alice falls in love. The affair predictably devastates her husband and shocks the town, but for Alice, it is an awakening of passion and, when she begins to paint again, of artistic renewal. Wildly popular in England for her realistic family dramas, Trollope creates an engrossing story of a more contemporary Nora trapped by social expectations.

MUSIC

Known for integrating music into their productions, Mabou Mines uses the work of classical composer Edvard Grieg as well as contemporary composer, Eve Beglarian in their DollHouse.

Edvard Grieg (1843–1907)

Considered to be Norway’s greatest composer, Grieg’s initial style was based on the German Romantic tradition, but gradually he developed a national awareness and a need to create a Norwegian style of music with melodies rooted in the folk tradition of Norway. He became acquainted with Henrik Ibsen when he composed an ordinal score for Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt in 1874-76. Based on a Norwegian fairy tale, it remains a frequently performed play in Norway and many of the musical pieces are hugely popular.

Eve Beglarian (born 1958)

Born in Ann Arbor, MI, Eve Beglarian is an American composer whose chamber, choral and orchestral music has been commissioned and performed all over the world. She has previously worked with Mabou Mines on Animal Magnetism and Ecco Porco as well as the China National Beijing Opera Theatre’s production of The Bacchae. The Village Voice has called her “one of music’s truly free spirits.”