Ibsen’s “Nora or a Doll’s House and Pillar of Society” form the basis for this very free continuation and modernization of his characters and themes. This “didactic play in the tradition of Brecht” picks up where the original Nora ends: She leaves her husband and her children to set off for a self-determined life in the 1920s; German fascism is on the rise. After an awful series of disillusionments, Nora’s attempt at freedom ends when she becomes a plaything of economic interests in male society and, ironically, ends up being dependent on her husband again. The play is a critical discussion of contemporary feminism which, according to Jelinek, refuses to acknowledge the economic context of emancipation and in doing so remains apolitical.
