{"id":11291,"date":"2025-11-05T22:35:43","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T22:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/?page_id=11291"},"modified":"2025-11-05T22:35:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T22:35:55","slug":"macalester-english-honor-society-organizes-free-trip-to-see-a-dolls-house-at-the-guthrie","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/home-2\/the-words-october-2025\/macalester-english-honor-society-organizes-free-trip-to-see-a-dolls-house-at-the-guthrie\/","title":{"rendered":"Macalester English Honor Society organizes free trip to see A Doll\u2019s House at the Guthrie"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Paul Wallace \u201927<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Macalester<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This past month Alpha Rho Theta, the Macalester chapter of the National English Honor Society, hosted a trip to see A Doll\u2019s House <\/em>at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. To arrange the excursion, Alpha Rho Theta proposed that the English and Creative Writing Department purchase tickets to the performance and make them available at no charge to the department\u2019s majors, minors, and faculty. The department agreed, purchased ten tickets and, in a department-wide email, asked for responses from those interested in seeing the performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full disclosure\u2014I\u2019m one of the four current officers of Alpha Rho Theta. So when only a handful of students expressed interest in seeing A Doll\u2019s House<\/em>, I worried that my fellow officers and I had misjudged the tastes of our classmates. However, after we promoted the opportunity in our English and Creative Writing classes, so many students requested tickets that the department agreed to purchase more to accommodate the increased demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department also offered students multiple transportation options to ensure that everyone could attend the show. While students had the option to catch a ride with me, they could also use a rideshare service such as Uber or Lyft and receive reimbursement from the college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I enjoyed driving myself and four others to see the show. Beforehand, we discussed our varying degrees of knowledge about the play which allowed me to obtain some pre-show context about the play\u2019s themes and era of publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Doll\u2019s House <\/em>is an 1879 play written by playwright Henrik Ibsen in which a woman named Nora struggles to hide and pay back a forged loan covering her husband Torvald\u2019s medical care. Nora\u2019s creditor Krogstad blackmails her while her friends Catherine and Dr. Rank sympathize with Nora but offer little help. After going to extreme lengths to save her husband\u2019s life and reputation, his ingratitude and patronization compel Nora to leave him and set out on her own journey of self-discovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to see the play because I had heard of it and Ibsen before, but knew nothing about either. I didn\u2019t know that Ibsen is the most performed playwright after Shakespeare, and that A Doll\u2019s House <\/em>was so controversial that some early productions required Ibsen to write an alternate ending in which Nora stayed with her husband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though Ibsen maintained that he did not intend to write a feminist play, the play\u2019s anti-patriarchal power resonated in the Guthrie\u2019s production. Amelia Pedlow\u2019s Nora bridged the divide between the character\u2019s playful fawning and authoritative presence while David Andrew Macdonald\u2019s Torvald drew me in and sent chills down my spine. It would be remiss of me not to also commend Catherine Eaton\u2019s empathetic yet emphatic Kristine, Andrew May\u2019s hilarious yet human Dr. Rank, and Ricardo Chavira\u2019s forceful Krogstad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m grateful to the English and Creative Writing Department for funding and coordinating the chance to see such important theater with my fellow English and Creative Writing majors and minors. Special thanks to Professor Matt Burgess, Jan Beebe, and the other Alpha Rho Theta officers Maria Hadjiyanis \u201927, Natalie Mazey \u201926, and Rabi Michael-Crushshon \u201926 for their help with organizing the trip.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Paul Wallace \u201927 This past month Alpha Rho Theta, the Macalester chapter of the National English Honor Society, hosted a trip to see A Doll\u2019s House at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. To arrange the excursion, Alpha Rho Theta proposed that the English and Creative Writing Department purchase tickets to the performance and make […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1389,"featured_media":0,"parent":11307,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-11291","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11291"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11423,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11291\/revisions\/11423"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}