Nora! What Happened after Nora Left Her Husband or Pillars of Society / 2015

The play What Happened after Nora Left Her Husband; or Pillars of Society by the Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, could be perceived as a sequel or a paraphrase of two plays by Ibsen – Nora (A Doll’s House) and The Pillars of Society. The play follows the story of Nora Helmer after she left her husband seen through a theatrical kaleidoscope of male projections/phantasms of women in the role of a wife, mother, labourer, artist, lover, prostitute, concubine, dominatrix and ultimately a business woman.

Will Nora get to live her dream and hope of self realisation or will she have to embrace the destiny set aside for her by the history of drama? Will she make her dreams come true or will she have to resign herself to a role determined by the modern consumerist society?