Role:            Torvald Helmer
Where:         Tacoma Actors Guild
Playwright:    Henrik Ibsen

Playbill.......Cast List.......Cast Bios

A Doll House I'm very proud of. Written by Henrik Ibsen and at the Tacoma Actors Guild, a good theater south of Seattle. This is about a woman who wakes up to the fact that she's in a society and a marriage that treats her like she's a little kid. She ultimately decides to leave her marriage and her children and go find herself.  (clip) I played Torvald - he's usually played like an asshole. And I passionately fought for this - and I got my way and it worked like gangbusters...I felt like the theme of the play, of Doll House, was not avoid marrying a Torvald.  The theme of the play is that the entire society is straightjacketing our women into such a constrictive role that they will burst out of it. No human can be constricted like this and that families will be shattered and kids will be hurt.  So in order for that theme to resonate, Torvald had to be the best guy in town, he had to be the most sensitive guy in town, the guy with the best humor, the sexiest guy, the handsomest guy, the best dressed guy - the best that this society could hope to offer, and he's still constricting her.  And they should love each other and he should be a great guy, he should be the most awake he could possibly be in that society and still be a part of that mindset. (clip) So that when they break up and she decides to leave, the audience should be in tears, they should be like, "oh, it's so sad.  They're such a cute couple, they love each other, but he's been taught the wrong thing!"    And that's what we did and we had them in tears.  Because usually when you play that play it's like,  when is she gonna leave that asshole?" and you hate both of them for putting you through their horrible marriage.  But it's a tragedy, it should be - and it's possible to make it like that, yeah.   JM.com interview 2007

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"James Marsters' Torvald has a sharply American brashness; he sounds as though he's just walked out of the Midwest full of can-do American confidence. All this braggadocio removes any sense of complexity to the man; every time he calls Nora (Gina Nagy) his "little squirrel" or his "tiny bird" it grates."  Douglas McLennan · News Tribune · November 6, 1995

"For purposes of plausibility, James Marsters, as Nora's husband, does extra work. He makes, still again, the point that "men just don't get it." He is so boorish, so opportunistic, so sentimental, so conventional, so horny, that anyone having to live with him - man, woman or child - would eventually revolt. "  Joe Adcock · Seattle Post-Intelligencer  · November 13, 1995