Music. It talks about how to be honest to longtime partners, you know, how to be the big questions. You know, how to be true to yourself but also kind. You know, those are the difficult things about how to be a good person, but i dont think one can ignore the context in which the play was first put on and what it seems to have meant to people. Charlie tom friedman, david sanger, Hattie Morahan and Dominic Rowan when we continue. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Charlie we begin tonight with the ongoing crisis in ukraine. Sunday, residents of Crimean Peninsula voted overwhelmingly to sus seed and join russia. Vladimir putin recognizes crimea as a sovereign state. Kiev and ukraine have called it illegal. European union and United States have imposed sanctions on highranking russian officials. President obama spoke earlier today. Well continue to make sheer to russia thatter provocations will do nothing but diminish russias place in the world. International community will continue to stand together to opposed violations of ukrainian sowfty and integrity and continued military intervention in ukraine will only deepen russias isolation and exact a greater toll on the russian economy. Going forward we can calibrate our response based on whether russia chooses to escalate or deescalate the situation. Charlie joining me from washington, the New York Times columnist tom friedman and also from the New York Times david sanger, the National Security correspondents. His front page today looks at criticism leveled at obamas leadership on Foreign Policy. I am pleased to have them. David, let me begin with you. You say the obama policy is being put to test in ukraine and crimea. Whats the policy and what is the test . Well, charley, if you think about well, charlie, if you think about the first term in the obama administration, he deliberately moved to what in the white house they a called a light footprilhn strategy and we talked about it before on this show, and the theory of it was the era of sending 100,000 or 150,000 troops to a country of six or seven years, trying to do nationbuilding, that all had to end and the light footprint is about using drones, which he obviously used far more than president bush did, using cyber in cases like iran, using special forces to do a very quick in and out, and then using the Treasury Department as his favorite noncombatant command, and that was very successful, for example, in bringing the iranians to the table. We still dont know whether or not thats going to work. But if you think about the second term, the light footprint really has kind of, as one of president obamas former advisers said to me, run out of gas, an its run out of gas because, when youre dealing with problems like syrias assad or like Vladimir Putin going into a sovereign state and taking over crimea and threatening the rest of ukraine, drones, cybers, special forces and maybe even the usual economic tools dont work terribly effectively. And i think that, while youve seen president obama try to ratchet up the pressure and he did it again today with that announcement and sanctions on individual aids and the kremlin and so forth this is not a strategy that yields very big results right away. It may over time. It may in the long term. And more importantly, i think its probably not going to be effective in getting any of the recent invasion of crimea reversed. And, so, i think we are challenging cases today that after three years of the strategy, assad is stronger than he was, say, a year ago, and theres no telling whether or not any of this is having any real effect on putin. You said obama is surely the first president to be accused of acting in Foreign Policy like pollyanna, john wayne and Henry Kissinger in the same month. Which one is he required to be now . Well, i think hes acted in those ways in a way because hes reflecting i think the feeling of the American People. Theres a deep ambivalence about getting involved in a place like syria in the middle east, which really can only be involved in my view by boots on the ground, someone monopolizing the use of force there. There is no, i think, easy answer in syria and i think americans are deeply aware of getting involved in a place like that. In crimea, you have a peninsula, basically, that was part of the soviet union, given away in essentially 54 to ukraine, where the people there are russian speakers and want to be part of russia and the question is really, you know, how deeply are you going to get involved in trying to reverse that . I mean, what are our interests there . And i think our interests there are rather limited and i think obamas response is measured to our interest there. In a since, it kissingerian, is quite realest. I dont buy it that its manifest weakness. Ronald reaken at his angriest would not be going to war to reveers putins intervention in ukraine, lets be honest about that, and george w. Bush didnt go to war to reverse putins intervention in georgia. A lot of this is bhait called driveby criticism. Everybody laughs, but its driveby criticism. It has no connection to the real options at hand, but it doesnt reflect anything that the American People really want now. Charlie americans want to focus on their own self here and get their own nation building in order rather than involving themself in where else. If we do that, is that a vacuum of leadership in the world that someone else might inherit . Tom . You know, my feeling right now, charlie, is that the most important thing we can do is rebuild our strength. This is not its partly like vietnam but in a way its different. We fought two wars in the middle east, neither of which produce outcomes that i think anyone in america would argue were worth the investment. In treasure, we spent about 1 trillion in afghanistan, 1 trillion in iraq and under the bush administration, we cut taxes. For the first time in american history, we cut taxes while fighting two foreign wars, let alone one, and, as a result, we are fiscally in a different place, and that has obviously limited we see the impact in the pentagon budget and more broadly. My own feeling is we have got to rebuild our strength at home, and what worries me is, right now, we are neither doing nationbuilding abroad or at home at the speed, scope and scale we need, and that really does lead to the kind of vacuum youre talking about. My view on this is very simple in you know, we make lot of mistakes in the world, the United States, lord knows we do. But we have this hugely Important Role to play in the world in supporting the Global Commons, whether supporting protects the islands in the pacific or upholding the financial markets, et cetera. If we go weak as a country, your kids wont just grow up in a different america, but in a fundamentally different world so that, at this point, in the wake of whats happened in the last decade, we have to take one step back in order to rebuild our strength in order to play the role i think we need to play in the world, then i will support that. But what worries me is were taking a step back, and weve got this civil war at home between our own version of shiites and sunnis called republicans and democrats so were neither doing the kind of nation building we need to do at home or abroad. That is a scarier world. Charlie but, david, many people and youve seen this written time after time by both analysts, driveby and others, and countries like scrap saudi a and others, where the president says im going to get them to destroy chemical weapons, not going to bomb them, as a sign of weakness. Thats one thing in the arab world you hear the most. I dont think it has to do with how the president came out. A week or two he came out where the syrians are slowly dismantling the weapons. The problem is making a series of threats and backing away from them. You talked about National Interests and tom talked about National Interests and i think if there is a big difference between the obama and bush doctrines is obama is driven very much by National Interests. He says, if you can establish why this poses a direct threat to the United States, im there, and if its just a question of the Global Commons, as tom mentioned before, then he wants to make sure that others in the neighborhood, others who rely on those commons are in the game as well. So he wouldnt go into libya in a big way without the arab league and nato going there first. That makes sense in a world in which you have to rationalize American Resources and a world in which you have to recognize that we cant get into every fight. But it does create a vacuum and there are some Global Commons that were simply not going to go in and deal with, and there are some places like syria and crimea where you come to the determination its not really in our direct National Interests. Charlie tom, do you believe crimea will be a disaster for Vladimir Putin . I think it could be, charlie, for two reasons. One is, in the wake of what happened today as david said, the president announced sanctions on a limited number of senior russian officials but i think did not total up the number of people, but think about the signal that sends to investors in russia, and the signal that sends is beware, and thats the first thing. What are the longterm implications of that. Beware of investing in russia. I think the second thing that could really haunt putin about ukraine is about crimea and ukraine much larger is that, in effect, his seizure of ukraine could have the impact could, if were smart on the United States and on europe and particularly germany. Charlie right. In changing our Energy Policy the way the 1973 oil embargo had an impact on us. In the wake of the 1973 oil embargo, thats when we changed the oil standards, huge push to clean energy and renewables. We didnt sustain it, unfortunately. But i think that the signal this sends to europe that you need to end your addiction on russian oil and gas, otherwise youre going to be subject to their blackmail, that the longterm implications of launching us and europe, particularly germany at the center of this story, on a Different Energy path that produces far less western dependence on russias oil and gas, that could be a huge loss for putin, but only in the long run. Charlie david. I agree. I think whats notable about president obamas strategy and i think to, many people, one of the most commendable elements of it is he does play the long game and i think, over time, putin could welcome to regret this, even if he takes shortterm steps to cut off some gas to europe and so forth. The europeans need the gas, putin needs the revenue. But the difficulty is the the difficulty the president is running into now is if youre playing the long game, it can look like youre losing a lot of short, tactical conflicts and right now hes got to make sure putin doesnt move from crimea to the rest of ukraine. So he needs to escalate these well enough that it signals, as tom suggested before, that the price will be truly higher if he goes into ukraine. Im not sure putin is doing the same calculus that president obama is. Charlie charlie, to davids point theres a wonderful quote in the economists latest issue of russian reacting to putins intervention in crimea in the name of russian speakers, and it was a guy living in central russia. He says, with we have a lot of russian speakers here, too, and were really suffering. Were suffering with no jobs or i have beeinfrastructure. I dont remember the exact quote. But the morning after, numbers are up, putins popularity, solidarity with russian speakers at home and abroad. Lets see how it plays out over time. The ruble and russian markets have been hammered. Well see what happens to foreign direct investment. You know, theres always the morning after and theres the morning after the morning after, and the morning after the morning after is when the real laws of gravity start to take hold on currencies, markets, longterm investment. Lets see where we are in six months on that do. We assume putin will act rationally or will his messianic ideas about russians sphere of influence cause him to take risks he might not otherwise have taken in a more strategic mind . Its a very hard call on that because, if we understood more about putins mind, there probably would have been more Intelligence Agency warning that he was getting ready to react to what was a big loss to him in the ukraine by going in and taking crimea, and that was a surprise. Now, were not very good at doing this, charlie. We misjudged the chinese over the past year about how aggressively they would create an air defense zone or begin to threaten some islands. Weve misjudged the North Koreans whether or not they would act rationally. Two years ago, most intelligence reports suggested kim young uns uncle would be running the country and he would be a pup et, and now the uncle is dead. So were not good at understanding motivations. Theres something very old about this story and we talk about russias sphere of influence and connection to crimea and ukraine and kiev in particular. But there are new things going on and what is new is that we live in a world now of the amplified citizen, the super empowered individual. We saw it play out in egypt. We saw egyptians take to the streets and say to their leader, look, were not just a bunch of chickens, you get to pass to your son. Weve seen ukrainians now take to the streets in very large numbers and say to putin, you know, were not just a bunch of cattle that you get to decide whether our future is in the e. U. And russia. And, so, i would urge everyone to stand back a little bit and say, maybe were in the middle of something very new here. For the first time, every leader today is in a twoway conversation with his people. The day of oneway conversations is over. And, so, putin may have all these cold war instincts and all these russian nationalist impulses and they are not irrelevant but i would argue theres something new going on in the world today and im keeping my powder dry. I want to see how this plays out. I dont think this is like a Straight Line back to russia at all. Tom, tell me why, as you wrote in a column and as i interviewed, one of the political leaders in tunisia, why is tunisia the exception to the consequences of the arab spring . Thats a good question, charlie, and, for me, a very simple answer. Its two things. First of all, the tunisians, after some struggle and loss to life, came to the only political conclusion possible in any of these pluralistic societies, that is going forward. The central political doctrine have to be no victory no vanquish, that everyone has to be included in the political outcome and in tunisia, it had civil societies, unions, business groups, womens associations, lawyers associations that turned out to be mediators between the two big factions there, which was secular and religious camps. Those two things, the principal of no victory no vanquish, and the fact they had an internal moderator, did not have to ex oo exhort to key factors. Charlie when you consider the Foreign Policy, you have to consider the idea of drawing red lines and things like that. Sometimes are you better not to have put it in that way unless you are prepared to defend it in a certain way. I think youre exactly right, charlie, and weve seen this happen a few times. I mean, you mentioned the Syrian Chemical Weapons red line but, before that, you had the president come out nearly three years ago now and tell president assad and syria that he had to go, and, yet, there was no plan at the white house to assure that he did that. And, so, while its very important to play the long game, and while i agree completely with tom that its not at all clear how crimea, for example, is going to work out, you have to have a plan in place so that, when the american credibility is put on the line, youve got a way to enforce it and make sure theres a price, and i think thats been a pretty steep learning curve for this administration. I think he was more measured in the case of crimea, and i think, if anything, the president s been out ahead of his european allies. Hes sort of been dragging chancellor merkel of germany and other europeans along in trying to stiffen their spine on the sanctions. Now, they have more to lose in the course of this than we do, and, you know, here hes got, in the case of russia, some real leverage. Each is a case where our leverage is tender out to have been overrated. You know, how many times did you hear the president s staff warn, you know, if you continue to jail journalists, if you beat up dissidents, if you suppress descent, that military is going to go away. I had a senior official say they didnt care about much about our military aid in the end. We have to remember these arent really about us and we dont hold that much leverage. Charlie because the believed get it from other sources, in that part. And it wasnt that big. I go back to bankrupt minnesota, al shaver ended the broadcast saying when you win say little, when you lose say less. Ates great Foreign Policy principal. When you win say little, when you lose say less and never try to draw a red line in a pool of blood. Who is going to notice our red line . You know, in what was a pool of blood and in what is a homegrown civil war where either you are on the ground and monopolizing force or nobodys going to Pay Attention to you. At the end of the day, you know, the middle east only puts a smile on your face when it starts with them. And i think its a very important thing to keep in mind about ukraine as well because i think ukraine can succeed in breaking free at least the part of ukraine that wants to break free of putins grip and join the e. U. Or have a future with europe if they remain united themselves, if you dont see the ultra nationalist parties take over, if theyre inclusive of the more russian speaking parts of the population. I think first and foremost, it depends on what they can do, if they can hold together. If they cant hold together and are divided and abusive of russian speakers or get drawn into what putin will try to do which is make them abusive, which is exactly the play book syrias leader bashar assad did. But what ukrainians do first and foremost is going to be the most important thing because if they can depict this as the free ukrainian People United about their future, wanting to be part of europe and the European Union against a putin demanding they be part of some cockamamie, you know, eurasian whatever which is basically nothing more than an oil and gas union, i think putin loses in the end. I think putin loses. There is a sense of the president certainly working the phones in order to develop a united front in this and having brought the europeans to a further place than many thought they might come when this first outbreak happened. This is their neighborhood. They do have to take the lead. And theyre going to have to take the lead in the Financial Assistance to ukraine, and theyre going to have to take the lead. Ultimately merkel will have to lead on. This putin has, i think, zero respect for any of the other european leaders. He does, i think, respect merkel. There is something putin has to be careful about. Germany has gone down a path of nonviolence, basically, of having a very small military and armed forces. Does russia want to awaken reawaken a germany as a sleeping military giant . Because if they go too far in ukraine, they could do that, too. Charlie, i think that part of the reason that you saw the president get so engaged with the europeans and i think it was probably the most intensive moments that ive seen just covering this white house in which he has been on the phone every day to european leaders, is that its been important to him to show to putin that he could reverse a process that bill clinton really got going, you know, nearly 20 years ago, and george h. W. Bush before him. You know, for years, europe was working on the assumption they would integrate the russians and integrate them some more and the more they got wrapped up with europe the more their behavior would be somewhat controlled. Now, in putin, in this moment, they have reached a point where the russian elite has said, no, this is the wrong way for us to go. The more were engaged with them, the more theyll have their tentacles into us. We need to be a separate power. So what youve seen president obama doing in these phone calls is essentially getting the europeans accustomed to the fact that he may have to throw the entire process into reverse, that they may all have to, together, think about a life separate and apart from being integrated with russia, and thats a very difficult thing to do because, for all the reasons tom laid out before, the economic and political connections have grown so strong over the years, that gives us enormous leverage, gives putin some leverage. Charlie, last time i was in moscow, which was about a year ago, i dont remember, i was in a traffic jam from the airport. I believe it took me two hours to get from the airport into moscow, maybe more than that, and thats because russias middle class has exploded. Everybodys got a car now, some have two, and its partly and largely on the back of oil and gas prices, but not entirely, and partly on the back of russias integration with the world, much more foreign investment. Again, those are laws of gravity. Lets see how all those investments are affected over time, what that does to the rising middle class in russia, particularly the urban middle class which has been the source of opposition to putin. So i wouldnt make any predictions about how this story will unfold just the morning after. Are we looking at a time this will be my last question, both of you, where sanctions have proven themselves at least in getting the attention of a government and understanding what they have at stake so that they are a much more powerful weapon than they have been . Well, the model here, charlie, is iran, and its interesting because barack obama did not invent a concept of sanctions, and he didnt even invent the concept of sanctions on iran. What he did invent was convincing the world that sanctions only worked if everybody is all in on them. And the only reason that they worked in the iran case was that there was europea european euror bent of asian unity, even the chinese over time took more oil from suppliers other than the iranians because the u. S. Made a case to them that it wasnt in their own National Interest to depend on iran and an unstable regime and a possibility of conflict in the persian gulf for oil they need each and every day. Now, making that work with russia is going to be vastly more difficult and, so, im not as persuaded that the sanctions will be as effective here and what weve learned is its not a quick process. Charlie it takes a while. Thats why its a longterm game. Tom, sanctions . I agree with david. When we sanctioned iran, you had to give up pistachios, persia carpets, and oil if you were a customer of the Iranian Oil Industry but you could find alternatives. In other words, it really wasnt very painful for countries imposing the sanctions. As david said, this will be different. This guy can turn off your heat. Charlie turn off the heat for europe. Right. Charlie before i go, tom, tell me one more time what the announcer said in minnesota . When you win say little, when you lose say less. Good night and good sports. Charlie wise words laughter thank you, david, thank you, tom. Charlie a dolls house is henry gibsons groundbreaking drama of 1979, seen as a landmark for feminist literature and realism in the theater. A british production at the Brooklyn Academy of music through march 23rd. Joining me Hattie Morahan and Dominic Rowan. Ben bradley of the New York Times wrote, by the end of a dolls house, my nerves were ground meet. I couldnt breathe in a taxi headed back. I dont think either of us expected to get much sleep but when theater is this exciting its well worth a little insomnia. Heres a look at the production. My husband is laughter you must love me very much. This is exactly how it should be sometimes i have terrible urges. Urges . Youre hiding something from me. What do you mean . How can you tell . I can help you in any way. You know how happy that would make me. You have no idea lie. It contaminates you. arguing do you have any idea what youve done . One more hour [ whispering . You were looking away. I was. Ts different than the theater, isnt it . Yeah. To watch it on the screen like that. And we recorded that two years ago. The production in our heads, at least, feels like its changed quite a bit. Charlie what happens after march 23 . Well, we finish on march 23 and then we have no idea. We have been very lucky. Weve had several opportunities to play it and, yeah. Its the gift that keeps giving. Charlie tell me about your two characters. Tell me about nora. So, nora, shes sort of a puzzle that ive had a huge thrill in trying to unpick. Shes a character that i guess that ibsen gives us lots of clues in the play about her upbringing and history and shes a product of a very distorted upbringing, and she sees her plays in the world place in the world through our eyes in a very i guess its a very sort of damaged but quite amusing when you first come across it. When the play enters, you meet a couple that appear to have everything, its a great moment in their lives, but their behavior they play lots of games with one another. Its a very odd relationship and appears to be skewed in terms of their role play, but uh the clues e but the clues emerge through the action of the text and we discover that she has reasons for behaving how she does. Torvald . Has been working for not much money. When the play starts, their lives are about to change. Hes made manager of a savings bank, theyre taking a step up the ladder. Its important for them, three children, a baby daughter and two boys, so its just about to start a great new chapter in their lives when we meet them. Charlie this is 1879. Yes, just before christmas. Looks as though its set to be a wonderful time for them, unfortunately. Doesnt play out that way. I mean, think about, in torvalds past, he had an illness, which we put as a kind of a breakdown which a man in that period wouldnt necessarily be able to admit to, not to the level we would. So we spent time in italy recovering. I understand that it was noras father who lent us money to go there but it was necessary for my health. After what he sort of overcompensates as presenting himself as the best father, a strong man because hes afraid and anxious about falling short of those ideals. Charlie why is this called a dolls house . Nora comes to the realization at the end of the play, she sees her life for the first time, she describes the way her father treated her as a young girl and also the way her husband treats her like a doll. So an inanimate project you can project things on and play with but somebody who doesnt really have their own inner life. And the place actually takes place in an apartment as opposed to the house, the designer and director did the research. Its a home and its a play about, you know, domestic environment, but she comes to realize that its trapping her. Charlie she has a great secret. She has a great secret, yes, that she borrowed. She took out an illegal loan nine years previously and has been paying off the money somehow through she has no income, she has no means of earning money, shes being paying off monthly quarterly installments through wheedling pocket money and gifts and streets. So the past nine years has been getting financial treats out of her husband. So its pretty extreme. The play has a lot to say about money, i think. Charlie what does it say about money . Well, it says, you know, its only stupid. People have to live. Charlie yeah. So the character crak krogstadt has to work his way up and become a money lender because of his children, his wife is starving and he has to provide for his kids. So theres a mrs. Linde, Kristine Linde who is a childhood friend of noras and she had to get married because her mother was sick and she had to provide for her brothers and she had been working and has to do it to keep going. And we have been trying to keep going and provide. Now with this great job, looks athough, you know it feels like he chose to set the play at christmas at that very, very cold time of year very specifically. I mean, the characters you see, the difference between those who have money and those who dont and those who are clinging on to it with their fingertips. Its a play, in many respects, about the things the effect that financial desperation has on your moral framework and the actions we all might be pushed to to find ourselves in a very desperate situation. Charlie for example, there are things he ignored. Torvald things he and nora are doomed by these revelations . Yes, but its social enough. Charlie exactly. His public persona charlie which he worked hard to create. Worked hard to create and very anxious because of what happened in his past that they would be pariahs and they would be finished. Charlie nora says, youve always been so kind to me but our home has been nothing but a play room. I have been your doll wife just like at home i was papas doll child and my children have been my dolls. I thought it great fun when you played with me and when i played with them. That is what our marriage has been. I would be horrified if she said that to me, too. It gets worse as well. Yeah. Whats so interesting, i think, is that this is why ibsens writing is end leslie rewarding to explore and i think it remains so pertinent and relevant to us now is that there are no its not easy to put people in a box as to it was their fault or his or her fault or villain or hero. Its very messy and murky and what he writes and what i think we see in the way that this relationship is played out is that shes being just as complicit in that. And its a dance that they play. And in many respects, who can blame him for failing to see her real self because shes being performing a version of herself for him in the same way shell perform another version of herself for someone else because its the only power she has. She performed that dance called the tarrentella. Thats the climactic point of the play where shes using whatever means she has. Charlie this is considered one of the great roles for women because there are so many facets of her own being. I think so. I think its ive never come across a part, i think, where we literally have to see, for a women to see a character turn on a six pence. On a six pence. Yeah, and charlie turn on a dime. Yeah, turn on a dime. Its a fascinating journey to inhabit because she remains on stage and different characters come in one after the other and we see her transform before our eyes, thinking, who is this woman . Why is she so manipulative and suddenly behaving like this and playing this game and, you know, one moment shes best friends with this person, the next minute shes doing her thing in public, and shes sort of a cocktail of psychological god, i dont know how to describe it but its because she has no conventional power or legitimate power, the only means she has to control her life is through playing other people, and shes an expert. Charlie did you once say, if i meet her, i think id like to slap her because she behaves so badly. I mif might have said that. Charlie yeah. Well, i think, in certain situations, if youve been performing the the part and doing the research, you start to understand why she behaves like that. Charlie she wants to be heard. Because she wants to be heard, because she desperately needs in that moment to win approval so that she can get the money to pay off the debt or whatever the reason is, or shes dreadfully insecure. But if you dont know that, you can think shes great fun, what a giggle. And the next thing, ooh and the games she plays with men, i would find in a 21st woman, unpalatable. When shes talking to her best friend, showing silk stockings, its great. I admire her resourcefulness and her ability to charlie youve heard what i said ben bradley said about going to the theater and how he felt. Is that a reaction you find from people who know you, who come to the theater and live this in. Well, i bumped into a young lady early on in our stay in at t. Charlie you were getting a phone . I didnt understand the system so i picked a number. Neither did she. This woman came to help us and assumed we were a couple. And we got in this embarrassment. I mean, she was looking at me and im, like, what and she said, sorry if im staring at you. Are you in a dolls house . I said, yes. I said, what did you think . She said, well, i didnt mow the play at all i didnt know the play at all and it shook me up a bit. I just got engaged. You do get couples sort of are looking at each other maybe a bit differently. Charlie yeah. Because it does expose how couples operate and the games they play and performances and if they have an agreement to doing that to each other, versions of each other, if that falls apart, whats left. So, you know, it does get weve had quite extreme reactions. I got booed. Charlie why did you get booed . About the character . Oh, i hope laughter but booed and hissed, which was really quite strange. He said rather choice things, having behaved really rather badly and something that was his fault, forgives nora, and makes a comment about women. Charlie this can be a starmaking performance for a woman. Yes . Yes. laughter charlie had you wo two workd together before . Yes. Charlie how many times . Twice. We did a play reading, a collection of stratford. We did the national, katy mitchell. I was her uncle. So go from uncle to husband. Charlie if you worked together before, does that make it easier of in terms of when youre in a a dolls house, understanding and having a sense of each other . I think so. Definitely theres a short hand in there. Trust in one another. But i do remember just getting to play a nineyear marriage talks time and takes, you know, investigation into what how they relate to each other, what that body language is and trust. Our director was saying early on, talking about the physical concept, he said youre quite collegiate. Remember that . Yeah, so charlie take a look at this. This is a clip, carrie talking about a dolls house. Here it is. And sometimes i walk into the dressing room. Now shes played it maybe 150 times and shes still checking in with her intentions or rewording them, thinking, i didnt quite capture that today, what am i really trying to do to torvald there. So shes made a series of minute choices about what shes trying to do. So the price is really trying to unlock the subtextual world of the characters and then we combine that with lots of improvising in which we construct an imagined world for the characters. We improvise, you know, nora and torvalds relationship, how do they touch each other, how do they speak, how does she get money from him. We try and work out what normal is in this world of the characters so that we can make a kind of interesting version of an abnormal day which is the days we see them on. Charlie heres whats interesting to me. Everybody wants to read into this this is a feminist track and this and that, its all about womens emancipation and all kind of theories about the play. Ibsen himself said it was not about womens right but a description of humanity and a modern tragedy. Yes, i feel both interpretations are valid. I can totally hear where ibsen is coming from and i feel the play has universal resonances to do with i mean, weve talked about money, but how to be honest to longterm partners. How dab you know, how to be true to yourself but also kind. You know, those are the difficult things about thousand to be a good person, but i dont think one can ignore the context in which the play was first put on and what it seems to have meant to people over the years and the power of the gesture. Charlie was it received well at the time . I mean, the critical reviews it was received i mean, scandalously, as far as i can make out. I think it created a lot of furor around the marriage question. In the play the plays written in a front room. So millions of people left their house and were presented with their own living room and these actions infold in a conventional marriage. Quite shocking behaviors. When it went to germany, the actress who was playing nora refused to play the ending. I would never leave my children. So ibsen, to his personal shame, had to rewrite the ending where torvald opened the nursery, showed nora the children and she said, no, i wont because she himself was very interested in money and wanted to get the receipts. They later put the original ending back but, yes, it was shocking. And i think it remains to be. Marriage breakups are no longer such a todo, but a woman leaving her children really makes people have very strong feels about it. Sort of an unnatural act, sort of how could she. Charlie how could she. Yeah. Charlie talk about acting for a second. Whats the most influential who or whats had the most influence in terms of your understanding of what it means to be an actor . What experience, what person . Was it school in was i . A director . A lover . For me, just personally, i never went to drama school, so i did university and went straight into it from there. For me, the first time i worked we mentioned already with the british director katy mitchell, was very formative because it was the first time id worked with any kind of structured system and i just i sort of charlie you thrived in that. Yeah, i loved it and it blew my mind. But it was also an incredibly enjoyable and rewarding experience. I mean, i worked with katy over a series of five productions that formulated and coacoalcoalesced certain things charlie like an architecture and you can approach a methodology to communicate who the character was. Yes. There are exercises to help you investigate the truth of whats happening on stage and have integrity to that and not get so distracted by the opportunities for, you know, love or whatever. But also for me, i suppose, family as well, because im the youngest of four by seven years, and just watching how my older siblings and my parents and extended family negotiated things in their lives and how that happened and sort of bad times, good times, all that sort of thing, and just seeing that, because i was the youngest, i could sort of see that and charlie you had kind of an observational interest. Yeah. Theyd probably hate to hear that. Ahha you know charlie yeah, right. But, you know, just seeing how different siblings operated in a different way with each other. You know, its not personal identity isnt fixed. Theres sort of a performative quality with each other. Charlie is the training different in london than it is in new york . Well, they take a lot more classes here and its continuous, yeah. And its supposed to be continuous. Ive learned it now. Keep going. I agree, yeah. I think its great, really, really healthy. Charlie what sparked your interest first in theater . Well, im very fortunate, my family are in the business, my father was a director, my mother an actress, so charlie did they want you to or not want you to . They were pretty kept a respectful distance. They basically wanted me to be as prepared as i could and wanted me to be aware of the precariousness. Charlie did you ever think of anything other than acting . Not seriously. Charlie i cant imagine what thats like to know what you probably want to do so early in life. Well, because i was exposed to it. Charlie i know, i know. And you . What brought you to the theater . Well, i wanted to be a vet, then i wanted to be a fireman, then a pilot. I was watching a tv, probably top gun, and i wanted to play that. Charlie yeah. I was 15, doing Twelfth Night playing sr viola. Obviously a womans part. And the director said, do you want to be an actor . I said, i dont know. Arent they all unemployed . At the moment, there was plenty of unemployed everything. Soy went okay, i wrote a letter to michael pettington and he wrote me back. Charlie and you said . This is what i want to do, how do i go about it . He wrote a letter, return post, giving me at vice. Charlie what did he say . You could go to university, have that as a backup. Heres drama school, heres how you get your union ticket. Charlie its different but its about writing, you know, how you learn to be a writer write. Yeah. Charlie congratulations. Thank you. Charlie as ive said, a dolls house is march 23. So time is coming to an end. You should be there soon. Thanks for joining us. See you next time. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org. 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