About the work
Nora or How to Compost the Manor House is a play by Sivan Ben Yishai, translated from English by Gerhild Steinbuch. It premiered on 13 January 2024 at Schauspiel Hannover, directed by Marie Bues. In 2024 the work earned Ben Yishai the Mülheimer Dramatikpreis for the second time.
Plot
Taking Henrik Ibsen's classic "A Doll's House" (1879) as its point of departure, Ben Yishai undertakes a radical shift of perspective: at the centre is not the emancipated bourgeois daughter Nora but the staff who appear only at the margins of Ibsen's drama — the nanny Anne-Marie, the housemaid Helene and a delivery man. These hitherto mute figures seize the floor, rise up, demand better working conditions and finally occupy the manor house. By "composting" the manor, the author exposes the patriarchal and class-based power relations and asks whether the ever-same narratives can be buried and new stories planted.
Cultural significance
The play combines the class question and intersectional feminism with a self-critical reflection on the institution of theatre. The Mülheim jury praised it as a "concise, elegant and apt" "great indictment". Sivan Ben Yishai, born in Israel in 1978 and living in Berlin, is among the most important voices of contemporary German-language drama; with this text she won the prestigious prize for the second time.