A ‘DollHouse’ that alters our vision

Directed by Lee Breuer and starring the astounding Maude Mitchell as Nora, “DollHouse’’ conjures an otherworldly aura by taking one of the most familiar settings in all of dramatic literature - the outwardly cozy but deeply troubled Helmer household of Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House’’ - and transforming it into an actual dollhouse, complete with tiny chairs, a rocking horse, a pint-size Christmas tree, and a doll clad in a blue dress identical to Nora’s, with blond tresses like hers.

The male characters in this production by Mabou Mines, the legendary experimental theater troupe, are played by little people, including the excellent Kristopher Medina as Torvald, Nora’s pompous and overweening husband. The entire cast performs with exaggerated, stylized gestures, like actors in a silent movie, even as they speak an abbreviated, fragmentary version of Ibsen’s dialogue. (As in the silent-film era, there is piano accompaniment throughout, by Susan Tang, who plays pieces by Grieg from her perch at the front of the stage and who amusingly interjects herself into the action at one point.)

A spectral figure on stilts (played by Jessica Weinstein with uncanny agility) materializes in a phantasmagorical dream sequence. The climactic showdown between Nora and Torvald is enacted as an operatic duet, performed in front of an audience of nodding puppets who are arranged like the C-list celebrities on the old “Hollywood Squares’’ set. Oh, and there’s a doozy of a surprise at the end that adds an intriguing final twist to the gender dynamics we’ve been watching play out all evening.

All in all, what transpires inside and beyond this particular dollhouse makes it hard to ever look at Ibsen’s drama in quite the same way again.