Macaroons
Like many things, my interest in macaroons came about from theatre. Specifically, teaching text analysis to freshmen at My U. The first play we read and analyze is A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen, a revolutionary text for many reasons . I won't go into them here, but it is enough for me to say that Ibsen's writing of A Doll House was one of the four events that completely changed the face of theatre as it existed prior to that event, in Western theatre history.
My students, however, find it hard to think of A Doll House as revolutionary.
Here's where we come to the macaroons: in the first act, Nora sneaks a bag of them into the house and lies about both eating and having them to her husband Torvald. This is the first moment of the play that actively shows us the discrepancy between "saying" and "doing" that is not only the heart of conflict in drama but the heart of the conflict in this "doll house."
But my students always picture the kind of coconut macaroons Girl Scouts sell.
Not so. The macaroons Nora eats are considered confectionery, not cookies really.
This is what ed. people call "a teachable moment." Meaning that it opens the opportunity to get students out of their limited perception of the world and into a broader view that somehow connects with and embraces 1879 Norway via sweets.
Nora's macaroons look like this:
or this:
The second photo is mine, taken last Saturday in the window of Ladurée on the Champs Elysées.
They are a combination of 2 crispy cookies packed around a creamy filling. They are not bake-at-home treats but a delight from patisseries and confectioners. Traditional flavors include chocolate, vanilla, coffee, strawberry, lemon, and pistachio. Nowadays in Paris, one can get macaroons from Ladurée or Pierre Herme or Fauchon flavored with violet, rose, tequila and lime, passion fruit, orange chocolate, chestnut, green tea, wasabi and grapefruit--an entire wild range of flavors. Although Ladurée was where I ate my first macaroon, Pierre Herme is my current favorite outlet because of the incredible flavorings and crisp, crisp cookies. I do not recommend Fauchon, where I found the macaroons to be, well, damp.
Ladurée, founded in 1862, is an institution in Paris. I recommend that if your mother, aunt, grandmother, niece, or BFF visits Paris you take her there, either the store on Champs Elysées or (better) the original on Rue Royale for macaroons and tea. It is a treat. I recommend this just like I recommend taking the same group of people to Angelina's on Rue de Rivoli for their hot chocolate (do it!). Both offer the kind of elegant site and mid-afternoon sit-down that will impress these folks, and the food and drink are delicious.
If you simply want to have some good macaroons (and possibly not share) go to Pierre Herme and fill a box. And walk on the wild side: try the crazy flavors, too.
Back to macaroons and Ibsen. As I said in my post on the difference between action and activity, props are almost always mishandled by young and contemporary playwrights. Read Ibsen to find out how it is done: Ibsen takes a simple bag of macaroons and makes it the site of action. First, there must be a bag of eatable confectionery in Nora's pocket because she eats several while ontage: we see her. Sure, she could mime eating them... but why? The point is that Nora has a sweet tooth, indulges that sweet tooth, and then lies about it to her husband. Which tells me, the spectator, that she is a liar and a child... confirmed by Torvald's assessment of her as a child and someone prone to fibbing. I see her eat a macaroon out of a bag of macaroons, I see her conceal the macaroons in her pocket, I hear her husband ask her if she had had a macaroon and hear her deny it--four times!--and I see her offer a macaroon to Dr. Rank when he appears. Huh. The real macaroons show me that Nora is a/ a liar, b/ not to be trusted, c/ a child indulging in sweets although she knows it is not good for her... wait a minute. I just bought into the entire-view-of-the-world-as-presented-by-Torvald-Helmer... and perfect! Ibsen has done a whole conjuring trick and it will take me the rest of the play to wake up to the reality of what I just saw and re-think who these people are. And until I do, I am stuck in the doll house with Nora and Torvald, within a limited perception of the world.
All because of macaroons. But, as a spectator, actor, or director, I have to know exactly what macaroons really are, not just what I think they are or what they are to me. More improtant: what are (or were) they to Ibsen? It's a great moment because the students have to learn (see) something new and once they do, those macaroons are forever present in their thinking about how this play is not a reading text (like a novel) but an action text on a stage: those macaroons are a reality that must be accounted for. They are real to three of the characters onstage, and demonstrate the relationships among them. Nora hides the macaroons from Torvald; she offers to share them with Rank. The complexities of the trio's relationships--which is explict later in the script--are revealed here to me (spectator) before I am ready to process it... but later this moment will echo in my head and ground Ibsen's character actions for each of the three in a rock-solid foundation of seen reality (as I refer to it in my post on character).
The bag of macaroons is real. The perceptions and emotions projected onto that bag by each of these three characters are also real--as the actors must demonstrate them to the spectator. As Ibsen wrote them.
So: every time I eat a macaroon, I think of Ibsen and his characters. Every time I teach this moment, I think of Paris. It's all connected.
Pearl
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