SCOTT JOHNSON: A fool’s house.

I recall the late William F. Buckley, Jr. bragging on his ability to identify liberals. Take him to a party, blindfold him, spin him around, take off the blindfold, and he could unerringly point out the liberals.

It’s not bragging if you can do it. I have no doubt Buckley could do it. “Brag” is the wrong word. “Revealing” or “disclosing” would be more like it.

I thought of Buckley’s revelation when we attended the Guthrie Theater’s production of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House this past Wednesday evening. The Guthrie has staged the version of the play adapted by Amy Kellogg Tracy Brigden is the director. Performed on the Guthrie’s Wurtele Thrust Stage in a space that seats 1,100, the play was nearly sold out. The place was packed.

The star of the play is Amelia Pedlow (Ibsen’s Nora). She is a strikingly beautiful actress. The production was professional, but something is wrong when the audience laughs at Nora’s climactic declaration of independence, as it did Wednesday night. I think the audience was obtuse.

We got off on the wrong foot with the Guthrie’s recorded land acknowledgment. The recorded land acknowledgment is read by someone with the sonorous voice of a public radio announcer: “The Guthrie Theater would like to acknowledge that we gather on the traditional land of the Dakota People and honor with gratitude the land itself and the people who who have stewarded it through the generations, including the Ojibwe and other indigenous nations.”

Exit quote: “I wanted to shout out ‘It’s not too late to give it back’ in response to the land acknowledgment.”