Fullerton Troupe Bringing Lucas Hnath’s Sequel and Its Heroine Back
By Eric Marchese
How many classical plays are open-ended, with an unresolved, up-in-the-air conclusion?
Not many. Henrik Ibsen’s groundbreaking “A Doll’s House” is one of just a handful of these, and its climax-- wherein heroine Nora Helmer walks out on her husband and family-- paved the way for a sequel that arrived nearly 140 years later.
That sequel would be Lucas Hnath’s “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” which doesn’t exactly pick up where the original left off, but it does show us Nora 15 years later, when she has come to a consequential point in her life, leading her to return to the home she bravely left behind.
The original focuses on Nora Helmer, who, lacking opportunities for self-fulfillment in a male-dominated world, feels trapped in her marriage to her husband, Torvald, a banker.
Ibsen’s labyrinthine plot has Torvald threatening to fire a lower-level employee, Krogstad, who confronts Nora with plans to blackmail Torvald and manipulate her into abetting his scheme.
Now, STAGEStheatre is reviving the more recent play in a collaborative production with Brea’s Curtis Theatre, directed by STAGES’ Amanda DeMaio.
A feminist heroine, before and after
The STAGES website notes that, after multiple plot complications and machinations, the 1879 masterpiece “ends with a positively shocking conclusion for its time: Nora Helmer, a housewife, leaves her husband and children behind to gain her independence.”
Hnath’s 2017 sequel received its world premiere locally, at South Coast Repertory, before moving to Broadway. Set in 1894, it begins with a knock at the door–- the same door Nora slammed 15 years earlier when she turned her back on her husband and family.
The STAGES site says that “15 years after she infamously slammed the door on her stifling domestic life,” Nora “has returned with an urgent request. Before she can get what she needs, though, she must face the family she left behind.”
As “Part 2” begins, Nora knocks on that door. She has carved out a successful career as a feminist novelist and has returned to finalize her divorce from Torvald. In her attempts to get her husband to sign the divorce decree, she faces recriminations from Torvald, daughter Emmy, and Anne Marie, the Helmer family’s nanny.
The “award-winning theatrical sequel,” the site reads, “crackles with razor-sharp humor that speaks directly to today’s audiences, giving new voice to its predecessor’s themes of marriage, fidelity, and personal independence,” and is “a blistering and very funny meditation on marriage and the high cost of personal fulfillment.”
Thematic threads carried forward
DeMaio summarizes Hnath’s play as “centering on themes of marriage, family, personal identity, and the challenges of living authentically.”
“Part 2,” she said, “continues the original play’s themes of freedom versus responsibility, self-care versus obligations, and, though set in the 1890s, the contemporary language keenly highlights that society today still struggles with those same topics.”
Despite continuing with Ibsen’s characters, and plot threads, DeMaio says, the newer play “very much stands on its own, and because of that, it doesn’t seem like a sequel. We don’t need to know anything about the original to enjoy ‘Part 2.’”
“That said, Hnath has written such balanced characters who so adroitly share their points of view, that every time I read the show, I side with a different person. I think his point was to offer us these new perspectives because today’s family and personal dynamics are much more complicated.”
What STAGES brings to the table
DeMaio said that “three characters from Ibsen’s play are in Hnath’s–- Nora, played by Brenda Kenworthy; Torvald, played by Brian Fichtner; and Anne Marie, played by Jamie Sowers. For those characters, Hnath carries on with their lives using foundational details from the original.”
The director relates that Hnath has also created an original persona-– a “truly new character: the daughter, Emmy, played by Sidney Aaron Aptaker.”
She adds, “What’s interesting with Emmy is that, along with the other themes, Hnath also starts to reveal generational cycles. Many things Emmy is about to do in her life are what her mother did, and while Nora can see that and it fuels her on, Emmy is still convinced she is nothing like her mother.”
In addition to her quartet of actors, DeMaio has the skills of set designer Jon Gaw, costume designer Andrea Birkholm, lighting designer Kalen Cobb, sound designer Thor Fay, and stage managers Lauren Shoemaker and Lisa Kataoka.
Whether knowledge of the original is crucial
Is audience familiarity with Ibsen’s play a factor?
DeMaio said Hnath’s play “absolutely stands on its own, and it’s not important if you aren’t familiar with Ibsen's play. That said, if you are familiar with Ibsen’s play, yes, it will be different because you’ll be much more aware of the references and character nuances.”
Is this play any more “contemporary” for the 20-teens than Ibsen’s was for the 1870s?
“Maybe not,” DeMaio said. “I think it just changes the perspective, maybe goes a bit deeper. Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ was considered scandalous in the 1870s in part because it questioned traditional societal gender roles in marriage and household.”
“Today, while many of the traditional roles in a household and marriage have evolved, the struggles as individuals are, strangely, still the same. I think ‘A Doll’s House, Part 2’ focuses more on the individual-– how, as individuals, we struggle with personal fulfillment versus responsibility.”
“I think it actually shows how even more complicated life is now. And sometimes, depending on my mood, it makes me question if we’ve actually made progress. While people may have many options now, sometimes having many options can be as paralyzing as having none.”
We asked DeMaio if there could ever be a “Doll’s House, Part 3,” perhaps even 50 years from now?
Her reply: “Sure! – as long as you have engaging characters in a conflict, I think we’ll be interested.”
Eric Marchese has written about numerous subjects for more than 39 years as a freelance and staff journalist at a wide variety of publications, but is best known as a critic, feature writer and news reporter covering theatre and the arts throughout Orange County and beyond.
‘A Doll’s House, Part 2’
Curtis Theatre
1 Civic Center Circle, Brea
October 4 - 13, 2024
(714) 990-7722, CurtisTheatre.com
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