Theater: A Doll's House Part 2 critiques a century of feminism

A Doll’s House, Part 2

By Lucas Hnath

Directed by Sam Gold

Starring Julie White (Nora), Stephen McKinley (Torvald), Jayne Houdyshell (Anne Marie)

Golden Theater, Manhattan

September 21, 2017

In Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 shocker A Doll’s House, the previously-compliant wife Nora famously walks out on her husband Helmer Torvald, her children, and her familiar life, with only uncertainty and societal condemnation in her future. She does this because she has been awakened to a realization that her own needs are as important as those of others; she cannot reconcile this with her stultifying family life. The play ends as follows:

Helmer. Nora--can I never be anything more than a stranger to you?

Nora [taking her bag]. Ah, Torvald, the most wonderful thing of all would have to happen.

Helmer. Tell me what that would be!

Nora. Both you and I would have to be so changed that--. Oh, Torvald, I don't believe any longer in wonderful things happening.

Helmer. But I will believe in it. Tell me! So changed that--?

Nora. That our life together would be a real wedlock. Goodbye. [She goes out through the hall.]

Helmer [sinks down on a chair at the door and buries his face in his hands]. Nora! Nora! [Looks round, and rises.] Empty. She is gone. [A hope flashes across his mind.] The most wonderful thing of all--?

[The sound of a door shutting is heard from below.] ).

We are left with Torvald perhaps seeing a glimmer of hope—could he perhaps work with her to re-imagine  what a marriage is? Playgoers have wondered what happened next for the past 140 years.

Playwright Lucas Hnath gives us one possible outcome in his excellent new play A Doll’s House Part 2. In it, we fast forward about 15 years, to the turn of the century, and Nora returns for her first ever visit to her old digs. She has thrived as a single proto-feminist author, but now needs Torvald’s signature in order to finalize their divorce, which he never completed after her departure (he is passive-aggressive in explaining why not). This practical, financial motivation for the return is the scaffold for a revisiting for her motivations, the slowly changing role of women in society, and the problematic balance between self and family, all issues with resonance today. In the following single act of 90 minutes, we are updated on Nora’s life, on Torvald’s lack of forward motion after their split, and of their differing remembrance of their marriage. Torvald remains angry, saw Nora’s departure as an irresponsible betrayal of the institutions of family and marriage, and feels she should have been more willing to communicate her pain and to compromise. The ever-spirited and certain Nora has not evolved much since she left her home, still seeing the world through only the viewpoint of her happiness and fulfillment, and expressing little regret or new insight. Hnath leaves her much as Ibsen did, and whether one sees her as self-centered or courageous (or both) is up to the viewer. That ambiguity is a strength of both the original play and this sequel. Both avoid easy answers or convenient moral anchors, and therefore prompt the viewer to reflect on his/her own values.

Hnath adds two characters to this marital drama, both acting as critical foils. The crusty family maid Anne Marie (an excellent Jayne Houdysell) functions to keep Nora grounded and not allow her to fall easily into one-sided moral certainties. Anne Marie has seen the pain Nora caused for her husband and children up close, and reminds her of the consequences of her actions. An interesting different type of foil is Nora’s daughter Emmy (Erin Wilhelm), now a 20-ish young woman launching her own marriage. When her mother, talking with her for the first time in decades, shows disappointment that Emmy would not choose a career to develop her obvious intelligence (thus following her mom), Emmy responds with a spirited defense of choosing marriage not because of societal norms or pressure, but of her own preference. The dialogue between mother and daughter, central to the play, becomes a critique and debate on women’s choices and obligations that remains unresolved even in our day. Hnath’s pacing and language, interpreted by the excellent director and cast, move events forward briskly. I did wonder why Hnath substituted modern slang (anachronistic for 1900) into the text. Was this a way of updating the older play? I do not think it was necessary, but it did not distract too much. Overall, the playwright’s talent left me both reflecting on this play as a follow up to one of the most influential plays of early modernism, but as a modern thoughtful social critique in its own right, creating a spirited, entertaining, and insightful evening of theater.