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A DOLL'S HOUSE, PART 2
by Lucas Hnath
director Joel Horwood
An Amateur Production By Arrangement with Dramatists Play Services Inc.
CAST • CREATIVES • PRODUCTION • TEAMS • DONORS | SUPPORTERS
SYNOPSIS
Who is at the door?.
Doll’s House, Part 2 is a smart, funny and thought provoking contemporary sequel to Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Set 15 years after Nora famously slams the door on her oppressive life, this new work stands alone in its vibrancy, and provokes the kinds of questions that still pervade society as potently now as they did in the late 19th century.
Whether you're an Ibsen aficionado, or you've never seen the original play, you will find something to enjoy in this production. The text is accessible, thrilling, and full of big, juicy ideas that will provoke deep conversation and reflection.
WHERE
Norway. Inside the Helmer house.
WHEN
15 years since Nora left Torvald.
RUN TIME
90 minutes - no interval
Bar service available up to 5 minutes before start of ACT 1, during interval & after the performance
PRODUCTION WARNING
There is some strong language used during the production.
DIRECTOR'S NOTE
I’ve always been drawn to Ibsen. And by “always”, I don’t mean to imply that I tumbled out of the womb thumbing a copy of The Master Builder. But one of my formative theatrical experiences was seeing a Schaubühne production of Hedda Gabler in Melbourne. At drama school, I was envious of the girls who got to embody Hedda, while I was relegated to the bumbling Tesman.
So, when the time came to pitch a play for Canberra REP’s 2025 season, unsurprisingly I led with Ibsen. Programming a season is a delicate balancing act, and while there may not have been room for Ibsen this year, I’m very grateful that REP took a chance on Ibsen via Lucas Hnath.
Both Hedda Gabler and A Doll’s House end with a bang. But where the former dictates the fate of its heroine with a decided full stop (spoilers, sorry), the bang of A Doll’s House leaves audiences with a question mark—or perhaps an ellipsis—in the wake of Nora slamming the door closed.
When A Doll’s House premiered in 1879, Nora’s door slam reverberated around the world, and for over a century since, we’ve been left to wonder what happened to her next. It takes a certain audacity to think you can pick up where someone like Ibsen left off. Cue Lucas Hnath, a plucky American playwright who presents us not with a definitive answer, but with one possible rendering of Nora’s life post-Torvald. Reading A Doll’s House Part 2, I am reminded of Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors, a movie I often reflect on as I consider the version of Joel who hadn’t abandoned their physiotherapy degree in 2008 to pursue a career in the arts…
One of the strengths of this text is the vibrant anachronism. The play takes place in a theatrical present that straddles its late 19th century setting and a distinctly modern vernacular. It is a play of flawed, often hubristic humans. No one is without fault, and just as you take the side of one character, someone else presents the perfect riposte.
In building the world of this play, I wanted to riff on the image of a doll’s house—with rudimentary, model-like furniture pieces, and a sense of scale that lets the actors feel like toys, manipulated by the whims of the playwright. We’ve also created moments where chairs are displaced and reoriented, as if manoeuvred by an over-zealous child. I owe a debt of thanks to designer Tom Berger, and Dad’s Army, for bringing our reimagined doll’s house to life.
A Doll’s House, Part 2 is a play of ideas, with characters engaging in robust, spirited debate on the constructs of marriage, gender roles, and equality. Like Ibsen, I believe Hnath leaves us on an ellipsis. This time, however, we’re not left to question what’s next for Nora, but what’s next for us.
Joel Horwood
PLAYWRIGHT • Lucas Hnath
Lucas Hnath grew up in Orlando, Florida. He moved to New York to study pre-med before transferring to dramatic writing at the Tisch School of the arts at NYU. He currently teaches there as Assistant Professor in the Department of Dramatic Writing.
His first off-Broadway play, Red Speedo (2013), deals with a competitive swimmer at the start of Olympic trials facing challenges including doping and competitive pressure.
His 2014 play The Christians, dealing with a pastor who discards fundamentalist Christianity in favour of a more inclusive faith, was nominated for two Drama Desk awards and won the Outer Critics Circle award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play.
A Dolls House, Part 2 had a six month run on Broadway in 2017 as his Broadway debut, starring Laurie Mecalf and Chris Cooper. The play was nominated for the 2017 Tony award for best play and Laurie Metcalf won the award for best actress. The Australian premiere was in August 2018 at the Melbourne Theatre Company, starring Marta Dusseldorp.
His subsequent play, Hilary and Clinton (2019) also played on Broadway starring Metcalf and John Lithgow as Hilary and Bill Clinton during Hilary’s unsuccessful presidential primary attempt in the 2008 election, losing to Barack Obama.
His play Dana H premiered in repertory with another play, Is This A Room in 2021 – both plays being one of the first shows to open on Broadway after Covid. The play is based on interviews Hnath had with his mother, Dana Higginbotham, about how she was held hostage in Florida motels for five months. It received three tony nominations and won two – one for Best Actress in a play for the lead, Deirdre O’Connell (who appeared last year in the TV series The Penguin as the Penguin’s mother) and one for sound design.
compiled by Simon Tolhurst
