In 'A Doll's House, Part 2,' Now at the Beck Center, Nora's Story Continues 15 Years Later

Through June 30 at the Beck Center Credit: Courtesy Photo

It’s been often said that “You can’t go home again,” a saying borrowed from the title of Thomas Wolfe’s 1940 book about the impossibility of revisiting a former world that has been draped in pleasant nostalgia. But what if the home in question was the site of a shocking event that fractured a marriage?

That is the proposition offered by playwright Lucas Hnath in A Doll’s House, Part 2, now at the Beck Center. This sequel to Henrik Ibsen’s bracing feminist play, which challenged strict gender roles when Nora Helmer walked out on her husband and three small children to pursue her own goals, begins with Nora returning 15 years later and knocking on that same ominous door.

The story of why she suddenly shows up is told in a fast-paced 90 minutes through the perspectives of Nora and three members of the household: her husband Torvald, their aging housekeeper Anne Marie and the Helmer’s youngest child, the now grown Emmy.

Structured as a series of two-person dialogues, DH2 immerses the audience in the issues without any niceites like serving coffee or offering a slice of whipped cream krumkake (yes, the house is still in 19th century Norway). Within a few minutes, you’re whipsawed by the hurt that Nora caused and the pain that she is now introducing all over again.

Turns out Nora’s been a great success on her own and she’s baa-ack, to request that Torvald file for a divorce (as a woman, she can’t), so she can get on with her life in a legal manner. Otherwise, since she isn’t legally divorced, all her newly acquired loot and fancy duds belong to him and she runs the risk of being prosecuted.

Since it first opened seven years ago, the play has often been described as a tragic-comedy, and there certainly are moments of oblique levity. But as directed by Donald Carrier, the emphasis in this production is on the relationships, made more intricate by the fact that there are no easy villains to identify. There are also some anachronistic touches with shit-bombs and f-bombs being dropped into the conversations, not always successfully.

What stands out are the four performances that gleam with clarity. As Torvald, David Vegh isn’t the creep you might expect. Instead, he’s a bit tormented—also kind of nice in a distant way—and plenty confused as he tries to deal with Nora all alone.

Well, not entirely alone since Anne Marie was occupying a small room in the house to help with domestic and childcare duties. In that role, Nanna Ingvarsson etches an exacting portrait of a woman adrift in her own questionable decisions, including leaving her own child to work for the Helmers since she needed the money. Ingvarsson’s quiet, quicksilver changes as she warms to Nora and then rejects her are perfectly modulated.

Nora is also confronted by her daughter Emmy, portrayed as being very mature and resilient by Tabitha Raithel. Since little Emmy always thought her mom died, she now doesn’t carry the baggage of being abandoned by her living mother. And when Nora asks her about an option to solve her current problem, Emmy understandably recommends that Nora go back to being dead, noting with some irony that once she’s dead again, she’ll be free.

In the central role of Nora, Anjanette Hall is self-possessed and focused. Many of her lines could be played for laughs, but she and director Carrier keep the tone on an even keel which magnifies the oddities that emerge. To wit, Nora has become a popular novelist (writing under a male pseudonym, of course) in which she tells her story of familial departure.

It is interesting to encounter this play now, since the world of freedoms that women had won over the past 70 years in the U.S. seem to be slipping away, one Supreme Court decision at a time. And Scandinavia may not be far behind since a far-right leader was elected in Sweden a couple years ago.

A Doll’s House, Part 2 is engrossing and thought-provoking, enhanced by four precise and telling performances. And while serious Ibsen devotees may be distressed by the affrontery of playwright Hnath messing with these iconic characters, for the rest of us this play casts an intriguing new light on that “doll’s house” Ibsen created.

A Doll’s House, Part 2
Through June 30 at the Beck Center, 17801 Detroit Ave., Lakewood, beckcenter.org, 216-521-2540.

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