“A Doll’s House, Part 2” Retreads Broken Ground on the Way to Nowhere New

At the end of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Nora leaves her husband and children, putting selfhood above wife-and-motherly “duties.” By 1879 standards such an act — even if merely onstage — was scandalous, earning the play a deserved place in the canon as a major piece of protofeminism.

Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2, wherein Nora returns 15 years after walking out the door, was written in 2017. And while by today’s standards it barely ranks as progressive in the Western world, perhaps its biggest shortcoming is that even it wouldn’t have broken new ground even in 1894, retreading as it does ground covered by its progenitor.

After a quick aural flashback to the end of A Doll’s House, we meet an older, heavier Nora (Jennifer Shelton — not what I’d call heavy, but the dialog says so, so…), who tells Anne Marie (Eileen T’Kaye) about the intervening years (several lovers and a successful literary career, including a novel that’s basically A Doll’s House) before explaining her return: it turns out Torvald (Scott Roberts) didn’t follow through on his promise to grant her a divorce, and this has put her in legal jeopardy, so she’s gotta get it from him. Shortly Torvald comes home from work, and most of the rest of the play is a lot of talk of shoulds and shouldn’ts both personal and societal.

The static, talky nature of Part 2 is one of its failings (ICT’s minimalist staging doesn’t help). To be sure, the best scene is when Torvald finally explodes (argumentatively — he never was violent, just a man with patriarchal attitudes typical of his time) and the former couple really go at it. Director Trevor Biship-Gillespie has staged this right, and Roberts and Shelton are believably in the moment. 

T’Kaye, too, is good with exasperation in her opening scene. The acting is not the problem. But because the script ties their hands, there’s really not much ICT can do to liven things up. The only other character, Nora & Torvald’s daughter Emmy (Nicolette Ellis), is far from fleshed out and only serves as a drag on the proceedings. Hnath would’ve done better to expand the character of Anne Marie to include Emmy’s central material.

Moreover, Hnath’s dialog is inconsistent. While at times he does a nice job echoing Ibsen’s language and tone, he breaks the spell not only with “shit”s and “fuck”s thrown in for yuks, but a few dubious linguistic anachronisms. “It’s a really big turn-off,” in 1894? Not so much.

International City Theatre has a knack for picking plays whose mainstream praise (the Broadway production was Tony-nominated) mystifies me. I don’t know whether you need to be an Ibsen nut to enjoy A Doll’s House, Part 2 — but since I don’t care for him beyond his feminist cred, maybe I’m the wrong guy to ask.

A Doll’s House, Part 2 at International City Theatre
Times: Thurs-Sat 8:00 p.m. and Sun 2:00 p.m.
The show runs through May 1
Cost: $49-$52
Details: (562) 436-4610, ICTLongBeach.org
Venue: Beverly O’Neill Theatre, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach