Fantastic actors, intellectually stimulating, with some explosive moments and abrupt ending. A great piece of theatre.
A Doll’s House Part 1, is a timely tale that was written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen in 1879. It was a trailblazer for its time, tackling issues faced by the character Nora – a middle class wife and mother, who rejects being the homemaker to husband (Torvald) leaving both her marriage and her children to find herself. A Doll’s House Part 2 now looks to build on this legacy examining the universal issue of a woman’s identity within a male-dominated society.
The writer (Lucas Hnath) makes a clear decision from the outset to engage the audience using humour in contrast to the clinical setting. This is pedalled through the character of Anne Marie (June Watson) who portrays a non-threatening woman who is blunt, yet so disarming that for the first act we are in hysterics. Not to call this a comedy piece – it certainly isn’t but the character, Anne-Marie, is honest in a way which most may find uncomfortable… and June Watson’s performance is electrifyingly magnificent, elevating the piece. In other news, the pacing is fast, the dialogue peppered with many references to the original A Doll’s House making it easy for those unfamiliar, to quickly get onboard for the drama ahead!
With minimalised staging, A Doll’s House, Part 2, is set underneath harsh yellow lighting panels that coat the stage throughout the play creating a sense of blinding intensity. The decision to keep character costumes in period dress, though have them speak using modern language, was perhaps a way of honouring the integrity of the original play, whilst allowing this new version to be more accessible to younger audiences.
Comic relief is needed to sustain the serious arguments driving the play which question whether marriage is necessary in the modern day. A Doll’s House, Part 2, also poses the question as to whether society will ever permit woman to abandon their children (in the same way men are able to with less judgement currently) – allowing society to find compassion for the mothers and their reasons on an equal footing to men. Facilitating these complex ideas, are 3 strong actresses, fighting differing feminist viewpoints with all their mite, whilst challenging our own belief systems. Difficult conversations about woman being reduced to puppet-dolls by husbands once married, were unapologetically driven throughout the play by Nora’s (Noma Dumezweni) power position; as she charged forwards as an independent woman in spite of societal stigma, stereotype and shame, refusing to play ball with society’s expectations. This was quite a revelation, causing audible sounds of gasps, tuts, mutterings and even laughing up and down the audience, moved by the subject matter and tremendous performance by Noma Dumezweni. A young perspective on the debate is introduced by Emmy (Patricia Allison) the daughter of Nora, which was refreshing allowing us to sympathise for the children left behind. Emmy certainly doesn’t play the victim having absorbed the survival qualities of both her birth mother and the mother who raised her, Anne Marie.
In A Doll’s House, Part 2, we see that Torvald (Brian F.O’Byrne), the husband figure, is portrayed as a fragile underdog, he is almost swallowed up by the fierce women in the piece. This is a complete contrast from the original play in which Torvald is certainly an alpha male. Did the writer (Lucas Hnath) make this drastic change to facilitate the feminism narrative, or perhaps to give a voice to men who feel somewhat left behind in this post Me Too world? Maybe, though, I can’t help but wonder about how explosive this could have been, if the spirit of the original Trovald had remained. How would these fierce women have navigated the events that unfolded up against a dominant male?