A Doll's House, Part 2
A Doll’s House, Part 2 was commissioned by South Coast Repertory Theatre in 2014. Three years later, A Doll’s House, Part 2 had its (and Hnath’s) Broadway debut. It premiered on Broadway (directed by Sam Gold, featuring Laurie Metcalf, Chris Cooper, Jayne Houdyshell, and Condola Rashad) and simultaneously at South Coast Rep (directed by Shelley Butler) in April of 2017. It struggled in previews to find audiences but once critics got their eyes on it and got the word out, it began to soar with accolades and popularity and the Broadway production was extended until September 24, 2017. A Doll’s House, Part 2 received 8 Tony nominations. According to American Theatre Magazine, it is the country’s most produced play of the 2019-2020.
Laurie Metcalf, Chris Cooper, and Jayne Houdyshell in the 2017 Broadway production at the Golden Theatre.
INSPIRATION
So what motivated Hnath to take on the beast of sequeling the father of modern drama? Hnath was intrigued by the challenge of revisiting characters that have been left hanging for 100 years. With such well known characters like Nora and Torvald, Hnath knew his audiences would come with speculations and preconceived notions. Hnath looked forward to examining what people thought about Nora’s fate after she slammed the door all those years ago. Most people thought that she’d struggled to survive or died, and, in turn, Hnath wanted to turn these ideas on their heads and leave the audiences reexamining the perspectives they came in with. Hnath wanted to know what he could add to the conversation that would combat the audiences assumptions.
“One thing I thought about with the play and writing it was simply, “What were the problems that Ibsen was trying to address in his time?” and thinking about how so many of the problems he was trying to address have not evolved from where they were 100 years ago. So I don’t know. I think it has more to do with how things that were progressive and revolutionary 100 years ago still are progressive and revolutionary. That’s remarkable.”
- Lucas Hnath in a 2018 Aspen Times interview
PROCESS
Hnath began by writing the title on a piece of paper and finding it humorous. He then proceeded copy and paste a bad translation of Ibsen's play into a Word document and tried to write it all out in his own words. He then asked what was left unsaid. In Part 2, he wanted to embody the confrontation lacking in the original and give a voice to Nora and others in the house affected by her actions.
“The first thing I wrote was Torvald unloading on Nora. And I wanted to hear her response to that.”
- Lucas Hnath in a 2019 New Yorker Article
Hnath is extremely analytical in his writing process. He can be found constantly finessing each line of his plays, even up until opening.
“With A Doll’s House, by the time we went to rehearsal, I was not finished writing the play, and that was intentional. I was bringing in these little tiny fragments every day. 20 to 40 pages of little fragments. We would read through the draft. And then the actors would read through these fragments and we would talk about them. Then we’d talk about stitching in a couple. And basically, I worked out every possible alternative for every moment in the play. We would examine every single possibility. You kind of work it out and figure out what’s best. What says what you want to say the best?"
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- Lucas Hnath in a 2017 Forbes Article
STYLE
With A Doll’s House, Part 2, Hnath has been specific about word choice, structure, and moments of silence. When listening to a Hnath play, audiences find themselves captivated by the rhythm of the words. Hnath’s hyper sensitivity to pacing can be seen with his use of ellipses and line breaks in his dialogue. Hnath says his intentional beats and pauses within a scene mirror a dramatic film closeup. Additionally, with his breaks in dialogue, Hnath passes the buck to the audience to fill in the gaps. He sees the audience as active participants in the storytelling as they are confronted with expected characters speaking in unexpected, contemporary ways.
“The mixture of period fidelity and anachronism signaled to the audience that they were excavating Ibsen’s artifact together.”
-D. T. Max in his 2019 New Yorker Article