Perth Voice Interactive

WHEN playwright Henrik Ibsen had his female lead walk out on her family in A Doll’s House, it was considered radical for its late-19th century audience.  

Whether it would still be considered radical today is at the heart of a sequel making its WA premiere at the Blue Room Theatre from June 13.  

Director Emily McLean from Red Ryder Productions says while society has come a long way since the play’s premiere in 1879, some of the expectations and underwritten rules surrounding women are “still as restrictive and as sexist as they ever were”.

In A Doll’s House, Part 2, writer Lucas Hnath sets the scene 15 years after Nora slammed the door on her life. 

“She’s back and she’s knocking on that same door,” McLean says.

Over the course of the play, she says, the audience learns about what happened in those 15 years and more importantly, why she’s back.

But this isn’t the only thing differentiating Hnath’s Part 2 to Ibsen’s version. 

With its blend of timescapes, McLean says Hnath’s iteration is written in a different form. 

“It’s set 15 years after it happened, so 1884, but it’s also kind of set now,” she says. 

Despite being set in 1884, the characters use the rhythm and idioms of today’s language. 

With Part 2, McLean says Hnath didn’t want to interfere with the original, instead imagining a sequel.

“But it definitely does what other plays do,” she says.

“It goes, ‘well, these were the issues that we were looking at then; let’s look at them in our day and how they work now’.”

McLean says the original explored the problems that caused Nora to leave her marriage and every expectation of what a woman could be in the 19th century. 

She hopes the play will encourage people to question their role in their own marriages and the assumptions people make. 

“To look at those structures around us, those that are often unseen. And maybe change our behaviours around them.”

A Doll’s House, Part 2 is on June 13 – 29 at Blue Room Theatre, Northbridge. Tix at blueroom.org.au/events/a-dolls-house/ or 9227 7005.

by CINDY CARTOJANO