OpenStage Theatre presents Lucas Hnath’s comedic followup to that famous door slam
OpenStage Theatre’s “etcetera season” promises “raw, real, hones, and intimate cutting-edge theatre in non-traditional spaces.” The latest in the series fits that bill well, with a production of Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2 in The Tiki Room movie theater at Fort Collins’ Lyric Cinema.
Directed by David Austin-Gröen, the production features a very small stage with minimal props to show what happens to a home when a wife and mother leaves for 15 years. Despite the small set, movement is an important aspect of the production. This sort of theatre was all new to me and as such, was unexpected and surprising. As movement director Heather Ostberg Johnson explains in the program notes: “… in movement theatre we are able to express ideas in a bigger, physical way without changing the language given to us by the playwright.” If movement theater is new to you as it was to me, allow yourself to simply take it in as another way to feel the story.
Henrik Ibsen’s original A Doll’s House debuted in 1879 in Denmark. That play famously ended with Nora leaving her husband and children, and Hnath imagines what it might look like if she returned 15 years later, lightening the mood by filling the script with a lot of very funny lines.
The issues from the original still remain: To marry or not to marry. Is marriage a beautiful union or is it the end to life as you know it? Does marriage mean owning someone, or setting them free?
With four expert actors, including one who’d just undergone thyroid cancer treatment (Bryan Hill), these questions are posed and interpreted from the minute Nora (Kate Austin-Gröen) returns to the home, family and marriage she left 15 years ago. Nora is back for a reason, and we soon learn what can happen to all members of a family when one walks out.
Upon returning, Nora first encounters Anne Marie (Bryn Frisina), the housekeeper turned fill-in mother to Nora’s children. Nora is dressed extravagantly, and it is clear she has done well for herself in the years she was gone. There is a lively back and forth, both in movement and dialog in which Anne Marie fishes to learn just exactly what is it that’s led to Nora’s wealth.
Turns out Nora is a writer of women-focused books encouraging women to think twice about their marriage and their role in it. They are, in fact, books that can actually make women leave their husbands. One husband in particular, a judge, is none too happy and goes after Nora, discovering that she is still married.
Nora needs a divorce from her long-estranged husband Torvald, and she needs Anne Marie’s help to get it. When Anne Marie refuses, Emmy (Annie Lofton), Nora’s now-adult daughter has a plan.
Bryan Hill as Torvald
In the second part of this 90 minute, no-intermission play, we see Torvald (Bryan Hill) together with Nora as they rehash the reasons she left. Nora learns that Torvald let everyone believe she was dead (it was easier), and Emmy’s plan might just work.
If you are up for a unique experience, which is the heart of OpenStage Theatre’s etcetera season, you will not be disappointed. Come with an adventurous spirit to enjoy a play full of thought-provoking ideas and questions about a theme common to nearly everyone, then and now.
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