A DOLL’S HOUSE, PART 2


It’s a whole new A Doll’s House, Part 2 at the Pasadena Playhouse with director Jennifer Chang and an ab-fab foursome of TV/stage stars bringing to scintillating life comedic elements left mostly unexplored in the two previous productions I’ve seen of Lucas Hnath’s 2017 Broadway hit.

 You don’t have to have seen Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 “Part 1” to enjoy Hanth’s contemporary-themed continuation, though if you have, you will recall that the last time we saw Nora Helmer in the Norwegian playwright’s classic original, she’d gotten so fed up with her male chauvinist hubby Torvald that she walked out on him and their three children intending never to return.

Or at least that was the case until Hnath penned his sequel, set fifteen years after the Ibsen original.

No wonder then, that when a knock on the Helmer front door reveals Nora (Elizabeth Reaser) standing tall and proud and grown glamorous as all get-out in the intervening decade and a half, longtime servant Anne-Marie (Kimberly Scott) finds herself dumbfounded.

Nora, it turns out, has become quite the successful writer over the past fifteen years, her pseudonymous first novel centering on a woman so suffocated in her societally approved marriage that she dares to do the unthinkable and bid her husband and family a not so fond farewell.

Unlike her doomed fictional heroine, however, an unhitched Nora has thrived, not only financially, romantically, and sexually but as a role model for wives who, following her protagonist’s example, have summoned up the courage to seek fulfillment on their own.

Unfortunately for Nora, one of her readers’ disgruntled ex-husbands has uncovered not just the novelist’s identity but the disquieting news that Torvald (Jason Butler Harner) never did finalize their divorce, making Nora guilty of multiple extramarital affairs and fraudulent book contracts, that is unless she can convince her husband to sign those divorce papers at last.

 That, however, will depend on Nora’s willingness to meet her now teenage daughter Emmy (Kahyun Kim), who has every reason to hate and resent the mother who abandoned her years ago.

Previous reviews have had me describing A Doll’s House. Part 2 as “audacious, scabrous, discussion-prompting, and often surprisingly droll,” however one word I’ve never used when writing about Hnath’s play is “hilarious,” which is why from the moment Reaser’s Nora makes her grand entrance to a deliciously melodramatic string crescendo, I found myself laughing out loud at the verbal sparring between Nora and a suitably astounded Anne-Marie, who can’t believe her former mistress has had the gall to return after all these years.

I’ve also described A Doll’s House, Part 2 as “talky,” which it still is, but it feels much less so at the Pasadena Playhouse given the verve with which all four actors attack their roles.

Like Bette Davis in Tallulah Bankhead mode, Reaser isn’t afraid to go big and go bold, and the choices she makes mine comedic gold out of lines that in less daring hands might easily fall flat, and casting the divine Scott as Anne Marie proves a stroke of sheer genius, the sassy servant taking no prisoners when giving Nora a piece of her mind, or two, or three.

The charismatic Harner is so sincerely clueless about the reasons for Nora’s brusque departure fifteen years ago that his reaction to her return is all the more priceless, though it doesn’t take long for his Torvald to attempt to reassert his position as rightfully spurned spouse.

And an equally fabulous Kim takes Emmy from adorable ingenue to assertive adult to indelible effect.

Wilson Chin’s stark set is dominated by a single huge door on either side of which sit onstage audience members overlooking the action like a jury in a not-so-civil lawsuit, and Anthony Tran’s costumes, Elizabeth Harper’s lighting, and John Nobori’s sound design are every bit as stunning.

Heidi Scheller is vocal coach. Casting is by Ryan Bernard Tymensky, CSA. Adam J. Smith understudies the role of Torvald.

Alyssa Escalante is stage manager and Brian Semel is assistant stage manager. Davidson & Choi Publicity are publicists.

 As much as I’ve enjoyed previous productions of A Doll’s House, Part 2, I’ve never entirely understood why it took New York by storm.

Thanks to director Jennifer Chang and her cast of bona fide scene-stealers, I now do.

Pasadena Playhouse, 39 South El Molino Ave., Pasadena. Through June 8. Wednesdays through Fridays at 8:00, Saturdays at 2:00 and 8:00, Sundays at 2:00.
www.pasadenaplayhouse.org

–Steven Stanley
May 18, 2025
Photos: Jeff Lorch

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

 

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