Brief Thoughts on A Doll's House, Part 2

Hold onto your hats, people, today is going to be a two-post day!  I have an autopost coming up later tonight (you'll see why), but I saw a show last night about which I want to share a few thoughts.  And predispositions.  But mainly thoughts.

My Tony voter boss is graciously taking me to see Lucas Hnath's A Doll's House, Part 2, a couple of weeks after it opens.  After seeing the grosses from last week, I began to worry that the show may not last that long.  I hope I'm wrong, but...I took myself to a preview last night.  Don't tell my Tony voter boss, please.  The show still has two weeks before it opens, so I won't say much, but I wanted to say...something. So those grosses will go UP!

I say:  please go see A Doll's House, Part 2.  Yes, we all know by now that I'm a big fan of Lucas Hnath. You can read all about it HERE, HERE, and HERE.  I'll just quote myself again, because I think this is what my enjoyment boils down to:  I like the way he writes. I like the way his brain works.  I like that he writes smart dialogue that sounds like the character and not just like the playwright.  I like how he lets me decide for myself how to feel about his characters and his situations, without taking sides. I like the wide range of subjects he writes about.  I just like the way he tells a story. 

And last night, for the first time in a long time, I liked one of his characters so much that I actually would want to play her.  It's been many years since I put my acting shoes away, and I rarely miss it, but good heavens, I would love to play Hnath's Nora. She's smart, funny, wry, selfish, short-sighted and totally real.  Loved her.  And I loved the play.

I loved my seat, too.  The stage/set has been set up as a thrust, so the first few rows of the orchestra are angled on either side of the thrust.  I was in the first row of the orchestra behind those angled seats, if that makes sense.  So I was terrifically close to the action, but not too close.

Taking place fifteen years after the final door slam of Ibsen's A Doll's House, this 'sequel' imagines what would happen if Nora came back for a specific reason.  It's 90 minutes of give and take, love and hate, laughter and tears.  Laurie Metcalf is first-rate, as is Jayne Howdyshell (a theatrical treasure), Condola Rashad and Chris Cooper (to be honest, he grew on me over the evening, I wasn't sure I would like his performance style at first).  As far as I could see, the audience was eating the play up; I don't know if it was an especially theater-friendly crowd, but everyone seemed to be on board with what was going on.  The shift from formal to informal, the revelations, the confessions - I heard the audience make lots of audible responses to all of these.  Maybe it was because I was so close, but I felt really engaged with the whole building, as opposed to just the actors on stage.  Again, I'm predisposed to like Lucas' plays, but still.  I would hate that such a smart and interesting play would have a tremendously short run on Broadway.  A play that deals with finding your authentic self and acknowledging that your authentic self may not be best for everyone around you.  I'm struggling with that kind of thing now - many of my sessions with my new therapist are about dealing with living with disappointing people when I stand up for what I believe in.  It's a totally new concept for me.  So to see it acted out, using an old favorite play of mine as a jumping-off point, was exactly what I needed last night.  Again, predisposition.  

But please, even if you don't share my predisposition, go see A Doll's House, Part 2!  Judge for yourself!  Show producers that we want quirky new plays on Broadway - there's room for everything!  Let's get those grosses UP!