A Doll's House, Part 2

by Lucas Hnath
Pangdemonium
Victoria Theatre, Singapore
 

It’s certainly audacious. To take one of the most well-known works of world drama and create an unofficial sequel, providing your own spin on its iconic characters after the space of a century. But that’s exactly what American playwright Lucas Hnath has done in A Doll’s House, Part 2, which was staged to critical acclaim on Broadway in 2017 and now makes its Singapore debut in this Pangdemonium 2025 season opener. It continues director Timothy Koh’s penchant for lean, talky and character-driven plays such as Doubt: A Parable and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

 

Henrik Ibsen's A Doll’s House famously ends with Nora Helmer walking out on her marriage and children. Tired of being treated as an inconsequential plaything by her self-absorbed, conservative husband, she chooses to break away from the strictures of the Norwegian patriarchy and fulfil a duty to herself. In Hnath’s follow-up, 15 years have passed and Nora (Jo Kukathas) is now back to deal with some unfinished business. The play starts with Nora re-entering the very door she slammed shut all those years ago and is structured as a series of scenes between her and three other characters – the family’s nanny, Anne Marie (Neo Swee Lin), her husband Torvald (Lim Kay Siu) and her daughter Emmy (Rebecca Ashley Dass).

 

This is a very different Nora from the past: confident, poised, worldly. A woman who has achieved success and recognition as a feminist writer and is not afraid to show it. She has a smug, haughty air, peering around the room to comment on the furniture that has changed over the years. She speaks at length about the institution of marriage and stoically defends her decision to live a life of independence without being chained to a spouse. No remorse, no regrets. The sole aim of her visit is to finalise her divorce, something she recently discovered had never been filed.

 

Photo Credit: Crispian Chan, Pangdemonium

Much like in his elegaic Doubt: A Parable, Koh treats the largely empty space as a gladiatorial arena where his actors spar with words. He extracts strong performances from his cast, leaning into the occasional moment of comedy to leaven the tension. Neo lends a comforting touch of maternal warmth to Anne Marie, the long-serving servant who simply wants Nora and Torvald to have a “nice talk”. Lim does a good job of humanising Torvald, an obtuse yet sensitive banker who is revealed to have been unable to move on from his wife’s abrupt departure. Dass displays quiet spunk as Emmy, a young woman completely in control of herself who subtly engineers the conversation the way she wants. 

Strangely, it is the formidable Kukathas – onstage throughout the 90-minute play and with the lion’s share of the dialogue – who fades into the background. Her Nora comes off as awkward, cold and slightly anaemic. Moments of empathy, like dropping to her knees and resting her head on Anne-Marie’s lap, feel contrived. Indeed, there’s very little to like about this updated take on the character, a woman who barely acknowledges the daughter she abandoned and is purely focused on preserving her financial success and freedom. She does not seem deserving of our redemption. 

 

On the production front, there is little to fault. Eucien Chia’s elegant set has the air of an art gallery, complete with high ceilings, a prominent double door and transparent walls that overlook a pastoral landscape spanning the entire length of the stage. This is beautifully lit by James Tan to show the passage from time from day to night as the play progresses. Leonard Augustine Choo’s costumes are a clever display of period pastiche, with hitched up hemlines, unusual fabrics and bold colours to suggest a collision of tradition and modernity. Jing Ng’s sound design is subtle but measured, quietly elevating the dialogue.

 

Photo Credit: Eucien Chia, Facebook

Despite being set in the late nineteenth century, there’s a decidedly modern feel to the text, a fact driven by Hnath’s brisk, snappy prose that uses words like “shit”, “sorta” and even the occasional bit of swearing. This makes the themes of gender relations, societal expectations and marriage ring through powerfully. One cannot help but reflect how much have things changed since Ibsen’s time. Is it any easier for a woman to crave independence and want to escape a soulless marriage? If a man were to do the same thing, would he be cast off and denounced as a rebel? The fecundity of Hnath’s ideas sadly do not bear fruition with his one-dimensional characters spouting long lines of dialogue and there being little else to engage the audience by way of plot development. 

 

All this amounts to a production that looks good but feels tedious and inorganic. There are simply too many variables for an audience member to digest: the modern set, the period costumes, the endless verbiage, the hodgepodge of accents. The text may be rich but feels little more than an academic exercise on the part of the playwright, a chance for these characters to be resuscitated on stage to say their peace. There simply isn’t enough to grab one’s interest.

 

Photo Credit: Crispian Chan, Pangdemonium

Pangdemonium has taken pains in its publicity efforts to assure audiences that no knowledge of the original play is required to watch this. It’s perfectly reasonable given that not many people might want to step into a play billed as a Part 2 without seeing the Part 1. While I agree that this sequel largely functions as a standalone piece of theatre, without knowledge of the original text and the reasons that led Nora to leave, one would simply struggle to care deeply about the characters. As much as I appreciate the company's choice to take a risk with a classic adjacent play like this, part of me just wanted to revisit Ibsen’s rich, searing original.

The Crystalwords score: 3/5