A doll’s house, part 2

Actor’s Theatre of Louisville

victory jory theater

fall 2018

For this regional production of Lucas Hnath’s cheeky sequel to Ibsen’s classic,Nora has returned, 15 years later, with a knock on the same door that she famously walked out of at the end of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. What has changed and what has remained? The play is a series of mostly 2 person scenes staged, as arguments, and titled like boxing bouts. For our production at Actor Theater of Louisville’s intimate 3/4 thrust Victor Jory Theater, we wanted a boxing ring of sorts, a room with the walls peeled back. Although the play ostensibly takes place in the period, Hnath’s language is ultra-contemporary, with several well-placed f-bombs. In the end, the play is as much about how women and men relate to each other today as it is about Ibsen’s era. So we wanted a space that felt both period, and contemporary. By skewing the perspective of the room to feel off balance, and by giving the walls a metallic sheen reminiscent of a Macbook, we skewed a classic interior to feel modern. We also buried neon behind all the moldings; and beneath the furniture, which was used mostly in transitions, in concert with projections of Hnath’s scene titles. The play tells us that Torvald has thrown out all of Nora’s stuff, and that the room is mostly bare. We liked the idea that the shadow of Nora’s stuff has remained on the walls, as if sun damage had burned their shapes into the space. Torvald mentions he threw out Nora’s piano; and we thought it would be particularly perverse if he kept the piano bench. We kept a tight palette with lavender chair upholstery, a lavender door, the silver walls. and a herringbone-pattern wood floor.

Directed by Pirrone Yousefzadeh•Set Design: Reid Thompson•Costume Design: Valérie Thérèse Bart•Lighting Design: Cecelia Durbin•Sound Design: Kate Marvin•Projection Design: Phillip Allgeier•Photographs: Johnathan Roberts•Actors: Zuleyma Guevara, Nikhaar Kishnani, Socorro Santiago,Kim Sullivan