The Origin Story

One day back in 2012, the playwright Lucas Hnath wrote the words “A Doll’s House, Part 2” on a piece of paper. Just for fun, he decided to write what might be behind that title: a sequel to Henrik Ibsen’s famed classic A Doll’s House. He first rewrote an existing translation of A Doll’s House, stripping out everything iconic we associate with the play (macaroons, the tarantella dance, etc.). He heard that Norwegians often find Ibsen’s plays funny, but Americans don’t as much, probably because most translations don’t carry the humor over. With this in mind, Hnath used his own sense of humor as a guiding force when creating A Doll’s House, Part 2. Ibsen’s play ends with a door slam; Hnath knew he wanted his play to begin with a knock at the door.

The play premiered at Orange County’s South Coast Repertory in April 2017 before moving to Broadway in a new production. It was nominated for eight Tony Awards, with one award going to Laurie Metcalf for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play. The play bypassed the usual development process—new works typically take years to work out the kinks, but A Doll’s House, Part 2 was workshopped in under a year. During rehearsals Hnath brought in “scraps:” bits and pieces of text. The actors performed those scraps, helping him learn what he wanted to stitch together. In the original play Hnath saw a couple so terrified of honesty that they could not have a real conversation. It was time for these characters to have it out.