"Stop Trying to Win!" Continuity and Reframings in A Doll's House, Part 2
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12795/REN.2023.i27.5Keywords:
American theater, seriality, dramatic sequels, palimpsests, realism, feminism, Lucas Hnath, Henrik Ibsen, Nora Helmer, A Doll's HouseAbstract
Under what terms can the twenty-first century stage bring Nora Helmer back into her husband’s house? Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2 (2017) attempts the paradoxical exercise of re-opening the discussion between characters which the end of Henrik Ibsen’s play had irrevocably separated, as though to satisfy our postmodern appetite for sequels (Genette, Eco). This paper examines the form of Hnath’s play as both a continuation of the “drama of ideas” concept and as a modern reframing, with more abstraction, irony and immediacy, of Ibsen’s issues. It argues that Hnath’s play participates in an ambition to “declassicize” Ibsen (as encouraged by Fuchs), while reaffirming the Norwegian playwright as our “contemporary” according to Agamben’s conception of the term. Beyond its endlessly open discussion of gender issues, this paper also seeks to replace Hnath’s play within American theatrical traditions, questioning how far innovation can go within the bounds of realism.
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Accepted 2023-11-08
Published 2023-12-20
