What happens to the protagonist ofA doll’s house, once she left her home to emancipate herself? A few playwrights, including the Nobel-winning Elfriede Jelinek (What happened after Nora left), responded by writing a sequel to the 1879 masterpiece. In 2017, award-winning American author Lucas Hnath thus created at Broadway A Doll’s House, part 2, which takes up the story 15 years after the revolutionary gesture posed by Henrik Ibsen’s heroine.
It is true that Nora represents a major figure. It is the “first feminist character, one could say, a precursor, advances Marie-France Lambert, who edits the text. And what bothers us is to see that we are still caught up in the same debates. Define yourself as a woman in society. I am still fighting to take my place. We are always trying to get the same salary as our partners”.
“Nora allows us to see the path that has been made and the one that remains to be traveled”, adds Macha Limonchik. The actress is the one who proposed A dollhouse, 2e part at the Théâtre du Rideau vert — where she had never performed. “Very beautiful roles for 50-year-old women, there are very few,” she explains. It’s a kind of hole in dramaturgy in the West, the fifties: too young to play the grandmother, too old to play the mother of a young person… I can’t find the right shoe for me at the moment, actresses of my age share a very small pie. »
“My God it’s good! for her part, reacted Marie-France Lambert by reading this text. And it takes a lot of nerve to write a sequel to such an important play. The director likes the very American character, which contrasts with the austerity of Ibsen, of this work with contemporary writing, the collision between the rigidity of the time and this “very free, living language”. And if this sequel is enough in itself, the author has included in his piece a small summary of the doll house original “so well brought” that those who have not seen it “will understand everything”, she specifies.
We often laugh at the faults, the excesses of the characters. It is a very effective piece. It’s a debate of ideas, too. A fight between the characters, between their demands. So I take it physically too, like a boxing ring.
Lucas Hnath — whose play we saw in Montreal Red Speedo — also made a comedy out of it. “We often laugh at the shortcomings, the excesses of the characters, says Limonchik. It is a very effective part. It’s a debate of ideas, too. A fight between the characters, between their claims. So I take it physically too, like a boxing ring. I’m going to fight to defend my ideas. And I want it to show in my body. Nora doesn’t move like her daughter, or her husband, because she had her freedom. »
By undertaking this project, one could say that the actress has taken charge of her own career, a bit like Nora. This approach is however not in his temperament, notes the “very reserved” Limonchik. She is not the type to dream of playing such a role. “I don’t know what I’m going to do until I’m in the rehearsal room. Because I want to find out [ma version du personnage] with the vision of the director, with my classmates. »
“This means that Macha has great flexibility, intervenes Lambert. She arrives without preconceived ideas and is open to all proposals. And she’s not looking to make Nora look better either. She completely accepts her flaws. And even, when she has a little devious side or when we don’t agree with her, it’s your favorite bits (laughs). I have often rubbed shoulders with performers who tried to protect the character, as if it was them. While it is Nora’s “humanity, contradictions” that the actress wants to bring out.
Pendulum
Fifteen years after having rebuilt her life, Nora finds her family, with whom she had completely cut ties. Back in her old home by legal necessity, in order to protect the freedom she managed to build, she must successively face those who suffered from her departure: her husband (Paul Ahmarani), her former nanny (Louise Laprade) who raised his children in his place and his daughter (Rebecca Vachon).
“The author is skilful and enjoys titillating the public,” notes Macha Limonchik. The piece arouses active listening, engaged in the viewer, “because he will take the side of one, the other, then again one. And there are punches “. For Marie-France Lambert, “what is good about Lucas Hnath’s play is that it is always a pendulum”. From one dialogue to another, the characters who are given reason vary.
What caused a scandal in A doll house, was that Nora abandoned her children. An actress at the time even refused to play him on stage, forcing Ibsen to write a version with a different ending. A gesture that remains taboo, even if the two creators say they understand the need for this act of survival. “In her desire to free herself and to really find who she is, we are all with her,” says the director. But as soon as the abandonment of the children arrives, there is no longer anything that holds. ” ” For me, it’s my job to put myself in the shoes of another human being, and it remains very mysterious, adds Limonchik. I will follow his journey, but I can’t say that I understand. »
Strong
Even if it is camped at the end of the XIXe century, this piece “out of time speaks of our time”, says Macha Limonchik. It deals in particular with the difficulty of remaining oneself in a couple relationship, of “how to be with someone else, quite simply. It’s difficult. As we change over time”. And Nora engages in a total questioning of the institution of marriage. The actress finds it very funny that it is she, who has been married for almost 20 years, “who plays the woman who does not believe in it. It amuses me a lot. I think it’s a fantastic job for that.”
We discover in this 2e part a completely different Nora than the one seen in Ibsen’s play. Proud of the successful life she has built, and of her wealth, she “has style, pride, vanity to the point of ridicule. And she has courage. She is really strong! “According to his interpreter. She takes full responsibility for her decisions. “That’s where I might have things to learn from her. »
“Because we always apologize, women, laments Marie-France Lambert. We apologize for being successful, for making money…” “And afterwards, we learn that we are doing less than we should, resumes Limonchik. And we blame ourselves for having thought that it was self-evident. It’s a perpetual fight, I think. Also to be a good mother, but to go play at the theater, and not be there at night for suppers and homework. »
This question of reconciling self-realization and motherhood is not settled, 150 years after Nora’s liberation. “Me, I worked a lot less when I had my daughter, reveals Macha Limonchik. And I think my enjoyment of being on stage is very much related to the fact that she’s grown up now. I’m liberated, in a way. So we say: yes, things have changed. But I can do my job with more heart, more joy, because with less guilt. It’s not nothing ! »