Tony nominations: Laurie Metcalf saw ‘the humor that was on the page’ in a ‘A Doll’s House, Part 2’
Laurie Metcalf got a call from producer Scott Rudin on Tuesday morning. It was great news: The actress had been nominated for a Tony Award for her lauded performance as Nora Helmer in playwright Lucas Hnath’s Broadway premiere of “A Doll’s House, Part 2.”
Metcalf said she was in the corporate apartment where she’s staying during the run of the play when Rudin rang. Although the actress has three Emmys (for her role as Jackie Harris on the sitcom “Roseanne”) and three prior Tony nominations, she’s never won Broadway’s biggest award. Many consider her the frontrunner this year. In his review, L.A. Times critic Charles McNulty wrote: “ ‘A Doll’s House, Part 2’ shifts rapidly from laughter to fury to sorrow to somber acceptance. I can’t think of many performers capable of Metcalf’s fearless extremes.”
TONY AWARDS: The complete nominations list »
Metcalf noted with satisfaction that the play received other nominations — eight in all, the most of any play — including the categories of best play, direction (Sam Gold), featured actress (Jayne Houdyshell and Condola Rashad), leading actor (Chris Cooper), costume design (David Zinn) and lighting design (Jennifer Tipton).
“I’m looking forward to getting over there to see the rest of the cast and to do the show tonight,” she said. “This will make it extra fun.”
Fun was what initially drew Metcalf to “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” which examines the state of affairs in the Helmer household 15 years after Nora leaves her husband and children at the end of Henrik Ibsen’s classic 1879 play, which portrayed marriage as an existential jail.
“When I read the play I saw the humor that was on the page, and I thought it would be fun to add some more and I got really excited,” said Metcalf, adding that the cast did workshops of the script in November and December, from which Hnath developed rewrites.
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Metcalf has an eye for good material no matter where it might appear. Last year she received a Tony nomination for best actress in a play for her role in “Misery,” and in 2015 she played the owner of a rowdy but sensitive chimpanzee in the critically acclaimed play “Trevor,” presented by Circle X Theatre Co., in the tiny Atwater Village Theater.
It may seem like a big jump to go from a theater with a few dozen seats to Broadway, Metcalf said, but it’s actually not.
“The same amount of work goes into it,” she said.
It’s also easy to tell if a play is working with audiences by their real-time reaction to it. In the case of “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” Metcalf immediately noticed that the house was filled with laughter.
“Lucas [Hnath] gets a big kick out of Nora’s drive, sense of humor, stubbornness and selfishness,” Metcalf said. “But ultimately what she puts out into the world is that she’s a fighter. And people love to watch that.”
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