Mt. Lebanon actress featured in ‘A Doll’s House, Part 2’
For almost a century and a half, generations of audiences have witnessed the final scene of Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House.”
“It ends with the door slammed so hard that it could be heard ’round the world,” Mt. Lebanon resident Helena Ruoti said.
Helena Ruoti
The veteran of local stage is lending her talents to the reopening of that door in Pittsburgh Public Theater’s production “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” contemporary playwright Lucas Hnath’s sequel of sorts to Ibsen’s 1879 classic.
Set 15 years after the original, “Part 2” addresses what happens when main character Nora Helmer, who wrapped up proceedings by walking out on her family, finally returns home.
Ruoti plays the household’s nanny, Anne Marie, whom Hnath has given an expanded role.
“In the original, she is in just a couple of scenes, and you find out just briefly that she has given up her child to get a job, essentially,” Ruoti explained. “The job she took was with Nora’s father’s household, when Nora was a little girl. So she was Nora’s nanny, and then she became Nora’s children’s nanny. And that’s what is pointed out by Anne Marie: ‘Not only did I raise you, I’ve raised your children.'”
Nora’s departure without them sparked controversy in Ibsen’s day, to the point where some performances featured alternative endings in which she returned for the youngsters.
- Ted Pappas, who led Pittsburgh Public Theater for 18 years before retiring in the fall, returns to direct “A Doll’s House, Part 2.”
- The cast features Lisa Velten Smith as Nora Helmer; Daniel Krell as her husband, Torvald; Marielle Young as her now-grown daughter Emmy; and Helena Ruoti as Anne Marie, the nanny.
- The design team is James Noone, scenic; Gabriel Berry, costumes; Kirk Bookman, lighting; and Zach Moore, sound. Fred Noel is the production stage manager, and casting is by Pat McCorkle.
- Playwright Lucas Hnath received a Tony nomination for “A Doll’s House, Part 2” and a 2016 Obie, among many other awards. His plays include “The Christians,” “Red Speedo,” “A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney,” “nightnight,” “Isaac’s Eye,” “Death Tax” and “The Courtship of Anna Nicole Smith.”
Hnath was having none of that.
“He puts into the play a reason as to why she believes it’s a better thing to do, to leave the children,” Ruoti said, explaining that 19th-century thought was geared toward “whether or not a child might be ruined by a parent who may have been immoral in some way.” And because Nora’s actions strained the era’s concept of morality, she felt she “had to keep herself away from the children and in the hands of the nanny.”
Despite tackling what would appear to be ultra-serious subjects, Hnath provides healthy doses of humor, according to Ruoti.
“It’s the differences of opinion and some of the turns of phrases that people use,” she explained. “Sometimes people misinterpret what someone else says, or somebody says something that is so obviously not the truth. The audience knows it’s not the truth. The other character knows it’s not the truth but doesn’t say it.”
For the production, performers dress in period garb for the late 1800s, and the set is relatively spartan.
“The conversations are what presses the play forward,” Ruoti said. “You’re not really drawn to the bric-à-brac on the walls or the tea service or the samovar or the beautifully upholstered sofa.”
- Ted Pappas, who led Pittsburgh Public Theater for 18 years before retiring in the fall, returns to direct “A Doll’s House, Part 2.”
- The cast features Lisa Velten Smith as Nora Helmer; Daniel Krell as her husband, Torvald; Marielle Young as her now-grown daughter Emmy; and Helena Ruoti as Anne Marie, the nanny.
- The design team is James Noone, scenic; Gabriel Berry, costumes; Kirk Bookman, lighting; and Zach Moore, sound. Fred Noel is the production stage manager, and casting is by Pat McCorkle.
- Playwright Lucas Hnath received a Tony nomination for “A Doll’s House, Part 2” and a 2016 Obie, among many other awards. His plays include “The Christians,” “Red Speedo,” “A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney,” “nightnight,” “Isaac’s Eye,” “Death Tax” and “The Courtship of Anna Nicole Smith.”
Hnath’s approach has proved to be a hit: “A Doll’s House, Part 2” was the most-produced across the United States during the fall season, according to American Theater magazine.
As for Ruoti, her career in Pittsburgh theater extends back to the mid-1970s with the City Players, now City Theatre Company, based on the South Side. Her work during the past four-plus decades also includes appearances in feature films made in the region – George Miller’s “Lorenzo’s Oil” is the most notable – and on the TV favorite “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”
“Pittsburgh is a wonderful, vibrant artistic community,” she said, “and it just kind of speaks to the health of the city in that way.”
Pittsburgh Public Theater presents Lucas Hnath’s “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” directed by Ted Pappas, on Tuesdays through Sundays, March 7-April 7, at the O’Reilly Theater, 621 Penn Ave., Downtown Pittsburgh. For more information, visit ppt.org or call 412-316-1600.