Review: ‘A Doll’s House’ gets a satisfying, slam-bang sequel at San Diego Rep

You say Elvis has left the building? I say, who cares? Nora is in the house.

That would be Nora Helmer, the door-slamming heroine of Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 masterwork “A Doll’s House.”

In San Diego Rep’s knockout production of “A Doll’s House, Part 2” — the bracingly smart and original “sequel” by Lucas Hnath — Nora makes a rock-star re-entry, materializing in a blaze of lights and with a blast of sheer attitude on the doorstep of the home she abandoned 15 years before.

Why is she back? Well, to gloat, at least a little. The lady is now rich, thanks to the hot-selling books she writes about women who leave their husbands— just as she bailed on her own stifling marriage to Torvald, father of their three children.

Before the show is done, Torvald will get a chance to check out one of those books, of which he’ll say in wounded tones: “It was hard for me to read it.”

The ever-unrepentant Nora’s reply: “It was hard for me to live it.” (Shiv, meet ribs.)

But Nora is here for much more than a little catching-up. She also needs some help, and the way that plays out — with story threads of blackmail and forgery and other secret deeds — meshes ingeniously with the Ibsen original in Hnath’s modernized reappraisal of this proto-feminist and the obstacles she faces.

The piece calls for a Nora with a heart as big as Norway (where the story is still set), or at least the nerve of a Viking warrior.

And the Rep production, which has to rank among the best shows in San Diego this year, introduces to local audiences a New York actor (speaking of rock stars) whom we can only hope to see much more of now that she’s moving to town.

Sofia Jean Gomez, who arrives here with major off-Broadway and regional credits, plays Nora with such a vivid presence that she makes a case for an ongoing Nora franchise — one we would totally binge-watch.

She brings wit and style and a winning physicality to the part, whether she’s pulling a satirical “sad face” or draping herself across the bare floor of her former home (designed by the masterful Sean Fanning with an exquisite feel of aged timber and weighty history).

The sure directorial touch of Rep co-founder and artistic chief Sam Woodhouse keeps all the actors toeing the play’s tricky line between comedy and real human consequence, as Nora’s reappearance threatens to upend the lives of all involved.

René Thornton Jr. plays Torvald with a sharp blend of agonized pride, pettiness and vulnerability; one of the show’s funniest moments is when he demonstrates to Nora just how very angry he can get by fussily tipping a chair over a few inches.

As the faithful, long-suffering housekeeper Anne Marie, Linda Libby gets a whole lot of entertaining mileage out of playing tongue-tied during Nora’s initial, withering disquisition on the ills of marriage. But she also gets to step up memorably (and even launch an F-bomb or two) as the character makes her own case for why she has stayed to raise Nora’s kids.

Speaking of whom: Danny Brown lends all kinds of fascinating life to Nora’s daughter, Emmy, who seems impossibly girlish at first but proves her capability to out-Nora even Nora herself, while frustrating her long-missing mom by taking on a diametrically opposite view of domestic life.

The show’s look and feel is bold all around, including Jennifer Brawn Gittings’ sumptuous costumes, the sense of suppressed daylight in Alan Burrett’s lighting design, and the sharp bursts of instrumental music in Matthew Lescault-Wood’s sound design.

One thing Nora has learned in her long time away: “It’s so hard to hear your own voice.”

This show’s, though, comes through loud and clear.

“A Doll’s House, Part 2”

When: 7 p.m. Tuesdays-Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. (Some exceptions; check with theater.) Through Dec. 16.

Where: San Diego Rep’s Lyceum Stage, 79 Horton Plaza, downtown.

Tickets: $25-$69 (discounts available)

Phone: (619) 544-1000

Online: sdrep.org

jim.hebert@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @jimhebert