Even so, she sees the gender pressure of age. Marta Dusseldorp: ''The whole play is about finding your true height and your real voice.'' Credit: Eddie Jimĭusseldorp is now 45 and much sought-after last year, she had just two weeks off, with various shows clamouring for her time. What ensues is an exploration of her life of independence, her understanding of herself, and several key moments when she delivers persuasive speeches – one is described by Dusseldorp as almost a manifesto, articulately arguing against the idea of marriage. Important details from Ibsen are cleverly integrated but without exposition and we are rapidly drawn into the reason for Nora's return: she has discovered that Torvald never filed the divorce papers. The Melbourne Theatre Company production of Part 2 is a powerful standalone play that does not require the audience to know the original Ibsen work, though 'there are certainly prizes for those who have read A Doll's House and seen it,' Dusseldorp says. (Laurie Metcalf won a Tony award for the role in an acclaimed Broadway production last year.) Set 15 years after Nora's departure, the play explores her return to the family home and the consequences of her earlier choices: for herself, Torvald, nursemaid Anne Marie and Nora's now-adult daughter, Emmy. Crossing from theatre to TV and film and back again during her career, which was launched to general audiences with Paradise Road (1997) and Praise (1998), she has covered much territory and while she has never played Ibsen's Nora – 'I always wanted to play her, as an idea, but I didn't get to' – she is now inhabiting the character in US playwright Lucas Hnath's 2017 revisiting of the play, A Doll's House, Part 2.

Credit: Deryk McAlpinĭusseldorp's extensive credentials stretch from all six seasons of A Place to Call Home, to Crownies and its successful spin-off Janet King, to the Jack Irish TV movies.

As Torvald during rehearsals for A Doll's House, Part 2.

Marta dusseldorp family