Transcripts For KQEH Charlie Rose 20170605

Consider the meaning of nora leaving. But, you know, over 100 years later, i think its time to sort of revisit that story and think about, well, what does it mean that she left and what would it mean to return and what would even bring her back. Rose dan balz of the washington post, and the cast of a dolls house, part 2, when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose Donald Trumps decision to withdraw from the paris climate agreement has row voakd an overwhelmingly negative reaction overseas and at home. Joining me from washington to talk about the president is dan balz, chief correspondent for the washington post. Welcome to our program. Thank you, charlie. Rose tell me why the president felt compelled to do this, and lets grant him that perhaps he thought it was in the National Interest to do this, perhaps he didnt believe the accord was the best that could be had. Lets assume that that part of his mindset. But what else . Charlie, i think you go back to sort of First Principles with President Trump, and we saw it during the campaign, and weve seen it at important moments during the first months of the administration. There are certain things that he believes that have to do with kind of the economic status of the United States and the role of global agreements, whether theyre a trade agreement or an environmental agreement. And he has had a longstanding view that i think predates his arrival into politics formed years ago, and im not exactly sure how and why they were formed, but the idea that in one way or another we have been taken advantage of. And i think it is fundamental to the way he sees the world and he sees his role as president. I mean, he said months ago, i was elected to be president of the United States, not to be president of the world. Yesterday, he said, i was elected to represent the people of pittsburgh, not the people of paris, and i think that is deeply engrained in hum. I think when he hears all of the criticism of the possibility of the damage that could be done by withdrawing from this agreement and what it might mean as the u. S. s role as leader in the world and the global arrangements that have been built with u. S. Leadership over the many years, that doesnt register on him in the way that his idea is that these have been bad for the United States, they have been bad for workers, and hes going to try to do something about it. Rose you mean he can be considered a true economic nationalist as steve bannon is . I think thats right. Now, you know, when you look at what he did here, and a lot of people say i believe rightly that this was a victory for steve bannon, its also a victory for a lot of conservative republicans who have long been opposed to the Environmental Policies of president Obamas Administration and i think have wanted to do everything they could to reverse those, and they have been taking steps to try to do that. This is another step in that regard. But, on the economic point, i mean, he didnt talk much about Environmental Issues in his statement on thursday, he talked more about the economic damage that he believed that agreement would do to the United States and the advantage that that would give to others, and i think that more fundamentally reflects his world view. Rose what is the economic damage he believes it will do to the United States . Well, i think his view was that, in one form or another, that this agreement would shackle the United States and that it would cost the United States jobs, and to be freed from it now, you can argue with the facts of this, obviously but to be freed with it allowed the United States to chart its own course and not to have, you know, the environmental regulations that the rest of the world wants to impose on us or that we voluntarily agreed to accept as part of this agreement in one way or another inhibit the way we wanted to run our economy or the way in which Energy Companies wanted to operate and Automobile Companies wanted to operate, big utilities want to operate. So i think his view is that and he cited some studies, some of which have been disputed that said this would have cost a considerable number of jobs over a long period of time, and i think his argument was the advantage in terms of whatever it might do for climate change, whatever it might do for the plant environmentally, it wasnt worth what he envisioned as the economic loss. Now, as we know, there is a huge pushback against that and lots of people who dispute the facts he was offering as his rationale for pulling out and, also, the view that this does great damage to the United States internationally because it is a pullback. I mean, it is an americafirst move on his part and one that could have significant consequences beyond simply the paris accord. Rose do we believe that, at the essence, donald trump, when he means america first, means that america is simply not serviced well by being a part of the larger world, that were better off if america simply goes its own way and does what it does well . I think thats right, charlie. And, you know, this was articulated quite straightforwardly in an oped that h. R. Mcmaster, the National Security advisor, and gary cohn chief Economic Advisor in the white house wrote for the wall street journal earlier in the week was in essence rejecting the idea that we are a part of a Global Community or that there is something valuable about that a idea of a Global Community, and that, instead, nations compete. They compete for advantage. They compete for military advantage and economic advantage, cultural advantage, and that we are well positioned in this country to compete effectively in that way as opposed to entering into these kinds of rangements which arrangements, which, in the president s view, tend to shackle the United States rather than allowing us to express our advantages in a way that we can gain the most from them. Rose yet, at the same time and im not asking you to defend the president or in fact support the president , obviously but, at the same time, did he actually go through a rigorous examination of this, or was he simply Going Forward with the principles he already believed in because, as you know, lots of people stepped forward to express deep opposition to this because of the American Interest as well as the American Interest in National Security of which they see Global Warming as a part . Well, you know, i cant answer the question of how much h he delved into the details of all of this. My colleagues and had a very gd piece in the friday postabout the lobbying that was going on back and forth, and it was intense and it was fierce. He heard from people on all sides, and, you know, there were serious efforts to, in essence, gin up different views to make sure he heard them, including ivanka trump helping to organize some c. E. O. S to weigh in on behalf of staying in on the accord. So we know that he heard a lot. He also heard a lot from the likes of steve bannon and scott pruitt, the e. P. A. Administrator, who came armed with a lot of data, a lot of information to support the idea that this agreement was bad for the United States. So he heard a lot. I think he probably heard as much on this as hes heard on anything. Ive compared this to kind of the healthcare issue where, obviously, he was involved in trying to change some peoples minds, but we never got the sense that he delved deep will you into the details of it or ever fully cared that much about the details of health care. On this, i think he heard a lot, but, you know, he ended up where he began which was he had said as a candidate we were going to get out of this and, in the end, that was where he came down. There was some talk he might offer some kind of appeasement to the people who wanted to stay in or some sop to them to suggest that, well, were mostly pulling out but were going to try to be good about it. But this was a withdrawal. I mean, the only acknowledgment was that, well, we can start to renegotiate a new deal, which there is no forum to do that, theres no way hes going to be able to do that. That was the closest egame to offering anything to the side that lost on this. Rose and then this point, some people have been talking about the different sides within the white house, and clearly this was victory r the economic nationalist steve bannon and mill around others, or was it simply the president listening to his own head, and you cant tribute it to anyone other than the president listening to what he had believed . I have to believe that its the latter, charlie, and not the former. I mean, you can make the argument legitimately that this was a victory for steve bannon because he argued very vociferously to get out of this, and you can argue this is a victory for economic nationalists, but, i think, in the end, this was donald trump acting as donald trump. Im not sure and this, again this is me projecting a thought that he came down where he wanted to be, where he thought he always was and that he was willing to hear various sides but at the this reflected core values at the he has carried with him into the white house and that hes going to operate on not just on this but i suspect on other matters as well. Rose and it had, i guess in his mind, the additional positive quality of it seems to be what his base wanted him to do. Oh, theres no question about that. I mean, when he talked in the inaugural address about the forgotten americans that he was going to represent and that the american carnage was going to end starting on january 20th, i mean, i think this is a Straight Line from that to this kind of a decision, and i think that i mean, one of the things that weve seen in this administration is there has been no particular effort to try to expand the base of support that got him into the white house. It has been at various turns a reinforcement of that support and i think that this was another example of that. I think on any of the economic issues, he plays directly to the base and i think, as we saw in the campaign, he has a visceral instinct for how the people who helped support him and got him to the white house think and feel about many of these issues. Rose and these people dont care what the chancellor of jarl or the president of france say about how they see it as an impact and how they see it playing right into the hands of china . No, i think they see whats happened in their communities. Rose right. And whether it had to do with the paris accords or, you know, nafta or any other agreement, they see an north america in which its economic muscle has been weakened over many years and that donald trump says hes going to do something about that and if this is a step to do that, i suspect that many of them will applaud him very vociferously. Rose and that was, in fact, the political genius of donald trump in the campaign for the presidency. And its what fooled so many people who thought there was no way he could become president. So, again, this is one of those moments when he acts against what all sorts of smart people say is in the interest of the United States, but, as he said, im sitting in the oval office and they arent. Rose there is this, he comes home from many people judge as a reasonably successful trip in saudi arabia and less so when he went to n. A. T. O. And the g7, he comes back from that after nine days, and he will get up next week, and james comey will be testifying, and he will saw, we assume, some of the things that he claims that the president has said to him, and thats clearly going to be embarrassing to the president if not raise questions of obstruction of justice. Absolutely. Its interesting. We will go from this period where he was on the world stage this week and then drawing attention to his world view of how the world ought to be shaped, and next week, with the comey testimony, we go back deeply into the whole issue of russia and the investigations, and it is kind of this splitscreen nature of his administration at this point. They are trying to do things. They have an agenda thats largely been stalled on capitol hill, but on the one hand they are trying to do the things that they made promises about during the election and, yet, they are dogged, literally day in and day out, by the russia investigation and all the revelations that continue to spill out day by day by day, and next week will be a huge week because of director comeys testimony. I mean, we will not have seen a day like this in washington in quite a long time. I mean, you can already envision what that day is going to be like with walltowall coverage and breathless reports and everything magnified because of the world in which, you know, social media has the ability to take an event and transform it into something viral. So he is heading into a potentially very, very difficult week. Obviously, they know that, and they will attempt to be prepared. There is some question as to whether he will try to invoke executive privilege to prevent mr. Comey from testifying. Sean spicer at the briefing today would not give an answer as to whether they have made a decision. They reviewing it, he said. But i suspect, one way or another, well hear from directodirector comey next week. Rose were also looking at committees that have subpoena power and theyre subpoenaing both documents and people to come to different congressional investigation committees. I mean, in a sense, charlie, the investigations which, you know, have been ongoing for months now seem to be accelerating with the issuing of subpoenas, and all of that, you know, will be will continue to crescendo throughout the summer and probably into the fall, and ten, of course, theres the special counsel, robert mueller, whos got his own investigation about which we dont know much other than its potentially very, very damaging to people around trump and, you know, his soninlaw has now been drawn in, jared kushner, with questions about meetings with the russians. There is just so much swirling on that front that they can never quite they cannot get out from under it. They, i think, are continuing to try to figure out how to manage it. I mean, months ago, somebody from a Prior Administration said the smartest thing they could do is, in a sense, figure out what they dont know, that there was so much that they didnt know, but to try to take their own inventory, do some kind of their own internal investigation, they obviously did not do that, and, so, they are left, in a sense, to react to every new revelation that comes out and, as i said, they continue to come out on such a regular basis that theyre playing catchup entirely every day, every day, every week. Rose more and more people are stepping forward, not just columnists and not just people who are pundits and paid to do that, but a range of people from Corporate America and other institutions in america seem to be a rising sense of concern and fear. Charlie, i agree with that. I think people recognize that were in a most unusual period in this countrys history. We have we have not seen anything like this. We have not seen an early stage of a presidency that bears resemblance to this. There is, in addition to the deep partisan polarization, a sense that the country is in overdrive in a way that is just kind of breaking everything apart, and i think there is deep concern about that. Rose right. There is concern about what the investigations ultimately will lead to. There is obviously concern on the part of people who support President Trump that there is a wuch hunt, that there is a determination on the part of whoever to bring him down, and that is pitting people against one another, but, as you say, it has kind of raised the collective level of concern in the country and this notion of how do we continue like this and for how long will ewe continue will we continue like this and whats the way out of it. We dont have an answer to that. Nobody can answer it, but i think we all recognize the gravity of the situation that exists at this point. Rose the interesting thing, too is this president had a domestic agenda. He clearly wanted to do something in terms of health care, he wanted to do something in terms of tax reform, he wanted to do something in terms of infrastructure, and he wanted to do something which has been stopped in the courts about immigration, all of that, except things that are in the court process, are on hold. Well, i guess i would say on immigration, though, the travel ban has been held up in the courts. In other ways, hes moved on immigration, and i think that people who elected him in part because of thum congratulations issue feel as though he is keeping that promise. Again, in the his pampg community, its created a sense of alarm and fear, but i think on that front he is making some progress and it does show that elections do matter. On issues Like Health Care and tax reform, i think one of the things thats happened, charlie, is that the republicans have run into the reality of the difficulty of governing. During the obama administration, it was pretty easy to be against what president obama was in favor of, but to come up with the alternatives to that has proved to be very, very, very difficult. We saw the difficulty the house went through to try to get any kind of a healthcare bill. The senate is struggling with it. The administration planners believed long ago that that issue would be done and signed, and theres no quick solution on that. There is a hope among republicans that they can finish healthcare in the senate by the august recess but well see if theyre able to do that. The president said, when they were talking about the paris accords, that the tax bill is moving along very swiftly. There is no real evidence of that. We dont know the real outlines of that yet or whether there can be any kind of consensus within the republican conference in the house or the senate on that. So those two bigticket items are, at this point, in limbo. In a funny way, this seems nutty, because were still in the First Six Months of a fouryear term, but the window closes relatively quickly on some of those. So theres a sense that they need to get those things done or moving well before the august recess or certainly in the fall, but they have to do with the debt ceiling at some point when they come back from the august recess. They have to fund the government, thats going to be another battle. So these things pile up and pile up. And the agenda that he had gets backed up farther and farther. You mentioned infrastructure, i think there are still people who wonder why he didnt try to do infrastructure early and try to make an outreach to the democrats, but i always kind of thought that was not likely because the republicans have full power at this point. They own the house, the senate, the white house, and they have an agenda that has been, you know, building up for some years and they wanted to move that first. The infrastructure was a donald trump initiative, but not necessarily a conservative republican initiative. So hes run into these kinds of complications. Again, the russia matter and all the issues around that cause a dis a distraction is not the right word. They force a focus on that to the exclusion of some of the issues theyd like to get done, so it makes it very difficult. Rose has he gotten a fair press . Hes gotten a very tough press, charlie, i dont think there is any question about that, but i think hes gotten a tough press because he has brought a lot of it on himself. When he engages in falsehoods, when he says that he would have won the popular vote were it not for 3 to 5 million Illegal Immigrants who voted, hes dealing with facts that do not exist, and the press calls him on that. The other thing we know is this is a white house, even though in one sense they are bunkered together, that they are fighting amongst themselves and leaking mightily to the reporters who are covering the white house. I continue to get emails from people who oppose trump who still believe that the press, including the mainstream press, enabled donald trump and helped to elect him and defeat Hillary Clinton. So there is another view of this from the other side. But among Trump Supporters and certainly from the president himself, there is a feeling that the press coverage has been mightily unfair. Rose and then you had Hillary Clinton stepping out this week in another interview talking about how this information was weaponized in the United States, this hacking information was weaponized to help defeat her as a candidate. She did. It was quite an interesting interview that she did with Walt Mossberg and kara swisher of recode. I was clear from watching her in that interview that she has spent hours and hours and hours poring through data and information and analyses to try to understand why she lost. I mean, i thought one of the more telling statements she had, and i think im paraphrasing here, was something to the effect of i take responsibility for every decision i made, but that wasnt why i lost. And she has found a variety of reasons other than her own skills as a candidate, the way she ran the campaign or her campaigns performance to conclude these are the reasons she lost, not any of those. Now, she is rightly concerned, as everyone is, about the role of the russians and what happened in the election and whether the russians will try to do that in future elections and the degree to which the sanctity of the vote here or the sanctity of the way we operate a democracy is at risk because of what now can be done through social media and through hacking and all sorts of nefarious ways, and she is quite fluent on that. She has drawn clear conclusions about the role of the Trump Campaign in that that have not yet been proven by any of the investigations. There is obviously a lot of dots. Shes connected those dots. She walked right up to the line of essentially saying that donald trump himself was colluding. She tinted quite say that but certainly she believes that the campaign of trumps was in one way or another involved either cooperatively or actively in her undoing. But she also said things that even Many Democrats were surprised about. She went after the Democratic National committee, and i got feedback and talked to people who just felt that that was a bridge too far, that that had very little to do, very little or nothing to do with why she was ultimately defeated. But she is looking for reasons to explain to explain what was unthinkable to her on the night before and of the election till she began to lose all the states they thought they were going to win. Rose dan, its a pleasure to have you. You make so much sense and im honored you came on this program. Charlie, i always appreciate it. Thank you. Rose well be right back. Stay with us. Rose henry family. That sparked debate about what happened to her. Followup from playwright lucas hnath flashes for nora returns home to face her family for the first time. Ibsens nora is a fascinating character and played by numerous actresses including janet mcteer who appeared here in 1997. If you look at it as a humanist drama with them fism, you have a much more flawed person, much more flawed character, much more flawed relationship and that stuff at the end, its all there, brilliantly written, i think, and as soon as she says, i dont love you, she then says, im terribly sorry, it hurts me to say it. I mean, shes full of doubt. I just thought it was thats what happens when real couples break up. Doesnt matter if you think youre right or know youre right, whatever, even though youre walking out the door there is a part of you that says what if uh done and youre terrifyingly lonely and you always wish you could be better just for a minute. Rose a dolls house, part 2 is nominated for best play, best direction of a play, best actress and best actor. Heres a look. Also, also, heres another thing that bothers me, you dont get angry. Of course i do. Maybe once. Right now i feel angry. You feel angry. Damn right i am. No, i dont believe youre angry, inside the feeling of feeling angry. Youre just outside looking at it thinking oh, there is some interesting thing you dont act constipated laughter rose currently running at the john golden theater. Here with me is the playwright lucas hnath, director sam gold, and actors Laurie Metcalf and chris cooper who plays her former husband. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Let me begin, luxe, wit luca, with you. Did you long think about what was going to happen here and over the aftermath of what happened to the character . Yeah. I mean, ive always moved the play, and i had seen it in many productions, and, i mean, the first thing that came to me was the title. I just thought that was an audacious title for a dolls house, part 2, and it wasnt until i started writing it that i had to get serious and past the joke of the title and really consider what does it mean to revisit the story. Rose what do you think ibsen intended . I think rose people to think about it and speculate about it for all the years after . Yeah, maybe in some ways what i did goes against his intentions. I think he wanted that door to slam and us to sort of consider the meaning of nora leaving. But, you know, over 100 years later, i think its time to revisit that story and think about, well, what does it mean she left and what would it mean to return and even bring her back. Rose is there much debate over how she turned out rather than how she might have turned out . Much debate . Rose yeah. I love the fact that lucas, when he had the idea of what noras outcome would be, i think he polled some of your friends, would bit positive or negative, because she had such limited options and with no skills and no education, the stigma of being a divorced woman in 1879. Rose yeah. So people thought that her options would be negative. So lucas wanted to go in the opposite direction. And when i mean in a positive way, a successful way. Shes a success. Rose do people believe ibsen intend as kind of a feminist argument . I mean, i think the thing that ibsen kept coming back to in all of his plays is how are we not free and how could we be more free and is that really truly etch possible, and he is a writer that seemed to yearn for people to be more free, to be less constricted by social norms, social judgment. I think a dolls house is part of it. The roles men and women are forced to play. Noras action to break out a certain expectation. Rose but comes back for legal reasons. Se has to come back. She has to, yes. He has a very clever method that brings her back. Whats fun for the audience is to find out what made her come back after 15 years oversilence, no communication at all, and also what shes been doing in those 15 years. Rose and the audience wants to find out how torvald and everyone else react to her coming back after all this time and what questions they have for her. Yes, and she gets shown, you know, face to face, she tha haso come face to face with the aftermath of what she did. Rose including her children. Yes, her children are grown. Rose and how does torvald see her . Oh, as a completely changed person. He doesnt recognize her. Rose yeah. Is he surprised . Oh, i think hes dumbfounded. Rose he thought she would go off and drift into nothingness. Well, yea. I mean, i think he was convinced that she was shes still living, but her outcome, whats happened to her, im sure he has no idea. Rose why does she leave . Nora leaves because she has gotten into a spot where shes not sure what she wants, and she has a strong suspicion that the way that shes walking through life is without any understanding of who she is as a person. So she thinks she needs to go find out who she is rose the search for identity. Yeah. And i dont think she certainly doesnt think she can find that person, if she stays in this house, because shell just keep falling into patterns of behavior. So she needs, you know, literally a change of scenery. Rose thats an ageless question, who am i. Yeah, yeah. And its, you know, the way the play articulates is it talks about there is a voice inside of your head, and that voice is you, but you have all these other voices colliding in on it, voices of your parents, of your husband, of the people in your Community Tell you what you should be doing. So she has to stop hearing those voices of other people and hear really, if im left to myself, what do i want for myself. Rose sam, is part of this play not only how they react to her but how she reacts to them . Its an amazing surprise, right. The door slammed in 1879, and suns then weve all been wondering what happens to nora helmer. Its a fun exercise. So, for the play, you have all this buildup and excitement about whats going to happen when she comes back. Are people going to flip out . Are they going to welcome her back with open arms . What is she here for . And then, over the course of the play, you get sort of a series of, you know, little meetings between her and the important people in her life where you get you get the surprise of finding out how they treat her and how she treats them. Rose some have said about you that you prefer minimalist in design of theater productions youre involved in. I like to focus on the actors. I like the words and the performers to do all the work. With this, we really thought about it, when i read lucas a play, i thought about a boxing match. Its got a lot of rhetoric, a lot of argument in it and it just felt like making a production where it could be great actors kind of sparring. That was the basic idea. Rose so, i mean, where would you rank ibsen . Where do you rank this play . Its one of the most important plays in dramatic literature, one because it was extremely shocking when it was written, you know, to give a woman that you know, the things you were talking to lucas about, about her inner voice, to give a woman that decision to leave her family, to leave her children and to leave at the end of that play and that door slamming was an incredibly important moment in cultural history and theater history and then its a great role actors have played forever and you get to watch a great actor play. You know, its one of the great roles. Rose before we started, janet was here in 1997 in the role of nora. You get to watch people reinterpret that part like janet did in 97. For this play, its a chance to get to see someone play nora, but also get to see someone in a completely new play. It borrows from the old play but it really is its own play that gets to use some of the context of ibsen but its really lucas and lucas voice more than it has anything to do with ibsen. Ibsen. Rose i guess the fascination is what manner of come who had the strength to do this . What man or woman . Rose what manner of woman, human being, to walk out at a time when no one ever left the nest of the family. I know. Ates wonderful character. Its fascinating. Even though i havent done the original dolls house, and i still havent, really, i mean, im playing nora helmer, but she has reinvented herself in the 15 years she has been away. So i felt like i had a free pass to reinvent the character myself, because its the nora that we see that everything that was bottled up in her in the original has come out, exploded, and se has a confidence and a sense of humor and aggress youveness about her, and shes on a mission and shes focused. Its just thrilling to be able to play a character whos still very flawed, very flawed, in lucas production. But you root for her because shes just so passionate about her feelings. Rose how is she flawed . Oh, shes selfish and she can be petulant and she can be kind of petty and she can be impatient. But i find, like, within a character that still has the passion, i find those negative attributes sort of endearing. Its fun to play. This is also what has changed torvald. I mean, i think having had nora leave the house, we use the word torvald is constipated. laughter through these 15 years and this shock that hes taken, hes left to raise three kids with the help of anne marie the housekeeper, housemaid. His life, i think, is so narrow, its the bank and its home. Bank and home. He has no social life. He is horrified or very concerned about what society thinks of him, and her leaving, i think, has just turned his world inside out. Rose but he never filed for divorce. He never did because that would have opened up so many problems, so many problems and, in this case, by keeping quiet and people inquiring, well, wheres nora . Um, well, shes on a trip. But as time passes, they assume, well, she must have gotten ill. Well, now shes in an institution. Down the road they think well, maybe shes passed away. But torvald doesnt keep that story alive or keep what might have happened alive. Rose except she needed what torvald could give her within the legal framework, would she have wanted to come back anyway . Would she be so curious about what happened to them and, secondly, i want them to see whats happened to me . No, i think thats absolutely true. Its never stated explicitly in the text, but you can read between the lines that there is a curiosity and there is in fact a desire to see her daughter but a resistance to it because shes worried it could open up some wound and its better to let wounds heal. But, yeah, we also talk about the moment when she walks into the door, theres a little bit of a vibe of, you know, the person whos just been off to college and learned all these new things and wants to go home and show mom what they learned. Rose yeah. And thats sort of the fun of it, too. Rose yeah, this reminds me a little bit, much more dramatic and rich, of in small towns, whoever went away to the big city and did really well wants to come back to the hometown reunion just to say, here i am, you know, praise me for what ive done. There is a flavor of just like an old ex coming back. Because its a play about divorce, you can feel any kind of feelings you want to have about breakups just in general. So if nora slamming that door was also a breakup in a big, big way, and, so, what happens when your ex walks back through the door . Do you fall back into your old patterns . Do you spend a lot of time thinking about how different they look than they did when you broke up, and i think lucas hits kind of a core emotional truth about couples and even couples that arent together, youre still connected to each other forever. Rose does the audience choose sides between torvald and nora . The hope is that they choose sides and then they hear another side and flip a lot over the course of the evening, which is why i use that kind of sports metaphor. Hopefully you as an audience member feel every side of the argument over the course of the show. I think its one of the things lucas did really well and what makes the show really fun. Rose whats the engagement with her daughter . I did watt i had to do for myself in. Yes. Its so funny that were dealing with marriage and divorce and along comes the emmy scene, and the daughter, the little 3yearold who doesnt remember her mother, the mother and daughter are now having a scene together, and they have very different takes on marriage, which is surprising. But, also, it has a lot to do with abandonment. Rose rejection. Yes. And emmy comes across as someone who has dealt with it well, but you see where how shes been affected by it. Rose noras concerned about emmys desire to live a more conventional life. Mmhmm. Rose shes concerned about that . She is. Se just wants her daughter to have options. She sees in her daughter the same things that she fantasized about what a marriage would be at her daughters age. Rose thats what feminine is about, isnt it, really, options . Yes, to have options. Thats the best thing she can do to give to her daughter, as she explains, as shes having a second epiphany and heading out the door to do more work towards that end. Rose whats interesting to me, too, is this idea, this play, if ibsen had been i mean, if a dolls house had been released today, it would be a very relevant play. All these questions are contemporary questions about who we are, what are our obligations, how do we find happenness, whats our responsibility, all that. And this production, though, it takes place in the 1890s, and theyre wearing vick torn clothes, the writing style is extremely contemporary. The way lucas makes the world is extremely contemporary, so you feel like you can keep asking yourself over the course of the production what about our world is exactly like victoria and norway and whats different and you get to bounce around between the two. Rose and how do you add that contemporary sense, necessity to the play in terms of the staging of it . It was always clear to me to have very contemporary, american performances. At the voice of it when i read it in the writing was not to feel at all period, not to feel at all norwegian, not to feel at all like a stodge, ibsen production, but to feel like i was doing a brandnew play in a contemporary, american vernacular and let the victorian context happen in the subject, and then some beautiful vick torn clothes helps. And youve incorporated very contemporary sound. Yes. And very contemporary touches, like something as simple as a kleenex box. Rose exactly. I was going to mention that. The point is to make it contemporary. Yeah, i wanted people to see the contemporary world and think backwards instead of the other way around. Rose did you want to sort of say, as you started writing this, forgive me, mr. Ibsen, but. laughter i didnt feel apologetic with him. Rose you felt what, though . Did you want to say, what, at long last youre going to have somebody answering the questions you raised . It felt i was having a conversation with him. Hes a playwrighting mentor of mine. Hem do a little homage and rift to you and do Something Else as well. I found a bad translation of a dolls house and cut and pasted it in a document and went line by line through and wrote my own words and streamlined it as much as possible and thats the way i was communicating with ibsen. When i got to the end, i was ready to keep going. Rose can you think of any other play ever written you would like to do part two . Part of the dramatic canon is in most plays people all die at the end so that eliminates a sequel. But, no, i cant. Ive stood on subway platforms wondering this question many times, and i think this is my only sequel. Well, we could have a sequel to this sequel. We could project it 15 years into the future. In another 15 years, well all come back together. Rose and come to the table and talk about why you decided it. The other interesting i think the to me is whats happened to her along the road which is part of the retelling that she will tell them . In other words, once she left, everybody wants to know what happened to her, and she wants to explain whats happened to her or not. Yeah, i mean, she sort of rose shes not trying to hide anything, is she . No, no, but i think she you know, she definitely emphasizes the parts that went great, you know, in that first scene. She tells the story of what happened, and its all the highlights. It takes a little bit longer to sort of talk a bit more about what was particularly difficult. Rose is that because of the incest and questioning of maid, child, husband . I think part of it is that she real will you doesnt want to tell this story of, i left my family and i was punished for it, i suffered because i left my family. She wants to deemphasize that, i think. Rose because she doesnt think go ahead. But as she moves through the play and interacts with the other characters, they all sort of almost demand to know what it cost her, and she is compelled to say, no, look, seriously, this was incredibly difficult. I struggled. This was hard work. But i think shes also somebody who would never want people to feel bad for her. Rose at the same time, she thinks emmy is making a mistake. Yeah. Rose even though shes chosen for herself. Absolutely. I mean, shes really worried about seeing her daughter just go through she doesnt want her daughter to struggle like she did. Shes living with likeminded people, also, in the 15 years who she has gravitated to and startled to find out her own daughter is not seeing the world like she does. Rose did scott have you go out and talk to feminist academics or suggest to you, is the way id put it . No, it was something we actually had been talking about we all did our home work. Sent the script to a number of scholars. Rose asking them what question . First to just read the play and respond. The play is all these arguments, and it was really important to have balance in the play and to feel like all sides you could get the audience to feel like every side was right. In order to find that balance, we needed a little bit of help from some people who knew a lot more about things like vick torn divorce law victorian divorce law and sort of the history of feminism and some things that would help kind of balance those arguments from perspectives we didnt have enough info on when we first started working. Rose what was the reaction when the play was released in 1879 . It was shocking. Rose shocking. Yeah, people tried to censor it. Ibsen rewrote the ending of the play for a famous production because it would be like doing something illegal. Rose was it see by social critics at the time as a threat to marriage . Absolutely, to religion and to a womans place in society. Even other pla playwrights thought so. Rose ben brandy wrote in the times review on april 27 said that you had not written a feminist or antifeminist play. Quote, he has written instead an endlessly open debate which never feels like a debate because of the openness of the cast and the immediacy of mr. Golds fine production. The unexpectedly rich sequel remind us houses tremble and sometimes fall when doors slam and that there are other living people within who may be wounded or lost. Thats pretty good. Thats all you can say. Ill take it. Rose take it when it comes and when it doesnt come, dont worry. Go ahead. Very much agree. These points of view of every of each individual on stage is so valid, is so valid that a person, audience member who is of a certain belief has to listen to the argument, and he will hear his side, and he will hear a whole another side, and he may hear a second, third and fourth side. And i think its phenomenal, amazing that the house is quiet and they and im surprised that there isnt more outspeakenness from the house. You know what i mean . Well, theyre outspoken, and there are these big thunderous sections of laughter, and there are the big gasps and stuff, and suddenly on a dime it gets really quiet. Theyre outspoken when a character drives home a point because, like at a sporting event, they applaud when certain points are landed. Every uh character gets a few. Rose what are you doing after this . Not after this conversation, but after this play . The roseanne show. Rose when does that start . It will go on the air in the new year. Rose chris, another movie, another play . Another movie, another play. I will be looking for work down the road. Rose they will be coming. Yeah. Rose sam . Im in rehearsals for hamlet now, take on the big classics after nora, got to go hamlet. Rose of course, you have to find the equivalent to nora. Exactly. Rose to be or not to be, nora was to be. Absolutely, she chose to be for sure. Yeah. Rose oscar isics is your hamlet. Yeah. Rose what about you. Im finishing a play about my mother. A play in the form of a documentary where in an incident my mother about 20 years ago was kidnapped. Its based on interviews with her, and its a really strange story. Its kind of a thriller. Its a documentary play. Its a whole mix of things. Rose how was it to interview your mother . I did not interview her. I had somebody else interview her because i was really interested in how she tells the story to someone whos not me because its all stuff weve talked about plenty. Rose a dolls house, part 2 currently running at the jo john golden theater. It seems to me to see this kind of play and ibsen in all its engagement and ideas and experiences is what theater is about. So congratulations on what youve done here. Thanks. Rose thank you for joining us. See you next time. For more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Youre watching pbs. Announcer a kqed television production. Its sort of like old fishermans wharf. It reminds me of old san francisco. And youd be a little bit like jean valjean, with the teeth, whatever. And worth the calories, the cholesterol, and the heart