The New Yorker Radio Hour - The Sequel to “A Doll’s House,” and a President Abroad

Episode Date: May 12, 2017

The official line on Trump’s foreign policy; Jeffrey Toobin on the firing of James Comey; and a brand-new sequel to a century-old play, Henrik Ibsen’s shocking “A Doll’s House.”      New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Hello. Hey, Jeff. How are you? Hi, David. Jeffrey Tubin is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a former federal prosecutor. He writes for us about legal matters large and small, and in this case, very, very large. Jeff, I'm calling to talk about the obvious. The first reason we heard for the firing of James Comey was that it had to do with Hillary Clinton's emails.

And as of now, it's Friday morning, we've already heard a few other reasons. And who knows what we're going to hear in the coming day? From watching you on CNN, I get loud and clear that you think we've heard from the White House so far is absolute baloney. Bologous, untrue, all of those synony sum up how I feel about the stated justification for the firing of James Comey. What's the real reason? Because I think he has grown increasingly frustrated Comey's leadership of the Russia investigation. And this... So what does this mean?

During the campaign, a lot of Donald Trump's critics warned that his allegiance to constitutional norms was, let's just say, irregular at best. Is that what we're seeing now? It's not so much constitutional as authoritarian or not authoritarian. I think Trump has very little patience for our checks and balances as a rule. You know, he is used to a corporate environment where he can make things happen or make things stop. It's really as simple as that. The problem is, you know, we have a prosecutorial and judicial independence is supposed to be one of the bedrocks, and that's not what we're seeing

here at all. And there is really no check on Trump because we have a Republican Congress that doesn't want Trump to be weakened so they can pass their agenda. How many Republicans in Congress do you see as supposing what Trump has done in the Comey case? If you were to ask them in private, probably public, maybe one or two. So we're basically talking about Lindsey Graham and John McCain, and that's about it? No, I mean, not Lindsey Graham.

No, Lindsay Graham has been Supplegance Committee, has been expressing misgivings. But in terms of acting as a meaningful check and really taking action to stop or thwart this of the 52 Republicans, If that's the standard, I think you'll see zero. So that means what? What comes next?

The installation of an FBI director who's much more in the president's pocket? Yes. And that means Rudolph Giuliani, Chris, Christy, who? No, I think it will be not someone so publicly identified with the Trump campaign. But there are lots of ways that a FBI director can be brought to heal, someone who has a low profile, someone who is a career prosecutor, someone who is not, doesn't have an independent power base. I mean, remember, look who's doing the interviewing now.

It's Jeff Sessions and Ron Rosenstein who just fired Jim Comey. What does that mean for the congressional investigations into Russia, both in the House and the Senate? What is the, a new FBI director means what for those, for those panels? I don't think it means much for the congressional investigations because those are under the some of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan. So I think those are going to go nowhere because they'll be starved of resources and they will essentially peter out over time. The law enforcement investigation is now being run by Rod Rosenstein along with the FBI. And I think that's going to be starved and largely go away. And I think it's just appropriate to recognize that at this point.

Do you think there's any chance of Congress putting forward an independent prosecutor on the Russia case? Well, I think that at least as an initial matter, it would be up to the Justice Department to put up the initial. I don't think there's any chance of a joint select committee, you know, other than the Intelligence Committee. So I think that's dead because McConnell wants it dead. And I think Rod Rosenstein is going to say, look, we have career prosecutors who are independent, just like I am and are doing a great job, and they will be the people doing this investigation, so there won't be any sort of independent counsel in the Justice Department either. And so I think, you know, we have the investigations that are going to exist, henceforth.

You know, Jeff, we've known each other for a long time as colleagues, and obviously I watch on CNN, too. I have to say, I've never heard you or seen you so angry politically. You know, not my style. I mean, as you know, I've been on cable news for a long time, and one of the things I have tried not to be is a cable news screamer and one of these people who, you know, yells a lot on TV. But, you know, I guess part of it comes from the fact that I used to work in the Justice Department. Part of it comes the fact that I worked for an independent counsel, Lawrence Walsh, and the Iran-Contra case, and this is something very close to my soul. And the idea that Donald Trump could fire the head of the FBI with impunity under this

totally bogus pretext does outrage me. does make me crazy and and you know you're right i mean this is not my usual demeanor and it's not my usual reaction to political matters but it's very different what's to be done there what is what is the what is the capacity of uh... of any of our institutions to stand up against us i think it as john mccain taught me very early when i was first covering uh... supreme court nominations elections have consequences and uh... you know we have a, the whole reason this is taking place is that Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton

and the Republicans control the House and the Senate. And we do have different, you know, elections change things in this country in 2008, which is not that long ago. We had a Democratic president elected with 60 United States centers and very substantial Democratic, which, so, I mean, things do change. But to me, that's the only thing that could change a situation like that. It's not that, you know, Democrats can make more strategic arguments or they can, you know, hold better press conferences or they can, you know, Chuck Schumer can come up with some great strategy. 48 senators is 48 senators.

Nancy Pelosi doesn't have any power to speak of in the House of Representatives. And that's the only thing that's going to change. Jeffrey Tubin is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a legal analyst on CNN. We spoke last week. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. Welcome back to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. This coming Friday, unless his plans change, Donald Trump is going to make his first trip abroad as president, which is unusual in presidencies to wait 100 days and more to do so. Trump has promised a very different kind of foreign policy than his predecessors, Democratic or Republican, and it's all based on making better deals for America. He's the ultimate dealmaker in his words.

And Trump is certainly behaving very differently than his predecessors too. He's gone out of his way to praise autocrats like Vladimir Putin, and he's caused friction with allies for reasons sometimes known only to himself. One of the people helping to explain White House foreign policy is Michael Anton, who handles strategic communications for the National Security Council. I spoke with him early last week. I'd like to start out by asking you about your job, which is relatively new. Ben Rhodes was the voice of the National Security Council for years in the Obama administration,

is your job roughly the same? Well, there's always been a spokesperson or communications director for the NSC, at least for the past three or four administrations, and I'm filling that role now. It was said during the Obama administration that Rhodes had a kind of mind-meld on issues of foreign policy with President Obama, and do you feel you've achieved that with President Trump? No, not for lack of trying, but also I haven't known him for nearly as long.

And I didn't work, you know, for 18 months on his campaign the way I think a lot of people did. So I certainly would not claim that in my case. Yeah, when you say not for one of trying, do you find it difficult to achieve that because of, just because of the time element? Or because he, his view of the world shifts from time to time? No, I mean, literally in order to learn someone's positions and try to be able to anticipate where they are going to come out on an issue before they tell you requires an effort. And I'm making the effort. So when I say not for want of trying, I'm trying. Got it.

It's just one of those things that we'll take some time to achieve. There's a real question in people's minds about what exactly President Trump believes, what view of the world he has, what level of sophistication he has about its knowledge. Would you say that's true? I mean, it's a true statement in the sense of what you said a lot of people believe that. I mean, but what is it based on? I mean, this is a man with a long business track record, a long thing. track record of negotiating with foreigners, of doing business deals in other countries. I think that's one of the reasons why he made an unorthodox choice in his Secretary of State as a businessman with

a track record of negotiating with foreigners and doing business overseas. He likes to see, he likes to see deals get done, but he likes to see good deals get done. He is a dealmaker. He did write a book called The Art of the Deal. There's a clear emphasis on transactional foreign policy. Is human rights part of the picture. It's definitely part of it. It is something that the president believes is better addressed quietly. And we've seen some results, for instance, the release of Ayahigazi from an Egyptian jail. But I think it's fair to say that the emphasis on human rights is not nearly what it was in some administration, say the Carter administration where this was front and center. and in the Bush administration, George W. Bush, democracy was talked about all the time,

and you could say that that led to, in some ways, disaster. Are we? Well, the president has said that that led to disaster, and it's one of the things he campaigned against. I mean, he campaigned against a certain overreaching or high-minded naivete in American foreign policy. And he used, and he used blunt language. I mean, he called, you know, he actually, the word you used is one that the president used as a candidate. You know, disaster, the foreign policy disaster. of the last 16 years. I think he said many times.

Now, the president has expressed a admiration for authoritarian. Egypt's Al-Sisi is fantastic. And he's praised Vladimir Putin, Erdogan of Turkey, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. What kind of message does this send to people working for democracy in Egypt and South Korea, Russia, Turkey, and the Philippines? Is there any danger in this? He said that Vladimir Putin was a much more effectively,

than Barack Obama, for example? I don't recall that quote specifically. It might be something from the campaign. It's certainly not something that he said since taking office. Does it matter that it's just from the campaign? Well, if you look at the way Russia relations have gone, I think the president came into office and with some hopes that tensions could perhaps reduce that we might be able to find areas of common ground with Russia.

And, you know, thus far, and it's still very early days, those hopes haven't materialized yet, and we've found that we have significant differences with Russia. And in fact, both the president and the Secretary of State have said that relations seem to be at a low point. So he's not a kind of president who takes slights and irritants in the relationship lightly. But we also see a constant going back and forth. Take China, for example. China's a currency manipulator one month. It's not a currency manipulator the next month.

NATO is obsolete one month, then suddenly that becomes an inoperative statement. NATO is the opposite of obsolete. Well, okay, on China, on the currency manipulation point on China, this has been an issue for the president and the president-elect and the candidate, so on, in terms of China artificially keeping its currency low to favor its own exports and disfavor U.S. exports and affect a trade balance in China's favor and against the United States. The recent moves by the Chinese have all tended toward inflating or increasing the value of its currency, which in the president's view is a movement in the right direction

for American economic interests. So his rhetoric has shifted based on the reality of what he sees in terms of the Chinese behavior towards its currency. The NATO point, I think a lot was made of the remarks that he made in the White House when the NATO Secretary General was here when he said NATO is no longer obsolete. That was actually a repeat of a statement that he made during the campaign. So his view all along was, look, if this was an alliance that was created to defeat an enemy that no longer exists, if it can find a new purpose and, you know, raised and gathered the necessary resources to meet that new purpose, that's all well and good. If it can't, then it's obsolete. You've said elsewhere, and other people in the administration have said elsewhere, that the

president's shifting views and kind of almost his unpredictability and sometimes erratic rhetoric when it comes to foreign policy is somehow an asset. Why would that be? I think he likes to keep adversaries guessing, and even not necessarily adversaries. You can use a range of words here. But this isn't a poker game that we're describing here. Are we describing some sense of be a poker game. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't have to be a poker game for ambiguity to be valuable, right? I mean, there have been any number of instances where the United States or in other countries, other powers, have found strategic ambiguity of valuable asset. And I think the president finds that true in certain respects in the policy realm and in the interpersonal realm. And I think,

you know, he intends to formulate a lot of policy and achieve a lot of what he wants to achieve through interpersonal relationships, because that's the way he's done deals and accomplished things throughout his career. There's a report by Eli Lake and Bloomberg this week, which suggests that the National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster, is currently on the outs in the Trump White House. Is this kind of palace intrigue interfering with creating a coherent national security policy? Well, I will say that I personally witnessed the president, say, in front of a large group of people, including a few reporters, that the story was total bull and that HR was doing a

great job and he has total confidence in him and, you know, don't believe a word of it. Those are not an exact quote, but it's pretty close. So the president went out of his way to express his confidence, not exactly publicly, quasi-publicly, but in front of a large group of people for HR. In terms of it getting in the way, I mean, I think we all, try not to let it get in the way. It's impossible to entirely ignore, but you do your best to look past it, and it does help in jobs like this, and, you know, however difficult mine may be, H.R.'s is quite a bit more difficult. You don't have a lot of time to dwell on this kind of thing. You just have too much to do. As far as I know from reading you, you're not a proponent at all of

U.S. interventions abroad, and we look back. No, not entirely. I have become, you know, Let me put it this way, the proponents and architects of some of those interventions describe what they thought the outcome would be and how those would redound to U.S. interests. And the promised outcome hasn't come to pass. I understand that totally. One has to adjust one's position when you do an experiment and it doesn't work. Absolutely. But we have this dilemma, though, and this is not an ideological question.

This is a terrible dilemma. In Iraq, the United States, for a variety of reasons, invaded wholly and fully, and it was a disaster. In Libya, the United States took part in an operation to hold off massacres in Benghazi and kind of half invaded, and it was a disaster. In Syria, we did next to nothing, and it was a total catastrophe. How does this shape the thinking of President Trump? Well, I can speak to what he has spoken to most forcefully. I think the Iraq invasion, he's criticized pretty heavily, and for the reasons you suggest that it was the complete overthrow of a regime by force

and the attempt to impose a political system. I don't want to say that it was the attempt to oppose a political system by force. I think it's been criticized as that. I don't think that was the intent of the people who thought, thought through and drew up the plans for that policy, but that's ultimately what it amounted to, didn't succeed. Syria was a classic, it seems to me to be a classic case

of an extremely difficult and intractable situation where it's not clear what any outside great power can do to solve the conflict, to solve the problem. We're working through this right now with a priority on, you know, one of the president's priorities, certainly, and the campaign promises, defeating ISIS. and in the hopes that that can open up and create space for a political solution down the road to resolve the conflict. You were writing before this administration took shape.

You were profiled in the New Yorker, in fact, without using your name, which was the conditions of the piece, a piece by Caliphassane. Describe this as a kind of... I liked him, by the way, a lot. He's terrific writer. He's terrific writer. Not at all. Not at all. I like him, too.

You describe this election as a flight 93 election. Can you describe what you mean by that and tell me how you feel that that's played out? I meant that it seemed to me that the two parties had so converged that on issues of a great moment, they almost had everything in common and very little apart anymore. And more specifically, it seemed that the Republicans in particular, which should be sort of the party of the proper working of the Constitution had given up on trying to fight the fourth branch of government or the administrative state or the bureaucracy or that part of the government which just operates on autopilot doing what

it wants no matter who wins elections and that candidate Trump posed the first real serious challenge to that arrangement in a long time your language is a little bit more than that. You said basically you had to charge the cockpit or die. Yeah, it was, well, you are the leader of your party may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees, except one, if you don't try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor, a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian roulette with a semi-automatic, with Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances. In other words, in other words, I saw two options. One was an absolute certainty. I thought a Clinton victory, and I still believe a Clinton victory. And I still believe a Clinton victory. would have amounted to if not permanent. Suicide? Because as I say, nothing is permanent. No, but semi-permanent administrative state control, where on some level, fundamental freedoms are lost.

The proper functioning of the Constitution, the separation of powers is lost. It doesn't come back. We basically become a bureaucratic, much more of a bureaucratically ruled state than what the American founders and Lincoln envisioned. And I still think that was accurate. And I think that when it comes to Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.

Because there are never any guarantees that any particular course of action, especially in politics, will succeed. So I didn't want to, I didn't want to make some forceful statement of, well, all we have to do is cast this one vote and elect this one person and we'll fix all our problems. because I think that's almost never true of any particular situation or of any politician. And so, you know, I wanted to make very, very clear that there are no guarantees on that side, although I thought there was close to a guarantee on the other side. I hate to cut this off, but I maybe... That's sort of whiny, but I'm so behind because getting ready for this trip is just overwhelming, and I've got to get right back to work.

Fair enough. Michael Lenton, thank you very much. Okay, thank you. Michael Anton is Senior National Security Advisor in the White House. The trip he was referring to, it's this coming Friday unless plans change. And it's Donald Trump's first trip abroad as president. And it's quite a trip. He's starting in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, then he goes to Israel, and then to the Vatican and Europe. My colleague Robin Wright is a veteran foreign correspondent with a specialty in the Middle East.

Robin, how much is the trip symbolic with these three religious destinations and how much does he want to achieve in concrete terms? The Trump administration wants to try to achieve four goals. One is to try to foster a peace process. The second is to fight both ISIS and al-Qaeda, but extremism writ large, to confront Iran and create a coalition able to kind of speak with one voice, countering predominantly Shiite. Iran, and again, to create a body that might be more engaged in regional alliances, regional security, rather than having the United States repeatedly have to send troops in. So there are four kind of broad goals that the administration hopes to achieve during that leg of the trip. Now, Robin, this trip is coming at a moment of incredible political turmoil.

We've just seen the firing of the FBI director, James Comey, which is nearly unprecedented, on the National Security Council Michael Flynn was gone in less than a month. Steve Bannon was appointed, then unappointed to the NSC. And now the rumors are that H.R. McMaster is on the outs with the President of the United States. How does that kind of turmoil affect relations with other powers? Well, first of all, it creates a difficulty in just getting together your own staff to come up with a policy. The review process is still underway. We don't have the outlines of specific goals.

for many parts of the world. Is that unusual in a first term, in the first months of a first term? Well, it often takes up to six months, but the process was delayed first by Flynn's firing and then by the marginalization of Bannon and H.R. McMaster trying to assert himself. And so this is, you know, you've got staffing issues. Then you've got the policy review. And there have been tensions, as you point out, between McMaster and Trump. There are times that the president has apparently shouted at McMaster.

He feels like he's being lectured to. And I think McMaster feels he's being lectured to. I think McMaster feels he has quite a task in educating the president about some of the nuances of the very many flashpoints, not just in the Middle East, but in whether it's North Korea and the role that China's going to play, the collapse of Venezuela. You know, we're facing a really tumultuous period in world history. Robin, he's going to Jerusalem. He's going to visit Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. He's just met with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader. And yet we hear that he's put Jared Kushner, of all people, in charge of a Middle East peace process. Is the United States serious at all about reengaging yet again in negotiations for a two-state solution?

Or are they quietly giving up the ghost and seating to Netanyahu that they're just going to play for the status quo ante for some time to come? I think the White House actually has illusions that it can move forward the peace process. The president said recently that the peace process was not as difficult as people have thought, which, of course, has led to a huge reaction, both in the region and among kind of foreign policy experts in Washington. He thought the same thing about health care and any number of issues, that it was all a cinch. Yes, and I think this is where you have a president who is very naive on foreign policy, He doesn't really know the world very well. The fact that he picked Saudi Arabia as his first stop alone is very telling.

This is one of the most repressive governments in the world. George Bush didn't go to Saudi Arabia until his last year in office. This is also a tumultuous time inside the kingdom itself. And the idea that the kingdom was going to deal with Israel is, I think, naive as well. So the idea that there are going to be transactional achievements on this trip, I think, is an illusion. Who is Donald Trump where foreign policy is concerned? He uses the word transactional all the time, deal-making all the time. You rarely hear about the idea of advancing American values, human rights, democracy, the interventionist model that he's criticized. In practice, though,

are his goals any different than Obama's were? Well, when it comes to actual decisions, he often has charted the same course that Obama did. For example, the decision to arm the Kurds in Syria so they could take on ISIS in its capital was a policy developed by the Obama administration. The Obama administration also reached out to China as the key to North Korea, as did previous Republican administrations. And yet there is a big distinction, and that is the kind of Darwinian bottom line in the president's thinking when it comes to dealing with some of the world's most famous dictators, whether it's Duterte, in the Philippines or Erdogan, whom he's going to host in Washington next week, President

Sisi from Egypt. The human rights issue that so defined the Obama administration and the nation-building idea of the Bush administration has basically been quite abandoned. Finally, some of President Trump's advisors, including Michael Anton with whom we've talked, use the phrase strategic ambiguity to describe President Trump's frequent contradictions and even the incoherence of his policy discussions and his tweets and all the rest. Is that a thing, strategic ambiguity? Is it an advantage or our allies and our enemies even, reading this as just pure chaos in the White House? I think there's a reading that's chaos.

The term the administration likes to use is that, President Trump is a disruptive leader. And they think of this in a positive way that he's disrupting the kind of rules of the game of the past, charting a different course. But to the outside world, people are unclear about what's happening. There's a sense that the administration doesn't really know what it's talking about, hasn't decided on policies, and that the president is most influenced by the last person he spoke to. And an uncertainty about what this means for the world, the president can only get away with this for so long before it diminishes America's role in the world or the perception of America's role on some of these big, broader issues. Robin Wright, thank you so much.

Thank you, David. You can find Robin's latest writing on everything from immigration bans to saving the remaining animals at the Mosul Zoo by visiting New Yorker Radio.org. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around. I'm David Remnick. You're listening to you. to the New Yorker Radio Hour, and now, time for a little culture. Beginning in 1890, Claude Monet spent one year painting giant stacks of wheat. Here is his journal from that time.

May 14, 1890. Saw giant stacks of wheat today. I think I'm going to start painting those. June 8th. Having a tough time painting these giant stacks of wheat. I guess I assumed I'd blow through them no problem because they're just giant stacks of wheat, and I'm Claude fucking Monet. But getting all the wheat to look good is tough.

July 9th. Got a little cocky today and tried to put two stacks of wheat in one painting. Total train wreck. The light was going this way, and you know what? I don't even want to talk about it. December 2nd. What does a stack of a wheat look like with snow on it in the morning? What does a stack of wheat look like with snow on it in the afternoon?

At dusk. What does a stack of wheat look like at 2.43 p.m. on a Monday. 243 p.m. on a Tuesday, 243 p.m. on a Wednesday. 243 p.m. on a Thursday. You get the idea. February 18th. Hey, look, if there are 1,40 minutes in a day, I am going to paint 1,440 stacks of wheat. I told my wife that yesterday, and she threw a goddamn fit. She said, so if there are 86,400 seconds in a day, Claude, are you going to paint 86,400 stacks of wheat? I responded, welcome to the wheat painting project, Camille. April 30th. Got into a huge shouting match with the wheat today.

I know that one of those assholes took my painting supplies. I know it. So you know what I did? I painted a stack of wheat with blood gushing out of it, showed it to the wheat, and I said, this is going to be you. You know what I'm calling that painting? Stacks of wheat getting fucked up by Claude Monet and Spring.

You know where I'm going to put it? Right in the Louvre and right up Mona Lisa's ass. May 10th. Proud to report that I am done painting stacks of wheat. Not because of the restraining order issued by the Giverney Police Department, but because I have fulfilled my artistic mission vis-à-vis stacks of wheat. Anyway, I'm glad that's over. May 14th.

Saw some pretty cool water lilies today. A few thoughts from Monet on those stacks of wheat. That's a piece written by Seth Reese. Seth Reese performed as Monet along with Peter Lucercy. You can find all of Seth's work for us at New Yorkerradio.org. Let's talk about Nora Helmer. Nora is an unhappy person stuck in a lifeless marriage, and she's dying inside, and she needs out.

Have you thought what people will say? I can't go worrying about that. All I know is it's something I have to do. This is outrageous. It's going back on your most sacred duties. And what, in your opinion, are my most sacred duties? Well, surely you don't have to ask. Ask me that. I mean your duties to your husband and your children.

I have other duties which are just as sacred. No, you haven't. My duties to myself. Before anything else, you're a mother and a wife. I don't believe that anymore. I believe that before anything else, I am a human being, just as much of one as you are. It's not an unfamiliar scenario now, but in 1879, it was unthinkingly. Henrik Ipsen's play, Adal's House scandalized its audiences, in large part because Ipsen

didn't seem to judge Nora Helmer. She doesn't repent tearfully, she doesn't die tragically, Nora just slams the door behind her, and the play is over. Now, well over a century later, Nora Helmer opens that door again. Adal's House Part 2 is the name of the sequel written by Lucas Naith. It's his first play on Broadway, and it's getting great reviews. views, including one here at The New Yorker. This is not some kind of postmodern revision of a doll's house. Nate's play is a really serious, although very funny, reconsideration of Nora and her choices, starring Laurie Metcalf. The New Yorkers, Rebecca Mead, sat down with Lucas Nath. So when did it occur to you that this play was something you wanted to revisit and update and

reconsider? I feel like I'd been threatening to do it for about seven or so years, just talking about it. Because I'd been really interested in writing a play about marriage, writing a play about divorce. When I went to start writing a doll's house part two, one thing that I did is I went online and found the worst translation I could find of a doll's house part one. What do you do, type in worse translation of dolls house. What I do is I go to a website where the background is either like blue or purple. that's sort of a telltale sign and I cut and pasted the translation into a word document and went through the play line by line

just rewriting the whole thing in my own words and something that I found when I read it is that it's a play about a couple who each partner of that couple is so afraid of conflict and upsetting the other that they never have an honest conversation up until the last scene where Nora says to Torval, we need to talk. And she tells him really what she's been thinking and what she's been feeling.

And I think as I sort of wrote my own version of it, it really just feels like half of a conversation. Torvald doesn't really ever fully respond to her. I don't know that he's in a place to. and it seemed like there's still more for Nora to say as well. And it felt like they needed to have a really big fight. Also, also, here's another thing that bothers me. You don't get angry. Of course I do.

Maybe once you have ever... Right now I feel angry. Right now you're angry. You're damn right I am. No, I don't believe that you are angry, that you're in it, that you're inside the feeling of feeling angry. I think you're just outside of it looking at it like, oh, there's some interesting thing. You don't... Constipage.

Why did you want to write about marriage and divorce? Well, my mother's been divorced a couple of times. So having watched that happen, that was probably the beginning, probably most definitely the beginning of a fascination with the subject of divorce and the question of how does marriage work? How does a couple possibly stay together? This seems impossible. And so, and I also feel like a lot of my plays kind of circle around the subject of marriage or coupling.

But this is, I think, the first time I took it head on. Did your mother like the play? She saw it for the first time on opening night. She noted I took a couple of lines from her. Which ones are they? There's a line in there about Nora's talking to her. her daughter, and they haven't seen each other in 15 years. And the daughter is asking Nora to tell her something that she remembers about her growing up. Nora's stumped by the question initially and then

says, well, I remember something. You were born very fast. And we were in the middle of rehearsals, and I had written that exchange, and I needed something for Nora to say back to Emmy, and I got a text that evening from my mother saying, I was just thinking about how quickly you were born. I was like, oh, this is perfect. I mean, you know, it actually really is an affectionate thing she talks about. You know, she's sort of linking it to me moving quickly through life or something like that. But I just thought coming out of Lori Metcalf's mouth, that would be hilarious. And it is. Let's go back a little and explain what the premise of your play is.

Nora comes back 15 years after she's slammed the door and left at the end of Ibsen's play. And what's the scenario? Nora's come back because she has a little bit of a problem, which is that she's gone off, lived her own life. She's become a successful writer. And the books that she's writing are somewhat conscious. controversial. They're books that do, among other things, encourage women who are feeling trapped in their marriages to leave. She has made some enemies, and there is a judge who has looked into her past and has realized that Nora, who is living as an unmarried woman, is actually still married. So she needs Torval to go and just clear up the matter, get the divorce certificate filed before some people who really don't like that. her come after her.

At the time when Ibsen wrote his play, the idea of a woman leaving her family, leaving her husband, leaving her children, was perceived as very shocking and she was doing it in order to discover herself independently of her family. Is that still such a shocking idea, do you think? I think it is. I actually assumed it wasn't shocking now. And as I worked on the play, I got to consult with a number of historical. and scholars and people like Carol Gilligan, Elaine Schoalter, who I sent out a list of questions to them. And one of the questions I asked is, if a doll's house were written today, what would be the most shocking ending you can imagine today? And everybody I asked, answered immediately, oh, well, it's still shocking. And it is interesting that I was surprised by that. I just.

People are always leaving families. Well, people are always leaving husbands, but not necessarily leaving children. That remains an almost singular taboo in a woman's life. As you were dealing with Nora and coming to think about her and imagining her future, did you find her a sympathetic person to be in the company of? Oh, yeah. I mean, when I write, I actually always end up finding everybody kind of sympathetic, because I'm always having to be in the position of making an argument on their behalf.

But out of all of them, I have to be very careful about this, but if I were to just sort of, you know, on the spot answer, well, who do I most agree with? I mean, easily, Nora. But that's something you have to be really careful about when you're writing because you end up tipping the scale. And I think where it became a challenge was that I would have certain blind spots in her argument. When people would point out these blind spots, I would end up going back and actually just letting another character point out that blind spot to her face so that she can go back and push harder on her argument. One of her blind spots is class, isn't it? Yes.

She talks about the way in which the nanny has raised her and also raised her children. and then blames Anne-Marie for leaving her, abandoning her own child in order to have a working life as a nanny, something which Anne-Marie pushes back out quite vigorously. After all the problems, I've already fixed for you. You want me to fix this attitude. I raised your kids. You should be coming in here.

First words out of your mouth should have been, thank you, Anne-Marie. Thank you for abandoning your own life and your own child and raising mine so I can go off and do my little thing. Yeah, that was a big one that developed. And it came out of, you know, the early drafts where I just flew by that one. And then that was definitely a case of sitting down with the research,

realizing, oh, boy, I overlooked this one. I'm fascinated by the fact that you identify most with, or find yourself most in sympathy with Nora. What is it about her that links to you? Where are you in her? You know, my mother, when I was in middle school, went to seminary to become a minister. And at the time, I went to a relatively conservative Christian school. And a lot of my classmates would pull me aside and say, well, you know your mother's breaking.

God's rules by, you know, going to seminary. She's not allowed to be a minister. So from a really early age, I was having to defend her. So I think that's probably on the most emotional level why I'm sympathizing with Nora. I'm wondering, you yourself are not married. You're putting into her words and into the words of other characters, your different arguments for or against the institution. Is she the one that speaks most eloquently your attitude towards marriage and the institution itself? Yeah, I mean, that's the other funny thing where actually of the arguments, I don't agree with those for myself. Personally, I like being just with one person. I don't understand how people date today on the, I'm going to sound old, on the Tinder, like, hooking up with different people all the time.

And like, I just, how can you do that? How do you have mind space for that? But what appeals to me is actually the reasoning that she's using. Like, I love an argument that's based in reason. Even though I'm a deeply irrational person and I would never take that for myself, that's I most enjoy hearing an argument that thinks about what makes sense versus what feels right. I love the idea that an audience for 10 minutes can be agreeing with one character and then 10 minutes later be agreeing with another character who's saying the exact opposite. I like making plays that are kind of like this thought gymnasium.

It strikes me as being something that's healthy for the brain and healthy for our brains right now. You know, given the current culture that I sometimes fear that there isn't an engagement with long trains of thought. At the end of Ibsen's play, after that was, and in the 100 plus years since that has been first stage, people have talked about what Nora does when she goes out of the room at the end. And people are going to talk about what Nora does when she goes out of the room at the end of your play, too. I've already gotten requests for a doll's house part three. What are your thoughts about what happens to her next? I don't have any at the moment, you know. I mean, beyond what's said in the play, I mean, she's going off to engage in another battle.

And it is a play about a character who thinks she has actually changed the world more than she really has. There is a little bit of a bitter sweetness in the ending of this play. I like the idea that any ending is actually the beginning of a new play. Unless everybody dies at the end, then it's a little harder. Lucas, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you. This was great. That's Rebecca Mead talking with Lucas Nath. A Doll's House, Part 2, is nominated for an armful of Tony Awards,

including nods for best director, best play, and all four cast members. My colleague, Sarah Larson, is a cultural correspondent here at The New Yorker, and she's a connoisseur of the wonderful and the weird, the sublime and the extremely silly, the latest fad, and the old gems. Hey, how are you, Sarah? Hello, David. How are you? I'm okay. I am okay, especially when we're not talking about politics. So please give me something to think about other than politics.

What have you been listening to and watching lately? Recently I went to a gala for the New York performance space, The Kitchen, and it was honoring John Kale and Lawrence Wiener. And a theme of the night was this old John Kale lyric, sort of tuned to 2017, which is Fear is a Man's Best Friend. And they handed out tote bags with that on it, and the flower arrangements said Fear is a Man's Best Friend. And I started listening to the song and the album a lot,

which I didn't know so well. It's from 1974. God, what was going on in 1974 that was the circumstance for that song? Watergate. There was a lot. There's a lot of bad stuff happening in 1974. Nixon's resignation. Yeah.

I just, you know, I've been so fearful for the past several months in general about big and little things, mostly the big things. And hearing that just makes me feel invigorated. So I think that's a good thing. That's a terrific thing. But it can't be the only thing. So what else you're reading and watching and listening to? Exactly.

So there's a new podcast called Mogul, the life and death of Chris Lighty. It's on Spotify. Chris Lighty was a hip-hop manager, and he worked with over the course of his career. He worked with everybody from a tribe called Quest to Missy Elliott to Nas, lots and lots of people. And he was one of the most influential and biggest figures in hip hop. And he was with Def Jam. And so he was born in the South Bronx, and the podcast traces his life and the evolution of hip hop at the same time. And it's so much fun.

I mean, and you don't see a lot of podcasts that are essentially biography of one person. No. And that's starting to happen a little bit more. Interesting. Yeah. They have an amazing amount of great music in there. They have these great cassette deck sounds, you know, the. stopping and rewinding and forwarding and stuff when they're going. I'm much too young to remember cassette texts.

You might want to explain for boom boxes, et cetera. People used to walk around the street. We know this. I know, Sarah. They don't know. Younger people might not. We're here with our younger colleagues who just look upon us with other derision and condescension. It's okay.

As they should. But for geysers like me, hearing those boom box noise is really. really is just a detail. That's what does it for you? I enjoy, yeah, very much. The thunk of the stop button? The thunk, it just feels so good, exactly. Early 1980s, those were the years of the boombox. Remember those? Big-ass radio tape players that we carry around blasting the latest songs.

It was so synonymous with the streets that people call them ghetto blasters. We had dance contests in the house, all of that. Oh, it was great. So that's Mogul. What's your third pick? had this old memory of mod. Do you remember Maud? Be Arthur. Yeah. So I was a little, I was really... It was a spin-off from all in the family. Exactly. Yeah, she was the crabby cousin who shows up, who Archie Bunker hates. But wise and liberal. Yeah. She had her own show and there's this

amazing bicentennial episode that I suddenly remembered from my early childhood, Maud on a horse, yelling, get me off this damn horse, and she's dressed as George Washington. But I went back and I looked at that clip, which of course is on YouTube, and I found this amazing thing from Mod. And this is what I'm recommending, because it just makes me so happy. It's Mod doing a feminist version of, in a spirit of 76 tablo, singing, I am woman. The Helen Reddy song. The lyrics of which are not found in the Declaration of Independence. And these are new lyrics, too.

So it's all about great women of American history. So this just made me feel much better. Just watching B. Arthur singing I Am Woman in kind of a Hamilton-type outfit just made my day. You're easy to cheer up. I am. Thank God. It's not expensive. Just a little YouTube and maybe a little glass of something.

A little 70s. A little, yeah. Even though it was a misery then. Sarah, thanks so much. Thank you. The New Yorker's Sarah Larson. You can find all of her writing. She just wrote a piece about it.

and of Green Gables at New YorkerRadio.org. That'll do it. I'm David Remnick. I hope you enjoy the show, and hope you have a great week. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garpers of Tune Yards with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boteen, Ave Carrillo, Riannon, and Corby, Jill Duboff, Karen Frillman, David Krasnow, Sarah Nix, Michael Rayfield, Mithalie Rao, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Susan Morrison, Emma Allen,

Johnny Vince Evans, Terrence Bernardo, and Jessica Henderson. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.