The Stage-Door Slam: On the Scene at Jessica Chastain’s Final Streetside Exit

Chastain-as-Nora’s exit onto 45th Street. Photo: TikTok/@imtoooldforthat

Eight times a week for the past five months, Nora Helmer has made the fateful decision to leave her husband and walk out the door.

You have perhaps seen it on TikTok. A loading dock at the Hudson Theatre, located at the back of the stage facing 45th Street, trundles open. Jessica Chastain as Nora, in a midnight-blue dress and black heeled boots, steps out, slowly. She appears frightened but determined, and she peers down the street. During evening performances, lights from inside the house bounce off a fire escape, bathing Chastain in a warm glow. She walks down 45th towards Seventh Avenue, and the door rolls shut behind her. She takes a few steps down the block, and then ducks back into the theater through the stage door.

So goes the coup de théâtre that closes out Jamie Lloyd’s staging of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, which played its final Broadway performance on Saturday evening and is up for six Tony Awards tonight. Nora’s infamous door-slam is reconceived as a woman stepping out of one time and directly into another.

This final flourish was intended as a surprise for audiences, and did often elicit gasps. It may not have been intended to attract swarms of TikTokers. But once word of the ending began to spread, crowds started gathering on 45th Street to watch Nora’s escape – and, of course, to film it. By late February, just a couple of weeks into the show’s run, TikToks of Chastain’s exit were going viral. One video taken by @Celebsnewyork1 now sits at 1.4 million views and over 79,000 likes. Others have also racked up big numbers.

The producers of A Doll’s House have never acknowledged the filming, but according to the @Celebsnewyork1 account, no one ever requested that its video be taken down, either. In terms of viral chatter, most of the attention has been on the preshow, in which Chastain sits on a turntable onstage and spins around for 20 minutes as the audience files in (also popular on TikTok).

A press representative for A Doll’s House declined to comment for this story. But it’s obvious to anyone on 45th Street how the mechanics of crowd control during the scene have worked, and a production staff member, on background, filled in some details. Two barriers block the door throughout the performance, with a sheet covering the small metal step that Chastain descends. Two black SUVs hold the parking spots just opposite the door. Roughly 15 minutes before the exit, security staffers move the barriers out and position fans and TikTokers behind them. Around this time, a props person appears, removes the sheet, then steps back inside. (What’s union minimum for that?)

When Nora’s exit is imminent, security starts asking passersby to pause for a moment or directs them around. A stage manager in a headset and Chastain’s assistant pop out from the stage door. The moment arrives, Nora takes her walk, and the SM and Chastain’s assistant hurry her back inside through the stage door for bows. And it’s over. It takes all of 10 to 15 seconds and requires seven bodies: Chastain herself, three guards, a stage manager, Chastain’s handler, and that props dude.

All of this management has in itself a certain theatrical quality. One security guard rarely spoke on any of my visits, instead repositioning me with just a head shake and a finger point (his silence was commanding, I’ll admit). The other two security personnel usually flanked the exit door, like Secret Service agents. Though some of their radios clearly worked, at least one guard’s headset cord dangled, evidently connected to nothing.

Why do people bother to come and watch? One fan I spoke with, who gave the name Artemis, said a friend in London had demanded a video of Chastain’s exit, telling her: “If you don’t do this, I will be very disappointed.� A couple had seen that day’s matinee but wanted to experience the ending again from outside. Two people had been sitting at house left and couldn’t see the big moment at all—a problem for large portions of the audience—so they were here to make up for their disappointment. And at the show’s final performance last night, a few fans who had missed out on tickets were taking in the only part of the show they still could. “I just saw A Doll’s House!� yelled one young woman as Chastain hustled back inside.

There have been tricky nights. Fans have hopped onto fire hydrants to improve their vantage points or run across the street right at the moment of Chastain’s appearance to get a close-up video. Yet aside from a slightly larger and noisier rowdier crowd of about 50 on the final night, the fans outside have been respectful, eager to not disrupt Chastain as she attempts to stay in character for a final moment in the middle of chaotic midtown. “I don’t want to bother her,� said Regina, a return visitor. “I’m just a big fan.�

As Regina and I watched Chastain’s exit, a middle-aged man appeared with wife and son in tow. He swiftly pulled out his phone and filmed the big moment.

After it ended, he turned to us and asked: “So who was that?� We explain.

“Oh, Jessica Chastain!� he chuckled with amusement. “Wow. A New York moment.�