A DOLL'S HOUSE PART II and Un Deux Trois

In this revisionist Broadway season (the wheelchair in Glass Menagerie), the world’s most famous play about marriage, Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, gets a refreshing sequel with A Doll’s House Part II, by Lucas Hnath. In fact, it’s better than the 1879 play from which it derives.

In the fifteen years since she walked out on Torvald and their children, Nora has done very well for herself and is a rich woman. However, nineteenth-century laws prevent her from being a free agent. Particularly while married, she could be put in jail for what she has accomplished. “Twenty to thirty years from now marriage will be a thing of the past,” Nora says confidently—a line that gets a big laugh.

Nora has come to secure the divorce that Torvald denied her. Indeed, he has explained her absence by saying she is dead. The family retainer, Anne Marie—played with heart and humor by Jayne Houdyshell—ultimately must defend her employer.

Nora’s formidable daughter, Condola Rashad (recently Juliet against Orlando Bloom’s Romeo), is concerned that Nora’s visit might throw a wrench in to her imminent marriage to a conservative banker like her father. Cast against type, Oscar-winning Chris Cooper’s Torvald is sympathetic and almost crushable. Think of all the repulsive Torvalds we’ve seen.

The great Laurie Metcalf gives another blazing performance on Broadway. You feel everything that her Nora feels. When she must connive to get her way, her wit and ingenuity are never in doubt. Even against oppressive tradition, she persists. She is Wendy Davis, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Maxine Waters, Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, Sally Yates, Kirsten Gillibrand, Gabrielle Giffords, the Notorious RBG, and HRC, winner of the popular vote.

Contemporary language set against nineteenth-century costume suits the ensemble, as do a couple of anomalous twentieth-century devices: a water bottle, a box of tissues.

Café Un Deux Trois (123 West 44^th St) makes a famous country paté first course and delicious Boeuf Bourguignon, though doesn’t hone strictly to a French menu. An institution since its splashy opening in 1977, Un Deux Trois evokes the eighties and parties hard late at night once the play is over. It’s packed early for the pre-theatre prix fixe, three courses for $35, available from 3:30 p.m. until midnight, which includes the paté, plus a choice of pasta, chicken or fish. The popular chicken Kiev comes sliced up (preventing you from enjoying the little squirt when you first cut in). Pastas are deservedly popular here, and the fish choice daurade, was in an expert olive camponata, though served with minute rice. You order off the a la carte menu for frittes. Desserts included a perfect New York cheese cake with raspberry reduction and a superior chocolate mousse.

Interestingly dressed and coiffed theatregoers collect at an art nouveau bar. The banquette near the bar is a great location to enjoy both the bustle and the flirtatious French manager with waxed moustache, Gérard. “As in ‘Gérard Depardieu,’” he says.