Adam Feldman — Theater Critic

Although Agnes and Peter sleep together early on, their relationship isn’t primarily sexual. But there’s an element of seduction to their whole dynamic, as Peter, at first reluctantly, gets under Agnes’s skin. Letts is an actor as well as a playwright—he and Coon, who are married, met while co-starring in a revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?—and he knows how to craft scenes that keep performers intensely engaged with each other onstage. Smallwood and Coon, reprising their roles from the 2021 production of Bug at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, strike a compelling balance. He arrives full of secrets that he gradually reveals; she arrives empty and eager to swallow them up, spiraling ever farther away from life beyond her room. (In several ways, this role is like the flip side of the steadfast mother Coon played so indelibly in Mary Jane.)

Much of the pre-opening press about this revival has revolved around the 96-year-old Squibb, who might be the oldest actor ever to play a principal role on Broadway. She merits that attention with a remarkable performance that combines frostiness and fogginess into a firm coat of rime. But the other actors are equally good. Burstein, who radiates human tenderness, is perfectly employed as the play’s kindest character, and his final scene is devastating; Lowell finds the appropriate levels of stiffness and charm for his faux Walter. And Nixon is simply the best I’ve ever seen her onstage: As Tess labors to connect with her mother—or alternatively to give up any hope of connecting with her—Nixon invests her testiness with complex underlying notes of bitterness and exhaustion.

All of the above might make for an entertaining evening if Chess were just a concert, which unfortunately it is not, despite Mayer’s concert-style staging: the orchestra is onstage, with minimal sets (by David Rockwell and video designer Peter Nigrini) but maximal lighting and sound (by Kevin Adams and John Shivers, respectively). The problems with Danny Strong’s new book present themselves instantly in the obnoxious form of the Arbiter (Bryce Pinkham), whose smarmy metatheatrical narration, when it isn’t restating the obvious, often seems to be making fun of the rest of the show. Though never welcome, and usually shouty, his narrator is at his absolute worst when he strains for humor.

Icke’s Oedipus is continuously engaging and smart, and it is exceedingly well performed by a cast that also includes Teagle F. Bougere, Bhasker Patel and Ani Mesa-Perez as aides and employees. Where it runs up against a wall—as many modern adaptations of ancient texts do—is in trying to make the story function without gods and fates. The possibility of divine machinations is brought up in passing here and there, but inconclusively.

Like the rest of the show, however, the score doesn’t quite cohere; it feels like less than the sum of its parts. Arden’s direction provides good small moments but can’t provide an overall attitude the material lacks, and the production’s look is inconsistent: Christian Cowan’s costumes are great fun, but Laffrey’s TV-set design relies too heavily on a large mobile screen, and the finally marble staircase looks a mess at the bottom. The Yiddish word for The Queen of Versailles is ongepotchket: tacky and busy, with components that might be fine alone but don’t come together. If you want to see it, you should probably see it soon: Like all those unlucky French courtiers, this show seems headed for the chopping block.

Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock star in Samuel D. Hunter's gorgeous new play. Five stars.

Five stars. Bess Wohl's feminist drama keeps the conversation going.

DeBessonet’s elegant direction contributes to the clarity. This is the same production that she premiered in semi-concert form last year at New York City Center (and which we discussed in an interview then), newly outfitted with a spare, effective set by David Korins and attractive abstract projections by 59 Studio. The very fine 2024 design team is otherwise intact: Linda Cho (costumes), Tom Watson (hair), Adam Honoré and Donald Holder (lights) and Kai Harada (sound). The beautifully full orchestra, led by music director James Moore, plays William David Brohn’s original orchestrations; Ragtime is not dance-driven, but choreographer Ellenore Scott keeps things moving when appropriate.

But while story itself is inspiring, some central emotional focus seems missing from the way it unfolds in Punch, which winds up feeling less like a full-blown play and more like a digressive PSA about the dangers of street fighting and the value of restorative justice. Harrison’s performance aside, the play’s blows are hit and miss: connecting here, grazing there but not quite landing a proper hit.

In the end, though, it may not matter much which cast you see. Putting the audience closer to the actors does not make a show like Phantom more moving; it only takes some of the grandeur away. And Masquerade’s peripatetic structure inevitably keeps wrenching you out of theatrical illusion: One moment you are in the Phantom’s underground lair, and then you are on an escalator; now you are watching a murder in the opera-house wings, and then you are looking at the office buildings behind Christine and Raoul’s duet. But if you have any affection for Phantom at all, it’s a blast. The main attraction of Masquerade is not its stars, its story or its music of the night; it’s the pleasure of re-exploring a property you already know and seeing it from a new angles. Get dressed up, hide your face and give yourself over to the phantasy.

The pleasant prospect of seeing Reeves and Winter together makes this production to some extent critic-proof—and anyhow, this is a play in which “Crritic!” is the worst insult that Estragon can think up. But although Reeves and Winter are the main reason most people will go to this Godot, it is this revival’s other assets—the direction, the set and above all Dirden and Thornton—that keep it from being an exercise in meta stasis. For me, those elements make the production worth seeing, but the nice thing about Waiting for Godot is that it just keeps coming. This is the play’s third Broadway revival in the 21st century, and there have been numerous Off Broadway versions in recent years, too. If you decide to skip this one, you won’t have to wait very long for another.

Although Art is not especially deep—Reza paints her characters in broad strokes but thin layers—it is solidly built for comedy, and all three men are armed with effective one-liners as their mutual exasperation builds to a climax. With his raspy voice and commanding physical presence, Cannavale is less waspish than the usual Marc, but his bluster hides a core of hurt feelings; this plays nicely off Harris’s self-satisfied but prickly and defensive Serge. It is Corden, however, who dominates the stage and the audience’s affections. In part that’s because of how the part is written—Yvan is more emotional than the others, and Alfred Molina likewise ran off with the original—but it also demonstrates Corden’s enormous comedic talents as a stage actor. The ingratiating quality that can sometimes cloy on television is a perfect match for Yvan’s desperate eagerness to please, and Corden spins it into comic gold.

“Stuff in your life you think you’ll never get over, you will get over,” he says. “You might even laugh about it someday.” Here, though, laughs are not the final goal. Vicious comedy may be Ross’s superpower, but this show aims to reveal his secret identity as the nicest of guys: an über-mensch.

If last week’s box-office tallies are any indication, Broadway audiences really want their mommy. The national tour of Mamma Mia! has just set up camp (or at least kitsch) at the Winter Garden Theatre, where the show’s original production ran for 14 years, and in the first week of its scheduled sixth-month engagement it outgrossed every other show except fellow marathon runners The Lion King, Wicked and Hamilton. This show, the mother of all jukebox musicals, is nothing if not familiar—and in this case, familiarity breeds contentment.

Ruhl's riff leans into surrealism, symbolism, dark humor and poetry as the title character is torn between husband and father, romance and grief, the living and the dead. The production includes moving moments and breathtaking visuals... Her Eurydice is a reimagined remembrance of a story we feel compelled to revisit over and over, even once we’ve learned the dangers of looking back.

For all its flaws, there's a lot to cherish about Goddess. Arnulfo Maldonado's lush set brilliantly bridges the secular and celestial worlds. Dede Ayite decks out the cast in African-influenced streetwear complemented by Nikiya Mathis's luxurious hairdos. Bradley King's purple and blue lighting gives off an ethereal glow, and choreographer Darrell Grand Moultrie's athletic moves are impressive. And best of all, there's Iman, every inch a deity, beguiling us with her smoky, honeyed timbre and delivering an emotional epiphany through music that the dialogue can’t match.

The writing is piquant and sly, the songs have verve and resonance, and every element of Cromer’s production seems to fit exactly in place. The show premiered last year as part of Audible Theater’s Off Broadway programming, which is apt: The whole project has the spirit of a serial podcast, branching off whenever it likes to explore some fascinating tangent with help from Cromer’s protean supporting players: Knitel, Eddie Cooper, Dashiell Eaves, Ken Marks, Trent Saunders and crowd favorite Thom Sesma (as a Tinseltown coroner turned crooner). These very fine performers, along with Brown and the onstage band, revolve around Durand’s extremely stable center. The 2024–25 season has been strangely full of cadavers; things to do on Broadway when you’re dead this year include faking out Nazis in Operation Mincemeat, narrating yourself in Sunset Blvd., getting a makeover in Death Becomes Her and feeding your friends in Swept Away. But Durand takes rigor mortis to new levels of morbid rigor. He’s the hardest-working stiff on Broadway.

First things first: Just in Time is a helluva good time at the theater. It’s not just that, but that’s the baseline. Staged in a dazzling rush by Alex Timbers, the show summons the spirit of a 1960s concert at the Copacabana by the pop crooner Bobby Darin—as reincarnated by one of Broadway’s most winsome leading men, the radiant sweetie Jonathan Groff, who gives the performance his considerable all. You laugh, you smile, your heart breaks a little, you swing along with the brassy band, and you’re so well diverted and amused that you may not even notice when the ride you’re on takes a few unconventional turns.

The modern world is full of stress, so go and have a party, brah, And shake it like a necklace made of gaudy beads at Mardi Gras. Enjoy this Broadway hybrid that is tuneful and poetical: A most delightful model of a modern operettical.

When Daldry and Martin bring the show's best elements together—McCartney’s acting, Miriam Buether’s sets, Brigitte Reiffenstuel’s costumes, Jon Clark’s lighting, Paul Arditti’s sound, the production group 59’s video design and effects—the production is like a breathtaking theme-park ride. And as with a roller coaster, there are longueurs as the show chugs up to where it needs to be to deliver the next big whoop. Go and enjoy, but don’t be surprised if you soon forget that Stranger Things has happened.

The show is one long elegy for a man we have barely met and barely get to know, and who doesn’t seem especially special except as a victim of circumstance.

Somehow, I enjoyed the overall experience of Smash. Aside from Ashmanshas and a few diverting numbers, the show is undeniably unmoored. But isn’t that ultimately true to the brand? This production embraces failure; it hugs its own shambles. And for diehard Smash appreciators, perhaps that—in a meta way!—is right for the material: Part of the appeal of Bombshell has always been that it had bomb written right into it. To be fair, this production isn’t really a bomb; it doesn’t go hard enough for that. It’s the shell of a bomb.

Perhaps fittingly, the best reason to see Old Friends is the oldest thing in it: Bernadette Peters. At 77, she remains astonishingly youthful-looking; when she takes the stage to sing “I Know Things Now” as Little Red Riding Hood from Into the Woods, it really doesn’t seem like that big a stretch. She does a little cavorting—especially when clowning with Leavel and Riding in Gypsy’s “You Gotta Get a Gimmick”—but mainly she offers emotional ballads and ballast. Most of her solos are in songs she has done before, including some that she has done on Broadway (“Send in the Clowns,” “Losing My Mind”), but her versions are in constant, exquisite evolution. She knows things now, many valuable things, and she brings them to Sondheim’s work like the best kind of friends: the ones who can tell you the truth.

This musical will not change your brain in any way, but it delivers what it promises: a big Broadway production that leaves you grinning, and a star performer with the poise, charm and chops to make you believe that what the world needs now might be, of all things, a little more Betty Boop.

If everything else about this revival were perfect, it might somehow overcome the wrongness of its Jamie. But aside from Warren and the band—expanded from six to nine pieces in Brown’s new orchestrations, and music-directed once again by Tom Murray, who has been with this show from the start—White’s staging looks a mess. Model buildings crop up like Monopoly hotels on David Zinn’s unprepossessing set, and Stacey Derosier’s lighting nearly drowns the characters in pools of blue and red; even the costumes, by the normally faultless Dede Ayite, often miss their marks. Brown’s show deserves better than the serial missteps of this 85-minute faux pas de deux.