Amelia Merrill

While bemoaning the childish concept of “unprecedented times,” Mother Russia launches into a Wikipedia-level Russian history lesson, quotes Billy Joel's “We Didn’t Start The Fire,” and somberly ends with references to “the Donbas region. Navalny.” The moment earned some contemplative murmurs from the audience, but it felt more rehearsed than reflective, if you’ll pardon the theatre pun. Mother Russia, both the character and the play, beg the audience to find her funny and smart in a way that sabotages its own story.

There are no weak links in the cast, though. Roslyn Ruff’s understated power as Volumnia and Jason O’Connell’s heartbreaking valor as Menenius Agrippa balance the searching pain and sacrifice of Belcher’s title soldier. All too often with Shakespeare, however, the attraction is the lasting power of the unfaltering text. The story and the actors delivering it are reason enough to see this lesser-produced tragedy, but the rest of its trappings amount to spectacle.

Playwright Ngozi Anyanwu is very precise with information. Her play The Monsters, which she also directs for Manhattan Theatre Club, carefully controls the flow of backstory, releasing trickles of context here and there as her characters decide whether to trust each other.

ERS’s is not the first theatrical adaptation of Ulysses, though many others have focused only on certain episodes or characters. Tackling the whole book is a signature ERS move; the company has cast many of its usual suspects in Ulysses, and none disappoint. Weeks goes from waifish to dominatrix as Martha; Shepherd’s bouncing take on Blazes Boylan becomes a choreographic leitmotif; Kate Benson goes from doctor to sex worker to enraged drunkard in the blink of an eye; and Stevenson’s feline gaze and vocalizations are so perfect that I indeed hoped the cat would come back.

The convention is a little too on the nose — we know no one in this family is the humble, selfless servant Tartuffe claimed to be, but we did just spend two hours invested in their stories and hoping for a happy ending. Hnath and Benson seem a tad too comfortable in their smug resignation; I half expected Trump to come out to pardon Orgon’s treason, not a messenger of Louis XIV. The scenic design by dots is clever, with the family’s home placed atop a clay tennis court, but it leaves little to look at. Once you get the conceit, it gets old fast. Perhaps the same could be said of the production.

Too often, modern political theatre forces characters to parrot a mantra the audience already believes, a reassurance that you and the playwright voted for the same people and did the right thing by coming to the theatre. Meet the Cartozians should not leave anyone feeling this misplaced sense of gratification.

There is no denying that Archduke is fun, but it is thin. Even with Page, one of the greatest actors of our time, on stage, Tresnjak’s production is more mirage than homage.

Still, Washburn’s play is a puzzle box that expands at the speed of your own engagement. In thinking about Ghazal, I realized that one of the newborn piglets, too, eats a poem of Peter’s that the children place in the pen. What does it mean? Is there a definitive answer to be had about this or any other character, or is our own mining of our minds the point of the journey? The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire is a slow burn, the kind of work that sticks to you and makes you jump in the middle of the night after you leave the theatre. Its more confusing moments uncoil and reveal themselves to you, if only you give it the time it deserves.

Playwrights Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson’s slow unveiling of the truth — that Don is not an everyman, but an oilman — is gratifying, leaving you mad enough to be inspired to act but not so depleted of trust that you can’t.

Despite these pitfalls, Beau has a generally engaging story with an endearing message, and Rodin and Brown’s bond feels genuine and heartfelt. The cast of Beau The Musical also functions as Ace Baker’s backup band, and it’s particularly fun to watch Ryan Halsaver go from bassist to “Wack Ass Larry,” Ace’s irritatingly upbeat stepfather-figure. Will audiences be annoyed by the lingering questions Beau leaves, longing for tighter storytelling? Or will they just tap their feet and nod along, transfixed by Rodin’s charisma? If my audience is any indication, it will be the latter.

There is no slow reveal of hidden information, no trickle of showing, not telling, that may come from watching multiple characters interact with one another. Throughout the piece, Kim embodies different members of her family — Umma, Appa, her two grandmothers, herself as a child — and her physicality is impressive; choreographer Iris McCloughan also gives Kim body language to express the sensation of being overwhelmed, whether by love or by depression.

Bassichis delivers an evening of highbrow comedy that won’t soon be lost to the archives. Maya refused to apologize or equivocate about his life and identity, and Bassichis refuses to apologize about using Maya’s persona as a vehicle for fame.

Maya Hawke is just as game to star in a surreal Off-Broadway melodrama as she is a hit movie franchise. Hawke is at home in the frustrated, determined, and slightly mysterious title role... The question is less, ‘Why revive this story right now?’ than ‘Why not?’”

Though some technical elements are more confusing than illuminating — a lack of scenic or lighting differentiation between the “private” screen, where the YouTubers talk only to each other, and the public livestream was aggravating — Last Bimbo is a revelatory romp with enough cleverness to justify its twists.

Dakar 2000’s plot, however, is gripping enough to make up for any shortcomings in character development. The script’s revelations trickle down in spurts before converging in an all-out flood of manipulation. 'You can’t like someone AND manipulate them!' Boubs screeches at one point, heartbroken to think he was just a pawn in Dina’s game. 'Yes, you can,' Dina insists. Joseph’s exploration of the cost of trying to be a good person reminds us no character is simply a hero or a villain.

It takes a long time for Cooper Hoffman’s Wesley to admit he is starving. While his sister Emma (newcomer Stella Marcus, who masterfully handles Shepard’s style) is eager for the rest of her family to wake up to reality, their parents insist in front of an empty refrigerator that they are not poor.

Instead, it’s fellow record producer Abigail (Marisa Tomei) and Kat jamming to Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl,” the riot grrrl inspiration for Kat’s persona and oeuvre. Babe is more imitative than innovative, copying not just musicians but the social politics of workplace harassment more skillfully explored by other writers. Tomei’s celebrity will attract audiences, but her performance mostly consists of blurting through awkward encounters and grooving to each new artist Katherine brings to work. (A final confrontation between Abigail and Gus finally delivers emotional satisfaction, though Abigail’s sudden change of heart arrives too swiftly.) The characters also speak of music like it’s foreign, its comforts a secret to anyone outside the industry, with only vague descriptors.

Burnout Paradise is a fun and quick evening at the theatre, and at first glance it does not hold enough water for cultural commentary. But as the Pony Cam members rated their individual levels of burnout, I found myself more invested in their self-assessment than in my own burnout. It was funny: I sat in the audience with my notebook, trying not to think too hard about thinking about the show before me, as I often must.

Although director Jack O’Brien’s production features too many prolonged scene transitions and the end of Silverman’s script is a tad self-indulgent, Farrow’s quietly captivating performance makes The Roommate worth the stay.

Maslany’s performance is raw as others claw at her skin throughout the show, her half-formed answers to questions bleeding out of her. When A tells one date her last boyfriend hit her, he sarcastically chides her, “What’d you do?” Lawyers tell her there’s not enough money at stake to take her case, and mutual friends plead that her ex feels really bad about it all. No one spouts cliches like "you should have left him" or "you asked for it," but they don’t have to; she still feels it. Her therapists (Dael Orlandersmith and Sarah Steele, who bounces among characters with dexterity) tell her as much in suffocating group sessions. The sessions are made lighter for the audience when Orlandersmith and Steele respond to invisible participants with emphatic nods and “mmm-hmm”s, but there is no relief for A — only exhaustion.

This sense of alienation is perhaps intentional, mirroring how Cephus feels, but director Kenny Leon’s production still must bargain for the audience’s attention. Cephus’s return to Cross Roads — to his roots, and to the beautiful simplicity of Maldonado’s earlier set — is a balm not just for the character, but for us all.

Home’s edges are softer, and Leon’s production gets stuck in the sentimental. In bringing the play back, he’s proven that there might be plenty in Williams’s work that’s worth re-exploring, but he hasn’t gotten all the spelunking done himself. There are unresolved tensions in Williams’s script that could use some pressure;

Kander and Ebb's Cabaret is a much-loved and -revived property such that its twists may not be secrets anymore. Despite the stellar Gayle Rankin’s best efforts to inject the latest revival with a sense of urgency as star performer Sally Bowles, director Rebecca Frecknall’s production, now on Broadway after winning multiple awards in London, stays stagnant. This is not due to the excellent company of dancers at the Kit Kat Club (into which the August Wilson Theatre has been remodeled), but to a disconnect between the production’s design and its book by the late Joe Masteroff.

Despite tonal inconsistencies, the tilt to full horror at the climax of Teeth brings the musical home with fangs and flair. Alan Louis’s embrace of a supernatural villainess persona is aided by Jane Cox and Stacey Derosier’s lighting, which relies heavily on strobes but also evokes female-empowerment horror lore like Suspiria. Steven Pasquale’s performances as a power-hungry pastor and a creepy gynecologist is laudatory, his vocals and comedic timing crisp. Alan Louis’s voice can’t always handle Jacobs’s and Michael R. Jackson’s (A Strange Loop) music, but she still becomes a heroine worth cheering.

Despite the hook, Dead Outlaw can’t sustain itself for long. Promising subplots fizzle out within minutes. The dramatic effect of lighting tricks from designer Heather Gilbert dampens with constant use. Durand’s mummy poses become distracting as the poor man stands rigid onstage for ages, clasping a rifle and likely exerting as much energy as the players singing and dancing around him.