Barbara Schuler

Payne is better at the non sequiturs than Stephens. Then again, the design here is more obvious: Abe (Gyllenhaal) scrambles stories about the death of his father and the birth of his daughter. Unlike Sturridge, Gyllenhaal segues seamlessly, and sometimes he's talking about Dad before we realize he's finished with the wife and baby. It's an effectively sentimental play, and Payne isn't above throwing in John Lennon's 'Imagine' to give the heartstrings a good workout. It's also a deeply naive play. Only a playwright under the age of 40 would tell us that we plan for birth but we don't plan for death.

This problematic adaptation of Tim Burton's 1988 cult movie hit doesn't really know what to do with itself. In the title role, Alex Brightman gets more stage time than Michael Keaton's 18 minutes on screen, and with an abrasive, gravelly voice that's one stop short of laryngitis, he knocks his socks off trying to sell the show. But the material, especially the far-from-memorable songs by Eddie Perfect, simply doesn't cut it.

Throughout, it's all great fun, from the sick one-liners and cringeworthy puns to enough inside theater references to put 'Something Rotten' to shame. (The opening night song 'The Most Important Night of My Life' will never top 'Another Op'nin', Another Show,' but it's still a delight). But as in the film, there are important take-aways, lessons Dorothy imparts to Michael about the trials women face. When he declares that 'being a woman is no job for a man,' you sense overwhelming agreement from the women in the audience. But you get the feeling the men are at least listening.

This play is done a lot - What community theater hasn't trotted it out at least once? - so audiences generally know the story. But this cast breathes so much life into Miller's characters it feels like you're watching for the first time. Tracy Letts is compelling as Joe, a man who hides well his heavy guilt. As Kate, Annette Bening is a poignant mix of strength and despair, fighting off a grief she refuses to acknowledge. But it's Benjamin Walker as the tortured son Chris who most commands attention whenever he's on stage, so apparent is the fury he's brewing.

Ultimately, it's 95 minutes of weirdness and somehow not as funny as you want it to be. While tempting, it's not right to blame the last-minute cast shuffle brought on when an injury forced Andrea Martin to drop out. The real problem is that the genius of Mac (a MacArthur grant recipient and Pulitzer Prize finalist) gets lost in a tsunami of full-frontal distractions, pie-in-the-face slapstick and anachronistic baby shark gags. Gary himself makes the perfect point. 'You can't see anything,' he says, 'but its ridiculousness.'

This is not a piece of theater that allows you to sit back and be entertained. Fish demands almost as much from the people in the audience as he does from his cast, forcing them to really listen for lines delivered in near whispers, or reorient when the show is plunged into total blackness. Always a threat of violence lurks. 'Country is changing, got to change with it,' Curly says, not long before the rousing title song ends the show. But from the driven, verging on angry way it's sung, the message is clear. That change will come at a price.

Told through the deep, memorable Motown catalog, the show, directed by Des McAnuff ('Jersey Boys'), works best when it relies on great songs like 'Papa Was a Rollin' Stone,' 'My Girl,' 'In the Still of the Night' (though many are frustratingly interrupted or cut short). Choreographer Sergio Trujillo gives the singers slick moves considerably more polished than the originals ever managed, while Robert Brill's efficient turntable set is highlighted by Peter Nigrini's projections that provide location and historical context.

Although 'Kiss Me, Kate' moves at a frolicsome pace under Ellis's direction, on sets by David Rockwell that move between period-style flats for the 'Shrew' scenes and realistic designs for the play-without-the-play passages, there's no avoiding that the book, by Sam and Bella Spewack, loses steam in the second act (even with the interpolated 'From This Moment On'), which plays out more as a series of jumbled diversions before the romantic-clinch climax.

Much has been written about this heartfelt musical's unlikely road to Broadway, the tiny production in New Jersey, the album that went viral (more than 200 million downloads and counting), the Off-Broadway run that sold out before it opened. And everything's been spruced up for Broadway - the cool computer-screen set by Beowulf Boritt, the outlandish costumes by Bobby Frederick Tilley II, the slick projections by Alex Bosco Koch. As the squip sings near the end of the first act, 'you gotta get an upgrade.' And with this one, 'Be More Chill' gets a fighting chance to stand out in a capacity crowd of musicals about kids who don't feel like they belong.

If this is starting to sound like an old story, you are not wrong. It's tempting to throw in the towel on the overdose of teenage angst we've seen on and off Broadway in recent years. Fortunately, this show redeems itself with magnificent a cappella vocals and spot-on performances from the uniformly strong cast, guided by Trip Cullman, who also directed the piece when it ran at MTC's second stage in 2013.

Directed by Seth Barrish, Birbiglia tells the story as if for the first time, sharing a litany of gory details, from the indignities of fertility issues (he actually brought his urologists on Jimmy Kimmel) to the ramifications of the expectant mom's raging hormones. Along the way, he dispenses with the hilarity and sneaks in some valid concerns about bringing a child into a world of rising sea levels and environmental neglects, along with one infuriating (to me, anyway) comment about understanding why some men leave.

The play, directed by Kenny Leon, makes no attempt to hide its agenda. As the plot unfurls and details slowly emerge about a traffic stop (Jamal's driving a silver Lexus, an 18th birthday present from his parents), there are few surprises. Demos-Brown, a Florida trial attorney, writes what he knows but breaks no new ground and offers no solutions. This probably wouldn't have made it to Broadway without the imprimatur of Washington, who has expressed in interviews that she hopes the play will force people to listen to each other in ways the characters do not.

The drama here (the play was a Pulitzer finalist when first produced in 2000) gets its strength from the fine performances and from the horrific reality of a situation far too many of us know well. Like so many who've been there, this family is crippled by the lack of acceptable options for their loved one. Acting as narrator, as he's done throughout, Daniel suggests that loving each other so much means you have to keep trying, even if you know you won't prevail. 'It makes you think,' he concludes, 'it must be worth a lot to be alive.' Well said.

That ominous opening weighs on everything that follows, as we meet that family, the Carney clan: Quinn (British film star Paddy Considine, who made his stage debut in the London production), his ailing wife Mary (Genevieve O'Reilly), his sister-in-law Caitlin (Donnelly) and assorted aunts, uncles, offspring and cousins. It is harvest day and there's much work - and feasting - to be done, the vivid family dynamics brought to life with care by a cast that has no weak links and by director Sam Mendes, a frequent Butterworth collaborator.

The play offers no conclusion, though it's easy enough to Google what actually happened. If nothing else, in these days of information overload and questions of fake news arising from the highest levels of government, this work offers valuable information on the process as it should be - at least in the eyes of those who consider themselves journalists.

...it's the intimate, almost reverential look at this actress and all her eccentricities (say, sleeping in a coffin) that allows us to forgive the flaws in the work and makes it so stimulating, especially for those with any interest in theatrical history. Rebeck loses no opportunity to remind us of the stature of her subject, most notably with a line attributed to Mark Twain. 'There are five kinds of actresses,' he is quoted. 'Bad actresses, fair actresses, good actresses, great actresses - and then there is Sarah Bernhardt.'

That painful declaration, spoken by Michael (Jim Parsons) near the end of the 50th anniversary revival of Mart Crowley's 'The Boys in the Band' at the Booth Theatre, comes close to saying it all. The rest is bitter, biting exposition.

But there are other good reasons to see George C. Wolfe's thoughtful staging of what many consider O'Neill's masterwork, a play that demands much from its audience in that it typically runs nearly five hours. Wolfe brings this one in at just under four without significant detriment or noticeable trims. There's still plenty of time to marvel at the fine cast, a solid group of actors who are the sad denizens of a seedy bar/flophouse on Manhattan's West Side. The men and women who gather in Harry's backroom to drink away their troubles are a pitiful bunch - hookers and pimps, an out-of-work lawyer, a British ex-infantryman and a couple of former anarchists.

Director Daniel Sullivan couldn't do much in his staging of George Bernard Shaw's 'Saint Joan,' now at Manhattan Theatre Club's Friedman Theatre, to save the French heroine from her horrific fate, though he did manage to inject the uneven production with a few moments of levity (more on that later).

Only a playwright as brilliantly inventive as Stoppard could put all that together to come up with an uproarious work that seriously questions the nature of art. He tells the story through the eyes of Henry Carr (Tom Hollander, delightfully zany) a real-life British diplomat we first meet as a doddering old man in rumpled robe and crumpled straw hat, fighting through his senility to recall these people who invaded his life.

What saves all this, of course, is the celebration of the music, with a parade of hits starting with her first biggie, the mildly controversial 'Love to Love You Baby' (many references to the orgasmic nature of the song), and on to Billboard toppers such as 'MacArthur Park,' 'On the Radio' and 'She Works Hard for the Money.' Never mind that these songs sometimes show up without moving the story along, as when a chorus line of hookers appears for no discernible reason other than to sing 'Bad Girls.'

The stagecraft on display is unlike anything I've seen, with magical moments taking your breath away at every turn. Brooms and suitcases and people fly about with abandon on Christine Jones' inventive set, fire flashes across the stage, a lake materializes, then a forest. Time travels and everything is a blur. Oh, please, could we have instant replay?

Jack O'Brien directs a stunning cast of vocal masters, led by Mueller's beautiful portrayal of Julie Jordan, a vulnerable mill worker who falls quickly - too quickly, really - for Billy Bigelow, intensely played by Henry as a bitter man unable to face his failures. His 'Soliloquy,' the introspective song in which he anticipates the birth of his child, stabs you in the heart. Throw in Lindsay Mendez, whose Carrie Pipperidge provides much needed comic relief, and opera's Renée Fleming as Nettie Fowler, taking your breath away consoling Julie after Billy's suicide with the haunting 'You'll Never Walk Alone.'

The play made stars of two actresses, the late Phyllis Frelich, who won the best actress Tony in 1980, and Marlee Matlin, who won an Oscar for the 1986 film. The same will surely hold true for Ridloff, a former Miss Deaf America who was first hired to familiarize the revival's director, Kenny Leon, with the intricacies of sign language. She plays Sarah with a don't-mess-with-me vengeance, careful to not let vulnerabilities sneak through as she refuses the school's efforts to teach her to speak, explaining, 'I don't do things I can't do well.'

Despite vibrant performances from a uniformly talented cast, the show drags, especially in the first act when I found myself eyeing my watch like a kid dying for the bell to ring. And the music, by Fey's husband, Jeff Richmond, is repetitive and not particularly memorable. Director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw wrings everything he can from his cast, most notably from Barrett Wilbert Weed and Grey Henson, as the outcasts who take Cady under their wing. Taylor Louderman's Regina George, leader of the alpha pack known as The Plastics, shrewdly calculates every move as the cruel queen bee. And her partners in crime, Ashley Park as the eager-to-please Gretchen and Kate Rockwell as the dim Karen, are fun to watch as they flounce about in Gregg Barnes' over-the-top costumes.