Ben Brantley — Theater Critic

Though it bent (and blew) the minds of rapt audiences with its elusive opalescence nearly three decades ago, David Henry Hwang's 'M. Butterfly' returns to Broadway on heavier, drabber wings. True, the revival that opened on Thursday night at the Cort Theater, directed by Julie Taymor, has basically the same anatomy as its predecessor. But it has undeniably morphed into a more prosaic creature, and the tantalizing mists that surrounded its initial run have dissolved as if under a harsh morning sun. When the enigmatic title character in this breakthrough drama about the illusions of sexual and cultural identity is brusquely commanded to 'Strip!' by a stricken suitor, you're apt to think, 'No need guys. That's already been taken care of.'

A quality of randomness is perhaps appropriate to a show that begins with the observation, 'Never underestimate luck.' That's Mr. Uranowitz speaking, pretending to be Mr. Prince. (All the cast members take turns pretending to be Mr. Prince, wearing black and white, oddly mod outfits, with glasses perched on their heads, a signature of their director; David Thompson's script also has them deliver unilluminating maxims on success and failure and the importance of hard work.) What follows has the feeling of a work assembled by dice roll, and I don't think Dadaism was anybody's intention. The individual numbers nearly all feature literal-minded scenery, such as a bank of candles and a wrought-iron gate for the 'Phantom' sequence, and they are performed with the high earnestness of audition pieces.

In periods when the world and its inhabitants seem too vicious to bear, some people find themselves drawn magnetically to what might be called feel-bad entertainment. I mean the sort of book, song or show that massages your anxiety the way your tongue might insistently probe an abscessed tooth. If that's the way you're feeling at the moment - and why do I suspect that's the case? - you may well find pleasurable pain in Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan's discombobulating stage adaptation of George Orwell's '1984,' which opened on Thursday night at the Hudson Theater. But it will be pain of a different order (possibly involving nausea) from the empathetic kind you experience reading Orwell's ever-engrossing book.

Welcome back, Mrs. Helmer, if that's the name you still go by. And just what do you have to say for yourself after all these years? Quite a lot, it turns out, and they are words to hang on. Mr. Hnath's Broadway debut, which is directed by Sam Gold and features a magnificent Laurie Metcalf leading one of the best casts in town, is audaciously titled 'A Doll's House, Part 2.' Yes, it dares to be a sequel to Henrik Ibsen's revolutionary 1879 portrait of marriage as a women's prison.

Welcome back, Mrs. Helmer, if that's the name you still go by. And just what do you have to say for yourself after all these years? Quite a lot, it turns out, and they are words to hang on. Mr. Hnath's Broadway debut, which is directed by Sam Gold and features a magnificent Laurie Metcalf leading one of the best casts in town, is audaciously titled 'A Doll's House, Part 2.' Yes, it dares to be a sequel to Henrik Ibsen's revolutionary 1879 portrait of marriage as a women's prison.

That dangerous young man who calls himself Paul Poitier has grown up in the 27 years since he first set foot on a New York stage. All right, perhaps not 'grown up,' since we're still talking about a narcissistic con artist of adolescent fecklessness and zero self-knowledge. But there's no doubt that he has grown in stature and, in a paradoxical way, truthfulness. This is because Paul Poitier (not his real name) has been embodied with tremulous, searching sensitivity by the screen actor Corey Hawkins in the earthbound revival of John Guare's marvelous 'Six Degrees of Separation,' which opened on Tuesday night at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, with the estimable Allison Janney and John Benjamin Hickey as Paul's plump society pigeons.

Those mid-20th-century musicals that must've sounded like a good idea at the time, but tend to be remembered today only by hard-core aficionados of the genre. They were frothy but earnest shows, set in distant times and foreign lands, with titles like 'Mata Hari' and 'Pleasures and Palaces.' Such shows had a hard time squeezing their epic-size selves into the corsets of book-musical conventions, and they usually died young. I don't foresee a similar fate for 'Anastasia,' which originated at Hartford Stage in Connecticut and is directed by Darko Tresnjak (a Tony winner for his ingenious staging of 'A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder'), with choreography both stately and antic by Peggy Hickey. The cartoon version from 1997 is very fondly remembered by people who saw it as tweens, especially girls. Its Ahrens-Flaherty score included the breakout hit 'Journey to the Past,' which is repurposed here and sung ardently by Ms. Altomare. So 'Anastasia' may well tap into the dewy-eyed demographic that made 'Wicked' such an indestructible favorite of female adolescents. Those without such nostalgic insulation are likely to find this 'Anastasia' a chore.

Don't expect a sugar rush from 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,' the new musical that opened at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater on Sunday...This big but tentative show - which features a book by David Greig and songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman - doesn't burst with flavor of any kind, at least not during its exposition-crammed first act. Only in its second half does the show acquire a distinct taste, and it definitely isn't confectionary.

Ms. Midler brings such comic brio - both barn-side broad and needlepoint precise - to the task of playing with her food that I promise you it stops the show. Then again, pretty much everything Ms. Midler does stops the show. As for that much anticipated moment when she puts on fire-engine red plumes and sequins to lead a cakewalk of singing waiters, well, let's just hope that this show's producers have earthquake insurance...But Ms. Midler isn't coasting on the good will of theatergoers who remember her as the queen of 1980s movie comedies or as the bawdy earth goddess of self-satirizing revues from the '70s onward. As the center and raison d'être of this show, which also features David Hyde Pierce in a springtime-fresh cartoon of the archetypal grumpy old man, Ms. Midler works hard for her ovations, while making you feel that the pleasure is all hers.

Ms. Midler brings such comic brio - both barn-side broad and needlepoint precise - to the task of playing with her food that I promise you it stops the show. Then again, pretty much everything Ms. Midler does stops the show. As for that much anticipated moment when she puts on fire-engine red plumes and sequins to lead a cakewalk of singing waiters, well, let's just hope that this show's producers have earthquake insurance...But Ms. Midler isn't coasting on the good will of theatergoers who remember her as the queen of 1980s movie comedies or as the bawdy earth goddess of self-satirizing revues from the '70s onward. As the center and raison d'être of this show, which also features David Hyde Pierce in a springtime-fresh cartoon of the archetypal grumpy old man, Ms. Midler works hard for her ovations, while making you feel that the pleasure is all hers.

...'Indecent' arrives on Broadway as one of the season's most respectable - and respectful - plays. Yes, that notorious scene that never made it to the main stem, even in the licentious Jazz Age, is fully rendered here...The dominant note of this erotic encounter isn't prurience, though; it's piety...What's more, 'Indecent' delivers not only a history of styles of theater and their political contexts but also a portrait of Asch...as he progresses from youthful enthusiasm to embittered old age. This is achieved by a tight ensemble of chameleon performers...glowing with devotion to their craft and its possibilities.

Repetition is an art of infinite variety as it's practiced by Andy Karl in 'Groundhog Day,' the dizzyingly witty new musical from the creators of 'Matilda.' Portraying a man doomed to relive a single day over and over and over again in a small town that becomes his custom-fitted purgatory, Mr. Karl is so outrageously inventive in ringing changes on the same old, same old, that you can't wait for another (almost identical) day to dawn.

Some works of art cry out for large canvases. Though it is sparing in its use of scenery or anything approaching spectacle, J. T. Rogers's 'Oslo,' an against-the-odds story of international peacemaking, is undeniably a big play, as expansive and ambitious as any in recent Broadway history. So it is particularly gratifying to announce that it has been allowed to stretch to its full height in the thrilling production that opened on Thursday night, directed with a master's hand by Bartlett Sher.

So, though my eyes occasionally glazed seeing 'War Paint' for the second time, I wouldn't have missed it, if only to hear its leading ladies' climactic ballads. Ms. LuPone has an ardently sung tribute to the preservative powers of narcissism, during which a gallery of Rubinstein's portraits by famous artists materializes behind her. And in the show's most exquisite number, Arden takes inventory of an existence lived in a pale shade of rose. The song is called 'Pink,' and as Ms. Ebersole delivers that seemingly cheery word, it is weighted with triumph, regret, defiance and anger, all struggling for ascendancy. It's a reminder of how a single ballad, and a lone interpreter, can capture the full, ambivalent spectrum of a lifetime.

It's high time we were reminded again of what a great physical comedian Kevin Kline is. Playing an aging matinee idol in the bouncy new revival of Noël Coward's 'Present Laughter,' Mr. Kline blissfully plies the witty athleticism and derring-do that won him two Tony Awards ('On the 20th Century,' 'The Pirates of Penzance') and an Oscar ('A Fish Called Wanda') in his youth. In the uneven but enjoyable production, which opened on Wednesday at the St. James Theater, directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, Mr. Kline makes his entrance in a state of soigné disarray. His character, the stage star Garry Essendine, is suffering yet another stormy morning-after.

For a cunning little bauble of an entertainment, the 2001 French film 'Amélie' inspired uncommonly extreme responses. People were usually head over heels about it ('It's so cute!') or violently allergic to it ('But it's so cute!'). The mild-mannered musical adaptation of this movie, which opened on Monday night at the Walter Kerr Theater, is unlikely to stir similar passions. Featuring a book by Craig Lucas and music by Daniel Messé, with the lush-voiced Philippa Soo in the title role, it is pleasant to look at, easy to listen to and oddly recessive. It neither offends nor enthralls. Say what you will about its cinematic prototype, directed with an auteur's flourish by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, it had style to spare, not to mention the courage of its worldly but whimsical convictions. In other words, 'Amélie' the movie was très, très Français. 'Amélie' the musical seems to have no nationality, or sensibility, to call its own.

I propose putting your rational mind into sleep mode, the better to savor tickling images of order-inverting bizarreness, straight out of Dada, in which suddenly nothing is in its customary place or being used for its customary purpose. There's a wild, redeeming poetry in such anarchy. My audience, for the record, roared as loudly as the crowds at any wrestling match.

Though it is steeped in social combustibility, 'Sweat' often feels too conscientiously assembled, a point-counterpoint presentation in which every disaffected voice is allowed its how-I-got-this-way monologue. And this thoughtful, careful play only seldom acquires the distance-erasing passion of Ms. Nottage's 'Ruined,' the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner about female casualties of the Congolese civil war...'Sweat' is best at its muddiest, when love and hate, and the urges to strike out and to comfort, teeter in precipitous balance. That's when Ms. Nottage's characters, and the cast members who embody them, emerge in their full tragic humanity.

It's not as if such stories don't still have the power to stir suspense and tears. But this eventful, sung-through production out of London, directed by Laurence Connor, feels about as affecting as a historical diorama, albeit a lavishly appointed one. (The lurid postcard set is by Totie Driver and Matt Kinley, from a 'design concept' by Adrian Vaux.) This despite the hard and dedicated work of its earnest cast, which includes a slithery Jon Jon Briones as an enterprising Vietnamese pimp, a dewy Eva Noblezada as a heroic country girl and Alistair Brammer as the American soldier who loves and leaves her. Though it sets off inevitable topical echoes with its tableau of asylum-seeking refugees, the show still mostly comes across as singing scenery.

Try, if you must, to resist the gale of good will that blows out of 'Come From Away,' the big bearhug of a musical that opened on Sunday night at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater. But even the most stalwart cynics may have trouble staying dry-eyed during this portrait of heroic hospitality under extraordinary pressure...this Canadian-born production, written by Irene Sankoff and David Hein and directed by Christopher Ashley, is as honorable in its intentions as it is forthright in its sentimentality. And it may provide just the catharsis you need in an American moment notorious for dishonorable and divisive behavior...the show - based on interviews with the people who inspired it - covers a vast expanse of sensitive material with a respect for its complexity. It understands that much of what it portrays is guaranteed to stir fraught memories among many of us. And it mostly refrains from overegging what could have been a treacly, tear-salted pudding. Instead, it sustains an air of improvisational urgency, which feels appropriate to a show about making do in crisis, and it doesn't linger on obvious moments of heartbreak and humanity.

That shattering sound you hear coming from the Belasco Theater is the celebrated director Sam Gold taking a hammer to everything that's delicate in 'The Glass Menagerie.' The jagged, glistening shards of Tennessee Williams's breakthrough play are available for inspection in the revival that opened on Thursday night. Don't expect these pieces to be reassembled into an illuminating portrait of the anguished Wingfield family from this 1944 drama. Mr. Gold and his cast, led by an intrepid Sally Field, have dismantled a venerable classic, but darned if they can figure out how to put it back together again...On occasion, Mr. Gold's interpretation takes on the vicious aspect of a nightmare in which you see your past at its distorted worst. But even that vision is not sustained. When a plot turn plunges the theater into abject darkness late in the play, it only gives literal life to what you've been feeling all along.

The four central performers chart their characters' fraying ties with a graceful, instinctive grasp of the hierarchies and role playing that occur within such relationships. They're at their most poignantly expressive when they're dancing together (in dwindling numbers) at one another's weddings. (Sam Pinkleton deserves credit as the choreographer.) Mark Wendland's multilevel set nicely evokes the sense of a city of myriad dwelling places, to which people retreat in insulated isolation, whether as pairs or singletons. And John Behlmann and Luke Smith drolly fulfill their purposes as the various men in the central characters' lives. But the play's structure, built around an and-then-there-was-one countdown of weddings, can start to feel like a sustained musical vamp with only slight variations. Though Mr. Glick is very good and, I think, rather brave in following Jordan's path from adorable to irritating, his company does start to pall after a certain point.

He is a thorny soul, a man neither happy nor particularly kind, and not someone you'd be likely to befriend. But when the 19th-century French painter Georges Seurat, reincarnated in the solitary flesh by a laser-focused Jake Gyllenhaal, demands that you look at the world as he does, it's impossible not to fall in love. Or something deeper than love - closer to religious gratitude - is the sentiment you may experience in the finale that concludes the first act of the marvelous revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 'Sunday in the Park With George,' which opened on Thursday night at the newly restored Hudson Theater.

The scenery may have shrunk, but that face - oh, that face - looms larger than ever. So does the ego that animates it, both indomitable and irreparably broken. 'With one look,' indeed, to borrow a song lyric that describes such unsettling presence. That outrageous, over-the-top, desperate old lady shedding sanity on the stage of the Palace Theater still has the poetry in her gaze to break every heart.

Conversation sings and swings, bends and bounces and hits heaven smack in the clouds, in the glorious new production of August Wilson's 'Jitney,' which opened on Thursday night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater. In Ruben Santiago-Hudson's vital revival of a 1982 play only now making its Broadway debut, words take on the shimmer of molten-gold notes from the trumpets of Louis and Miles.