Ben Brantley

There are tales, still told by the old ones of Broadway, of a time when Charm - with a capital C - was a cardinal virtue in the theater...To my great surprise, a brand-new version of such a play has materialized at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, and it is, in a word, charming. It is also smart, sad and so impossibly well-spoken you may feel like giving up on conversation. It is called 'The Assembled Parties,' written by Richard Greenberg and featuring a leading lady, Jessica Hecht, who is charm - I mean, Charm - incarnate...'The Assembled Parties'...is an elegy to a breed of woman, a style of living and a genre of theater of which only vestiges remain in frantic, self-promoting New York. Directed with loving care by Lynne Meadow, this is an old-fashioned play that ruefully knows that its time has passed and, moreover, why it's passed.

A spotlight works like a face-lift on Chauncey Miles, the title character of 'The Nance,' the strained if heartfelt new play by Douglas Carter Beane, set in the twilight of burlesque. As portrayed with shiny expertise and dark conviction by Nathan Lane in a production that opened on Monday night at the Lyceum Theater, Chauncey looks every year of whatever age he may admit to, and then some, whenever he's not onstage...This Janus-faced persona makes Mr. Lane a natural for the divided soul that is Chauncey, and he doesn't disappoint. Moving between his natural and artificial selves in increasingly adverse circumstances, his Chauncey flips the on and off switch so often that it finally short circuits, to devastating effect...But even Mr. Lane can't reconcile all the disparities Mr. Beane's script asks him to weave together.

'Matilda the Musical,' the London import that opened on Thursday night, is the most satisfying and subversive musical ever to come out of Britain...As directed by Matthew Warchus, with a bright, efficient book by Dennis Kelly and addictive songs by Tim Minchin, 'Matilda' is as much an edge-of-the-seats nail biter as a season-finale episode of 'Homeland.'...Above all it's an exhilarating tale of empowerment, as told from the perspective of the most powerless group of all. I mean little children...'Matilda' captures the particular dread that runs like an icy rivulet through even the happiest childhoods...You just have to use your imagination and think everything through carefully, so it's all of a piece. That's what the creators of 'Matilda' have done. Such strategy should be obvious. But in the current landscape of Broadway it's applied rarely enough to make this show feel truly revolutionary.

'Kinky Boots,' with a book by Harvey Fierstein and directed by Jerry Mitchell, is a reminder that you don't always have to be a masochist to enjoy being smashed by a steamroller...Unlike her more commercially savvy coeval Madonna, Ms. Lauper has held on to the same goofy image throughout her career, and, equally unlike Madonna, she has always seemed to sing from the heart. That sincerity comes through in 'Kinky Boots'...The leading players here - notably Stark Sands, Billy Porter and Annaleigh Ashford - pick up on the trademark Lauper mix of sentimentality and eccentricity, but each makes it his or her own. Under Mr. Mitchell's precise and affectionate direction, they do what you want performers in musicals to do: they define specific characters by the way they sing and move.

'Lucky Guy' is not so much a fully developed play or even a persuasive character study as a boisterous swapping of fond anecdotes about the end of a life and the end of an era...Not that 'Lucky Guy' is a crepe hanger. On the contrary, staged with the full bells-and-whistles treatment for which Mr. Wolfe is celebrated...Unlike some of the movies Ephron wrote and directed, and many of her peerlessly sharp essays, 'Lucky Guy' often feels only newsprint deep. But as a love song to a fast-disappearing, two-fisted brand of journalism - a field in which she began her long and varied career - it has the heart and energy of the perpetually engaged, insatiably curious observer that Ephron never ceased to be.

Holly Golightly does not. Go lightly, that is. The new stage adaptation of 'Breakfast at Tiffany's,' Truman Capote's beloved portrait of a glamorous waif in 1940s New York, moves with a distinctly leaden step, as if it dreaded what might be waiting around every dark corner of the sinister city it portrays....Mr. Greenberg's adaptation incorporates far more of Capote's words than the Edwards film did, with shimmering passages of reminiscence that come directly from the book. Yet no matter how finespun the original ingredients, this particular soufflé seems doomed never to rise.

To my surprise the Academy Awards came to mind quite often as I watched this glittery patchwork of a show...It wasn't just the parade of big-skirted, Technicolor dresses in the ball sequence that inspired such reflections, or the presence of a fairy godmother (poor Victoria Clark) in a humped, sparkly number that would have sent Joan Rivers into overdrive. No, the main and most affecting parallel is how these two productions were confronting the knotty problem of being both traditional and up to date in a culture that has no tone to call its own.

[Johansson's] sophomore Broadway performance isn't as fully integrated as the one she gave in 'Bridge'; there are a few miscalculations in her take on Maggie. She is perhaps too forthright to be truly feline, and for a poor but well-brought-up debutante, her accent is strangely common. But Ms. Johansson confirms her promise as a stage actress of imposing presence and adventurous intelligence. Her Maggie is, as she must be, an undeniable life force and - as far as this production, directed by Rob Ashford, is concerned - a lifeline...Ms. Johansson is also the only major player in 'Cat' who appears to have a fully thought-through idea of the character she's portraying.

More than any version of 'Picnic' I've seen this one, which has been designed with period exactitude by Andrew Lieberman (set) and David Zinn (costumes), highlights the role of prettiness as both a burden and an aspiration...Mr. Stan...mostly registers as more of an objet d'art than a sex object. Ms. Grace...embodies Madge's small-town self-consciousness with an appealing ease...But except for in one dance sequence (nicely staged by Chase Brock), when Madge and Hal discover a shared rhythm, there's not much chemistry flowing between these two. Even clawing at each other's clothes, they somehow seem to be lost in their own, isolating thoughts. The same might be said of the cast as a whole. Which means that, lacking an electric current to invisibly connect its characters, this 'Picnic' remains little more than a billboard for prettiness.

The fight has gone out of the once-robust boys from 'Glengarry Glen Ross,'...That sense of defeat has always lurked beneath the speeding dialogue of 'Glengarry.' But in Daniel Sullivan's deflated production...subtext has been dragged to the surface and beached like a rusty submarine. This is a 'Glengarry' for a recessionary age...Whether comic or bitter, dialogue is often allowed to resonate in empty air...Much of the beauty of this play comes from its revved-up rhythms....though Shelly may be flushed with new confidence, he hardly inspires it...By the way, it doesn't look as if Shelly is addressing his fellow employees; his gaze is focused directly on us, the folks out there in the dark. This performance places Shelly firmly and dominatingly at the center of 'Glengarry,' which needs to be a tight ensemble piece. There's not much the other actors can do to compete with or even balance Mr. Pacino's grandstanding...The production's strange combination of comic shtick and existential weariness makes it feel rather like a long-running sitcom being filmed before a live audience that knows its characters' signature tics and flourishes by heart.

“Women Behind Bars” it ain’t. And Ms. LuPone and Ms. Winger must sink or swim in the thick sea of verbiage into which Mr. Mamet has thrown them. Ms. LuPone, a Mamet veteran, navigates these clotted waters like the freestyle champion she is. Ms. Winger, in her Broadway debut, mostly dog paddles. ... That leaves Ms. LuPone to carry the emotional content of the play all by herself. She does so valiantly and compellingly, and reminds us that this Tony-winning star of musicals is a terrific dramatic actress. In her Cathy you sense the strain of a naturally arrogant woman trying to be humble and, what’s more, trying to convince herself that she believes in her humility.

This comedy about a prodigal son, returned from the wilds of New York City to his family in Cincinnati, seems to float out of memory even as you’re watching it. Ms. Rebeck, the author of“Seminar” and “Mauritius,” keeps throwing out weighty subjects — from the ethics of Wall Street to the existence of God — but never cultivates them into anything approaching a solid existence. They all blur into a single jet stream of semisnappy dialogue before changing course a few times and evaporating…For at least its first 15 minutes “Dead Accounts” does manage to command your attention. That’s because its first scene is essentially a sustained aria of nervous energy for Mr. Butz...Ms. Rebeck doesn’t seem to have settled on a tone or, for that matter, a subject. “Dead Accounts” is, I think, meant to be about the inflation of the superficial in a materialistic society, and the attendant, unsatisfied craving for belief...But the play never follows through convincingly on any of its ideas.

“The Performers” offers proof positive that it’s possible to talk real dirty and still be the squarest show in town. Even in a season featuring two works by a king of Anglo-Saxon expletives like David Mamet, this comedy by David West Read may well clock the most obscenities per minute of any play on Broadway. Nonetheless Mr. Read’s perky account of innocents in porn land, centered on a film awards presentation in Las Vegas, feels like a throwback to the more discreetly risqué entertainments of 40 and 50 years ago. Though its author is only 29, “The Performers” is like an early Neil Simon farcewith an X-rated vocabulary, or a blue-tongued episode of the smirky but sentimental TV series “Love American Style.”…Mandrew’s wife and sometime co-star, Peeps...is played by Ari Graynor, who turns out to be Mr. Jackson’s ideal comic match. In endowing cartoon characters, whose punch lines are visible long before they land, with something like sincerity and spontaneity, these two work wonders. Unfortunately, with “The Performers,” wonders soon cease.

Say what you will about the current version of “Annie,” which is directed with a slightly tremulous hand by James Lapine and features the virtuosic Katie Finneran as the villainous Miss Hannigan, you can’t fault the timing of its return to Broadway…It would seem that Mr. Lapine is hoping to introduce at least a tincture of psychological shading to a show that is only, and unapologetically, a singing comic strip. In its first incarnation “Annie” was an unstoppable sunshine steamroller. This version, which flirts with shadows, moves more shakily…In 1977 Miss Hannigan was portrayed by Dorothy Loudon as a juicy gargoyle, with equal parts Dickensian villainy and showbiz oomph. Ms. Finneran, a two-time Tony winner, takes a more humanizing approach…As Warbucks...Anthony Warlow also ventures into naturalism, inflecting his songs with unexpected emotional variety...The delicate-featured but indefatigable Ms. Crawford, who is possessed of both a golden glow and a voice of brass, is pretty close to perfect in the title role.

Wearing a mousy brown wig and hunching her shoulders, Ms. Chastain improbably manages to simulate homeliness. And her face registers feelings sharply and legibly. But, curiously for an expert film actress, she is guilty here of oversignaling the thoughts within. She plays Catherine’s spinsterish awkwardness for broad comedy in the early scenes. And her delivery of dialogue sometimes has a flatness that I associate with cold readings of scripts. This is surely a conscious choice, but it has the effect of making Catherine seem even more, uh, mentally challenged than usual. And I never felt the urgency of filial and romantic love festering into vengeful hatred, which should inform any production of “The Heiress.”

his gale force has a name, Douglas Hodge, and it is inhabiting, enlivening and almost exploding the title character...Mr. Hodge is as light and oxygenating as air, even as the pure physical impact of his performance sets you reeling. Still, though I hate to say it, that old ennui crept up on me whenever Mr. Hodge wasn’t onstage. Mercifully, that’s only a small fraction of the production.

'Grace' isn’t as intellectually probing or unsettling as it means to be. It tidily stacks the deck of its central thesis, which concerns the nature of grace as it is visited on inhabitants of this earth. In Mr. Wright’s version the evangelical Christian doesn’t stand a chance…The paradox of the financially beleaguered Steve losing his religion while everybody else finds theirs is laid out as tidily as a PowerPoint presentation. And while all the performances are solid, I often had difficulty in believing these characters as something other than figures in a parable…If 'Grace' winds up haunting you, it will be because of Mr. Shannon’s performance. And give credit to those who cast him, against obvious type, as the passive Sam instead of the increasingly crazy Steve...It’s when Sam is allowed, briefly, to imagine things might be otherwise that the dialectic of 'Grace' acquires achingly human impact.

More broadly, though, this sour-smell-of-success story…is steeped in a sense that Chaplin the person, as opposed to Chaplin the fabled silent comedian, has gone missing in action, devoured by a swarm of man-eating clichés….The lens through which we see most of “Chaplin,” though, is blurred, as if with Vaseline. In his 1964 autobiography Chaplin made it clear that he had little use for most interpretations of his psyche, whether high-brow (via Freud or W. Somerset Maugham) or low (the gutter press and fan magazines). So I shudder to think what he might have made of the psychiatrist’s couch he’s been plopped on for “Chaplin: The Musical.”

Praise the Lord, and pass the amphetamines. “Leap of Faith,” which opened on Thursday night at the St. James Theater, uses the religious revival meeting as both its subject and its form. Yet reviving (or revivifying or inspiriting) is hardly the right adjective for it. Starring Raúl Esparza and based on the 1992 movie of the same title, “Leap of Faith” is this season’s black hole of musical comedy, sucking the energy out of anyone who gets near it.

...what “The Columnist” will be about has been laid out as conscientiously as it might be in the opening paragraph of a solid-A term paper. And in his first full-length play since the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Proof” (2000), Mr. Auburn carefully follows through and expands on every element in that early scene. As an old-fashioned architect, he can’t be faulted here. But he doesn’t furnish his rooms so that they feel genuinely lived in. The masterly director Daniel Sullivan (who also staged “Proof”) and a very good cast that also includes Margaret Colin and Boyd Gaines do their best to bring flesh to what remains essentially an annotated outline. Sometimes they succeed. But you always hear the dry rustle of reference materials in the background — of time lines, headlines and lists of famous names to be included.

Every now and then, a bubble of pure, tickling charm rises from the artificial froth of “Nice Work if You Can Get It,” the pastiche of a 1920s musical featuring songs by George and Ira Gershwin. Most of this show, which opened on Tuesday night at the Imperial Theater, registers as a shiny, dutiful trickle of jokes and dance numbers performed by talented people who don’t entirely connect with the whimsy of a bygone genre.

Sure, from a distance the title characters of “The Lyons,” the Nicky Silver play that opened on Monday night at the Cort Theater in a production starring the fabulous Linda Lavin, are hilarious as they kick the ego out of one another. But look at them close — no, closer — and you’re likely to find an intimate mirror of your own frightened self. Welcome to Broadway at last, Mr. Silver. And might I add that that this cozy-but-nasty family portrait is just the right vehicle to bring you here?

“The Poker Night” was once the working title for what would become Tennessee Williams’s most celebrated work. So perhaps it’s appropriate that a poker game provides one of the few moments approaching excitement in the torpid revival of the play that was renamed “A Streetcar Named Desire.” ...when the woman in the seat beside me started to nod off during the first act of this “Streetcar,” I didn’t have the heart to nudge her. Handsomely designed by a top-flight team — including Eugene Lee (set), Paul Tazewell (costumes) and Edward Pierce (lighting) — this “Streetcar” is mostly an exquisite snooze.

sually, when a work is as topical as this one is, it has a limited shelf life. Yet returning to “Clybourne Park” — which features its original excellent cast and sure-footed director, Pam MacKinnon — I realized that this play probably will be topical for many years to come. That’s bad news for America, but good news for theatergoers, as “Clybourne Park” proves itself more vital and relevant than ever on a big Broadway stage.

It’s a rich, slow-spreading smile, like butter melting in a skillet over a low flame. And whenever it creeps across James Corden’s face in the splendidly silly “One Man, Two Guvnors,” which opened on Wednesday night at the Music Box Theater, you know two things for sure: You’re in for trouble, and you’re already hooked. Struggle as you will, there ain’t nothing you can do about it. That smile captures the essence of “One Man, Two Guvnors,” Richard Bean’s inspired adaptation of an 18th-century Italian farce by Carlo Goldoni, directed by Nicholas Hytner. A runaway hit in London, where it originated at the National Theater, “One Man” is, like Mr. Corden’s grin, both satanic and seraphic, dirty-minded and utterly innocent. Letting loose and neutralizing all sorts of demons, it’s ideal escapism for anxious times.