Billy McEntee — Theater Critic

Based on the Apple TV+ series and satirizing the relentless cheer of Golden Age musicals (or at least the cheery sheen of otherwise quite dark Golden Age musicals), Schmigadoon! delivers a world full of flats—literally in scenic designer Scott Pask’s perfectly pastel town, but also in the musical’s archetypes. You’ll recognize a few: McKenzie Kurtz as lipsticked flirt Betsy (Ado Annie), Max Clayton as carney himbo Danny Bailiey (Billy Bigelow), and the man who’s a “morally adrift narcissist that needs to change” (there are a few).

Otherwise, Yi’s play is more crowded than a jesa’s offering table. Secrets come to light in the wake of loss: marital strife, unplanned pregnancy, anger management, child abuse. The plot is overstuffed, but director Mei Ann Teo’s committed cast is palpably believable as a family; the actors easily flip between rage and compassion, fighting and forgiving as only sisterhood allows. It’s formulaic but comforting in that way: Some things never change.

Playwright Anna Ziegler reimagines Antigone for today with good intentions and mixed results. Antigone (This Play I Read in High School) maintains Antigone’s defiant spirit by positioning her in today’s reproductive rights debates. Instead of burying her brother, this Antigone (an always dependable Susannah Perkins) has gotten an abortion. Across the centuries, one penalty persists: death.

Coriolanus is not Shakespeare’s most compelling work, but this production’s standout actors, anchored by Belcher, could make you think otherwise. The plot includes war, politics and a civic uprising as the Roman general Coriolanus vanquishes the rival Volscians only to plead for their alliance when his arrogant refusal to display his battle wounds gets him banished from Rome. The ping-pong of allegiances threatens to get confusing, but director Ash K. Tata keeps the action clear and active, and projections by Lisa Renkel and Possible help define the locations. Other sequences are less clear; during battles, the video design sometimes becomes a muddled first-person shooter game, à la Call of Duty. But the performances are always crystalline.

As in the Oscar-winning Moonlight, McCraney unravels the nuances, vulnerabilities, and shimmering love that shape Black masculinity. In this stellar revival, the performances and production match the writer’s clarity.