Charles Isherwood — Theater Critic

With little sense of the wounds that fester beneath their mostly friendly but eventually fractious interplay, it’s hard to work up much interest in who comes out ahead in the games of gin—which symbolize, of course, the haphazard and inscrutable nature of much of the “game” of life. Most crucially, with minimal emotional investment in the meager drama, we grow as impatient as the characters often are with each other, eventually ceasing much to care whether Fonsia and Weller can set aside their unhappy pasts and forge a connection that might give them some solace in the present. The production ultimately feels as flat as a fallen house of cards.

“Shifters” toggles so frequently between time periods that the author often resorts to having one of the characters baldly announce their age before each passage, a prosaic if necessary device given the single costumes the actors wear and the lack of sets other than black lacquered boxes serving as seats as needed.

“Shifters” toggles so frequently between time periods that the author often resorts to having one of the characters baldly announce their age before each passage, a prosaic if necessary device given the single costumes the actors wear and the lack of sets other than black lacquered boxes serving as seats as needed.

I don’t recall the singalong from either the original production or its revival, but it’s emblematic of this version’s more loose, embracing style. The attention here is on the emotional connection established between actors and audience through Ms. Goldberg’s bright-hued portraits of people reflecting on the odd byways of their lives.

Mr. Ali, who directed the flashy but fun “Twelfth Night” that reopened the Delacorte last year, again piles on the pageantry. At the Capulet ball where Romeo and Juliet meet, Juliet and her mother grab microphones and sing a brief duet, presumably because Lady Capulet is played by LaChanze, a musical-theater star. The costumes, by Oana Botez, are eye-delighting creations, often in neon colors and splashed with sequins. The ball patrons parade around the stage in spectacularly gaudy headdresses. Even Friar Lawrence wears a vibrantly colored woven shrug over his clerical uniform.

Susanna ultimately is freed, not because she’s cured of the alienation she has always felt but because of an accepted marriage proposal. The musical’s implicit moral is that the oppressive patriarchy has condemned these women—but, ironically, rescued Susanna. All the characters the excellent Mr. Felciano plays are sinister, selfish or generally priggish. The consultation that lands Susanna in McLean lasts just 15 minutes, with the paternalistic doctor suggesting that she will be there for a “few days.” She’s there for 18 months. A doctor like that could get a girl down.

Susanna ultimately is freed, not because she’s cured of the alienation she has always felt but because of an accepted marriage proposal. The musical’s implicit moral is that the oppressive patriarchy has condemned these women—but, ironically, rescued Susanna. All the characters the excellent Mr. Felciano plays are sinister, selfish or generally priggish. The consultation that lands Susanna in McLean lasts just 15 minutes, with the paternalistic doctor suggesting that she will be there for a “few days.” She’s there for 18 months. A doctor like that could get a girl down.

With his blooming warmth and engaging rapport with the audience, Mr. Jackman is a perfect interpreter of his character. The anguish he feels, his powerlessness to control his responses, his shame and frustration—at Katie and himself—are expressed with such raw feeling that the performance can be hard to watch. These secret sorrows bring us into an uncomfortable intimacy with the narrator. Eventually the story takes a dark turn that pushes a little hard into irony—or unfortunate coincidence—but Mr. Jackman’s boundlessly truthful portrayal never falters in its quiet intensity.

Staging a Shakespeare tragedy with just four actors sounds like a potentially comic stunt or an unfortunate advertisement of dire economic straits, in either case a radical diminishment of the play. But the Bedlam theater company’s choice to mount a production of “Othello” using just a quartet of performers has a certain literary justification.

Staging a Shakespeare tragedy with just four actors sounds like a potentially comic stunt or an unfortunate advertisement of dire economic straits, in either case a radical diminishment of the play. But the Bedlam theater company’s choice to mount a production of “Othello” using just a quartet of performers has a certain literary justification.

While it cannot field the starry cast of the series, which featured Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Cumming and Ariana DeBose among others, the ensemble taking their roles to the stage is impeccable, as is Mr. Gattelli’s nimbly paced direction and splashy, old-school choreography. Although it essentially recycles its central joke repeatedly (in half-hour doses, this was less noticeable), “Schmigadoon!” celebrates the musicals it evokes with as much spirited conviction as it lampoons them. Parody, in this case, is the sincerest form of flattery.

While it cannot field the starry cast of the series, which featured Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Cumming and Ariana DeBose among others, the ensemble taking their roles to the stage is impeccable, as is Mr. Gattelli’s nimbly paced direction and splashy, old-school choreography. Although it essentially recycles its central joke repeatedly (in half-hour doses, this was less noticeable), “Schmigadoon!” celebrates the musicals it evokes with as much spirited conviction as it lampoons them. Parody, in this case, is the sincerest form of flattery.

Broadway has not seen a more delectable diversion this season than the bubbly revival of Noël Coward’s early comedy “Fallen Angels,” starring the glittering duo of Rose Byrne and Kelli O’Hara. They portray a pair of well-heeled, smashingly well-dressed and vaguely dissatisfied wives hoping (or fearing?) to rekindle the romantic excitements of their youth when a man from their past—a French lothario with whom they both had brief affairs before their marriages—gets in touch many years after their liaisons ended.

A quietly transfixing performance from Ayo Edebiri provides reason enough to see the Broadway revival of “Proof,” David Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning drama, first staged in 2000. Ms. Edebiri won an Emmy for the TV series “The Bear,” which seems to be the new go-to source for Broadway marquees this season. (Both stars of “Dog Day Afternoon,” Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, also collected Emmys for the show.) Here she undertakes a role that won a Tony for Mary-Louise Parker, and gives a performance that equals hers and yet feels entirely fresh and fully reimagined.

Even with the wider lens, Mr. Brody’s performance remains the focus of the play. He’s onstage for virtually the entire two-hour, intermission-less running time, often directly addressing the audience as—with a thick Philadelphia accent and arms slicing the air, rapper style—Nick relates the series of events that ended in his long incarceration and ultimate redemption. While Mr. Brody has a lithe, lanky and compelling presence, he can bring only limited bursts of animation to a play that never gains much dramatic propulsion, a liability of its oppressive setting and the slow trudge of the narrative. The proverbial wheels of justice grind at an almost unbelievably rusty pace, leaving Nick facing the prospect of imminent death for 22 years.

Even with the wider lens, Mr. Brody’s performance remains the focus of the play. He’s onstage for virtually the entire two-hour, intermission-less running time, often directly addressing the audience as—with a thick Philadelphia accent and arms slicing the air, rapper style—Nick relates the series of events that ended in his long incarceration and ultimate redemption. While Mr. Brody has a lithe, lanky and compelling presence, he can bring only limited bursts of animation to a play that never gains much dramatic propulsion, a liability of its oppressive setting and the slow trudge of the narrative. The proverbial wheels of justice grind at an almost unbelievably rusty pace, leaving Nick facing the prospect of imminent death for 22 years.

Even with the wider lens, Mr. Brody’s performance remains the focus of the play. He’s onstage for virtually the entire two-hour, intermission-less running time, often directly addressing the audience as—with a thick Philadelphia accent and arms slicing the air, rapper style—Nick relates the series of events that ended in his long incarceration and ultimate redemption. While Mr. Brody has a lithe, lanky and compelling presence, he can bring only limited bursts of animation to a play that never gains much dramatic propulsion, a liability of its oppressive setting and the slow trudge of the narrative. The proverbial wheels of justice grind at an almost unbelievably rusty pace, leaving Nick facing the prospect of imminent death for 22 years.

It’s an arresting image that signals the production’s bold, stylized approach to this canonical text, often treated as an antique that requires only a feather duster to be brought back to life. More than any staging I’ve seen, this version, directed by Joe Mantello and starring Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf as Willy and Linda Loman, casts the play in an existential light. We witness not just a critique of the fallacies inherent in the so-called American Dream (or Willy’s meretricious understanding of it), but also a more resonant examination of the isolation and loneliness of life, the fear that comes with the waning of hope, the tenuousness of human connection, and the desperation that follows.

It’s an arresting image that signals the production’s bold, stylized approach to this canonical text, often treated as an antique that requires only a feather duster to be brought back to life. More than any staging I’ve seen, this version, directed by Joe Mantello and starring Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf as Willy and Linda Loman, casts the play in an existential light. We witness not just a critique of the fallacies inherent in the so-called American Dream (or Willy’s meretricious understanding of it), but also a more resonant examination of the isolation and loneliness of life, the fear that comes with the waning of hope, the tenuousness of human connection, and the desperation that follows.

First produced in New York by Second Stage off-Broadway, the play was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2009. The same company has revived it at its Broadway house, the Hayes Theater, in a crisply staged and terrifically acted production directed by Trip Cullman that keeps the play’s serrated edges as cutting as ever.

At times the strain of keeping up the brisk timing of the movie to fill two hours of stage time on essentially a single set results in comic vamping. A passage in which an argument erupts over which nearby shop sells the best donuts, for instance, descends into absurdity when Mr. Eddy suddenly rises from his state of near-unconsciousness to offer his opinion. (Again with the shtick!) “Dog Day Afternoon” makes for a largely diverting evening, but like many if not most stage versions of beloved films it never entirely succeeds at laying to rest the ghosts of its cinematic past.

Thanks in no small part to the radiant emotional authenticity Mr. Radcliffe brings to the role, the narrative of the protagonist’s life maintains our interest as he matures and himself begins to suffer from a persistent melancholy. As the list of matters that make the slings and arrows of life worth enduring grows into the hundreds of thousands—closing in on a million—I found it harder to give credence to this element of the story. But ultimately the inventive staging, which also includes invigorating bursts of recorded music, from Nina Simone, Ray Charles and Curtis Mayfield (the glorious “Move On Up”), succeeds at the high-wire challenge of blending sincerity and levity in disarming but effective, and affecting, proportions.

Ms. Ziegler structures her play as a blend of the contemporary and the classical, with longer monologues alternating with dialogue. The director, Tyne Rafaeli, smoothly integrates the two styles, and the wonderful Ms. Keenan-Bolger, who has most of the choral duties, is excellent at finessing the longer passages (some of Dicey’s personal history could benefit from telescoping) so that they do not devolve into hollow speeches. That said, the central theme—of women’s powerlessness through the ages, even over their own bodies—gets a perhaps over-thorough workout.

Ms. Ziegler structures her play as a blend of the contemporary and the classical, with longer monologues alternating with dialogue. The director, Tyne Rafaeli, smoothly integrates the two styles, and the wonderful Ms. Keenan-Bolger, who has most of the choral duties, is excellent at finessing the longer passages (some of Dicey’s personal history could benefit from telescoping) so that they do not devolve into hollow speeches. That said, the central theme—of women’s powerlessness through the ages, even over their own bodies—gets a perhaps over-thorough workout.

Unlike Mr. Shawn’s previous plays such as “Aunt Dan and Lemon,” “The Designated Mourner” or “The Fever” (which Mr. Shawn is performing on Sunday and Monday nights when “Moth Days” is not staged), “Moth Days” has scant sociological, political or philosophical dimensions. The closest approach it makes to evoking more universal truths probably comes in a grim monologue from Tim reflecting on fate, and humanity’s evolution: “The creature that we are wasn’t made by anyone, and if you were to look at it closely as if it were something designed . . . you’d have to say, ‘Oh no, this is terrible, this is an appalling, dreadful design,’ because the creature that we are is so full of characteristics that only a totally demented designer, or a demonically evil designer, would have dreamed of including in it.”