Charles Isherwood

It might be surmised that some quarter century later McPherson's bleak comedy might have lost some of its sting, now that the central metaphor of illness - the ghostly presence of the AIDS crisis - has somewhat abated. But in fact 'Marvin's Room,' seen today in the director Anne Kauffman's delicately hued but big-hearted production, seems as mordantly and ruefully truthful as ever. Maybe more so. As baby boomers struggle with issues of end-of-life care for their parents, and indeed themselves, and health care (mental and physical) has become a defining issue, if not the defining issue, in American political life, 'Marvin's Room' feels even more acute and piercingly funny.

Summer entertainment options do not get more counterintuitive than the Broadway adaptation of George Orwell's '1984' that opened at the Hudson Theatre on Thursday, just as beach season swings into high gear. In truth, to call this almost unrelievedly grim production entertainment may be misleading. If you're in the mood for a meal of pure spinach, to use a now-outmoded food metaphor, this 100-minute immersion in one man's bleak odyssey through a brutally oppressive culture certainly fits the ticket.

The commercial theater, or for that matter the non-commercial theater, does not regularly present us with new plays of ideas - let alone comedies of ideas. Hnath's play fairly sets your head spinning with its knotty perspectives. Each scene in this whiplash-inducing (in a good way) play flashes forth a new revelation to absorb and process, although it has only four characters - and, yes, they are all essentially holdovers from the 1879 Ibsen play that Hnath is both honoring and interrogating.

The boys singing and swinging their hearts out in 'Bandstand,' an exuberant new musical set in the days just after World War II, are chasing an uncertain future and running from their traumatic pasts. Veterans all, with the battered psyches to prove it, they pound the piano keys, bang away at the drums and blow into their horns in the hopes of burning off the steam building in their emotional pipes. This being a musical, of course, they mostly succeed. 'Bandstand,' with a frisky boogie-woogie-laced score by Richard Oberacker, and book and lyrics by Rob Taylor and Oberacker, is the last new musical to open in a season almost overstuffed with them. The total comes to a baker's dozen, an encouraging indication that the hunger for fresh voices on Broadway, fed in recent years on the success of groundbreaking shows like 'Fun Home' and (duh) 'Hamilton,' has led to a healthy spirit of risk-taking on the part of producers.

In Midler, 'Dolly' has at last found a new headliner capable of engendering the necessary ecstasies as she swans down the famous staircase at the Harmonia Gardens restaurant, shimmering in her corseted gown, peacocky plumage sprouting like fireworks from her head. From her first entrance on a (fake) horse-drawn cart to her last bow, Midler serves up a star performance of glowing luster, rambunctious clowning and, on just a few occasions, surprising emotional delicacy. To say she sweeps all before her is to understate the feat: Without breaking into a sweat - although she pretends to wilt against the scenery, to hilarious effect, once or twice - Midler transforms this cotton-candy cloud of a musical into a bona fide theatrical event.

The director Daniel Sullivan's succulent new Broadway revival of the play, a Manhattan Theatre Club production at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, cannot erase its tints of both moralizing and melodrama. But it proves once again that Hellman's 1939 drama is also redoubtably enduring entertainment, a theatrically effective indictment of human greed and its destructive power.

It would be nice to report that, despite these travails, the show, with a book by Danny Rubin, who co-wrote the 1993 movie, and a score by Tim Minchin, of 'Matilda' renown, deserves the plaudits it has already received in London, including an Olivier Award for best musical and another for Karl as leading actor. But I'm afraid the production, simultaneously frenetic and static, left me just about as glum as its protagonist is at curtain rise. Life would be grim indeed if I had to wake up and face this tedious, charm-free and often tasteless show again day after day.

It would be nice to report that, despite these travails, the show, with a book by Danny Rubin, who co-wrote the 1993 movie, and a score by Tim Minchin, of 'Matilda' renown, deserves the plaudits it has already received in London, including an Olivier Award for best musical and another for Karl as leading actor. But I'm afraid the production, simultaneously frenetic and static, left me just about as glum as its protagonist is at curtain rise. Life would be grim indeed if I had to wake up and face this tedious, charm-free and often tasteless show again day after day.

You don't have to go in search of a magnifying glass to discern the active ingredients in the new musical 'War Paint,' at the Nederlander Theatre, a dual biography of the dueling cosmetics divas Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden. The magic elixirs are quite plainly the two veteran Broadway stars above the title, Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole, giving performances of such resplendent force, wit and vivacity that the evening gleams like a freshly applied coat of nail polish catching the light.

An unruly cast of stylish denizens has arrived at the St. James Theatre just in time to relieve the torpor of all of us currently afflicted by, well, almost everything, and offer the New York spring season a comic confection whose ability to delight and distract almost never falters.

As the title character in the musical 'Amélie,' a lonely young woman spreading warmth and doing good deeds even as she remains cocooned in isolation, the wonderful Phillipa Soo radiates her own brand of soulful magic. With her bright, pure soprano, and a face so expressive it might almost be a glowing high-definition television screen, Soo almost single-handedly transforms this sugar-rich, gossamer adaptation of the popular French movie into an emotionally rewarding evening. The musical, at the Walter Kerr Theatre, retains all of the madcap diversions of the 2001 movie. Anyone allergic to whimsy will want to give the theater a wide berth - a few blocks at least - while 'Amélie' is in residence. Aside from the protagonist, the characters are all card-carrying eccentrics, and we are treated to both a singing goldfish and a singing garden gnome, among other surrealities.

Trying to describe why a comedy strikes you as unfunny is about as fruitless as trying to describe why it had you in stitches. 'The Play That Goes Wrong' falls squarely into the category of things that you'll like if you like that sort of thing. (See: The Three Stooges, performance art involving self-mutilation, cruises aboard megaships.) I can't say I had to climb over patrons rolling in the aisles as I made my way out of the theater, but duty demands that I report that portions of the audience appeared to find the antics worthy of exercising their diaphragm muscles, even as the authors return to the shallow waters of their comic well repeatedly. (A joke about whiskey being replaced, for no logical reason, with a more toxic brew, causing the actors to sputter and spew, was worn threadbare well before intermission.)

What's more, this gorgeous heartbreaker of a musical, which opened at the Music Box Theater on Sunday, has grown in emotional potency during its journey to the big leagues, after first being produced in Washington and Off Broadway. Rarely - scratch that - never have I heard so many stifled sobs and sniffles in the theater.

Sometimes plain old pasta with red sauce is just what the doctor ordered. 'A Bronx Tale,' which opened at the Longacre Theater on Broadway on Thursday, might be called the musical-theater equivalent of that classic comfort food. It doesn't break ground or dazzle with an unusual recipe - like, say, mixing rap and American history - but it delivers reliable pleasures with polished professionalism and infectious energy.

Under the astute eye of the director, Rachel Chavkin - one of the most gifted working today - the show remains a witty, inventive enchantment from rousing start to mournful finish. It is both the most innovative and the best new musical to open on Broadway since 'Hamilton,' and an inspiring sign that the commercial theater can continue to make room for the new. (Heresy alert: I prefer this show to that one.) Oh, and as for Mr. Groban, making his Broadway debut? He's not merely adequate; he's absolutely wonderful.

There's hardly a moment in the exhilarating, devastating revival of the musical 'Falsettos' that doesn't approach, or even achieve, perfection. This singular show, about an unorthodox family grappling with the complexities of, well, just being a family - unorthodox or otherwise - has been restored to life, some 25 years after it was first produced, with such vitality that it feels as fresh and startling as it did back in 1992. The achievement seems almost miraculous, because in the intervening years, America has gone through cultural changes that might, in theory, have made the show, with its sweet-and-sour score by William Finn, and its economical book by Mr. Finn and James Lapine, seem a relic.

The interpolated songs are integrated into the plot smoothly enough, without lifting the show's mild temperature or bringing new definition to the characters. And unfortunately the choreography, by Denis Jones, features numerous tap routines that are more workmanlike than inspired, and occasionally seem to go on forever. A spirited jump-roping number is the freshest novelty.

True, it may take a few minutes to process the process, as it were. A mild case of sensory overload may have you reeling in the opening minutes, as you adjust to the necessity of taking it all in, and figuring out where to focus your concentration at any given moment. But a heady dose of sensory overload is what the best musicals deliver anyway; that's why people become obsessed with them. Here it's just different elements that contribute to the sensation.

Unfortunately, while aspects of Newton's tale are indeed noteworthy, maybe even amazing, the musical itself unfolds as an overstuffed history lesson trimmed in melodrama, with a standard-issue romantic subplot and some dutiful attempts to explore the lives of the slaves (although the focus remains squarely and maybe a little uncomfortably on the British characters)...Smith's score is pleasant and serviceable...'Amazing Grace' isn't particularly subtle when it comes to psychology, or, for that matter, exposition...Nor does the plot avoid some faintly preposterous excesses...r. Hewitt and Mr. Cooper, both stalwart musical theater veterans, give forceful renderings of their minimally drawn characters. Ms. Mackey's pure, radiant soprano delights the ear...Mr. Young's tenor matches Ms. Mackey's in its bright, limpid richness - although I couldn't help but imagine that if a Ken doll could sing, its timbre would be similar...The song is simple, beautiful, immortal; the musical, not so much.

Ms. D'Amour's dark comedy...draws a compassionate but unvarnished collective portrait of the underclass of New Orleans, a city where millions of tourists converge to party, little noticing that among the bottles and beads littering the streets are plenty of people who refuse to let the party end, and often pay a hard price for it. The production...brims with humor and pungent life. It features a flawless cast led by the Tony winner Julie White ('The Little Dog Laughed'), whose harrowing performance handily surpasses her superb prior work in lighter comedies. Ms. D'Amour's play has a loose, baggy structure that sometimes works against it, but this aptly reflects the aimlessness of its characters, who live day to day and would rather not think about the unhappy past or the foggy future.

...the dismay here has to do with the musical itself, a turgid throwback to the British invasion of Broadway in the 1980s...If full-throated love ballads and thundering militaristic anthems, baggy plots, highly expositional dialogue and doomed romances are your cup of tea, fire up the samovar and give the show a try. But be warned...'Doctor Zhivago' is inferior in most respects to the musicals it is emulating...Ms. Simon...supplies a hefty measure of love ballads, melodic and skillful but tending to become indistinguishable...Mr. Weller's book does a reasonable job of keeping the complicated political and social upheavals comprehensible. But there's more emphasis on the conflicted romance between Lara and Zhivago...More unfortunately, the actors render their characters without much spark or individuality. Ms. Barrett's Lara looks lovely and sings beautifully but radiates a blandness...In the title role, Mr. Mutu sings strongly and with commitment and does a decent job of communicating the divided loyalties that tear at the heart of Zhivago.

Just about everything in this happily dance-drunk show moves with a spring in its step, as if the newly liberated Paris after World War II were an enchanted place in which the laws of gravity no longer applied. Even the elegant buildings on the grand boulevards appear to take flight... 'An American in Paris' is very much a traditional Broadway musical, with a book by the playwright Craig Lucas that amplifies the movie's thin story line, mostly to witty and vivifying effect.

What the production's creators cannot do, unfortunately, is plump up the thin story or elevate the quality of the score, which doesn't rank among Lerner and Loewe's greatest...There is plenty of scrumptious eye candy to feast on...And the cast, with one unfortunate exception, makes the most of the material. Ms. Clark...brings her customary warmth to Mamita...As Gaston, Mr. Cott nicely suggests the chronic restlessness of a rich and handsome young man bored beyond his years, and he sings with bright, clear tone. Making her Broadway debut, Ms. Hudgens dashes around the stage with perky impetuousness, looking smart in her schoolgirl uniforms and, later, as chic as a runway gazelle in sleek gowns. Her characterization comes to life when Gigi pours her heart into her throat...But in between songs, Ms. Hudgens's performance flattens into two dimensions, at most. Gigi's spunkiness is there to see, but her vulnerability and ardor are mostly missing in action. The actress has energy to spare, but the performance is emotionally vacant...For the musical to inspire excitement, or even affection, we need to feel that the romantic fate of a young woman of vibrant heart and spirit hangs in the balance.

In a Broadway season dominated by the usual fodder - musicals new and old, and a healthy serving of Important British Dramas - Mr. Askins's black comedy about the divided human soul, previously seen in two separate Off Broadway runs, stands out as a misfit both merry and scary, and very welcome...Mr. Boyer's performance as Jason is tender and touching, his performance as Tyrone outlandish and hilarious; put them together and you have that rarely seen (although often hailed) acting achievement: a true tour de force...What makes the play so sneakily resonant is how Mr. Askins exposes the base impulses, the sexual, self-destructive, potentially violent ones, that just about everyone harbors to some small degree... Pick up a newspaper and you read another grim report about men and women little older than Jason succumbing to far more destructive passions. Maybe if more of the world's troubled youth discharged their demons with the help of sock puppets, things might not look so grim.

Ms. Moss, a superb actor who possesses an unusual ability to project innocence and smarts at the same time, inherits a role played by many since Joan Allen originated it...Fortunately, under the direction of Pam MacKinnon and in the hands of a fine supporting cast, notably Jason Biggs and Bryce Pinkham as the men in (and largely out) of Heidi's life, the play's humor retains its buoyancy, even when the specific matters at hand [...] have acquired the distancing patina of textbook history...For me, the moving heart of 'The Heidi Chronicles' remains the wonderful monologue in the second act. Heidi is speaking at a gathering of her high school alumnae, but instead of the usual manicured, upbeat speech, she delivers an off-the-cuff, emotionally exposed anecdote. It's really a play in itself, about the sense of alienation she felt that day from other women in a gym locker room: women she respects and admires, in some senses, but whose choices to pursue life's more superficial rewards leave her feeling 'stranded.' Ms. Moss, her eyes moistening even as her voice remains strong, delivers this beautiful speech with a grace that grows stronger as Heidi's peppery, self-aware humor gives way to lacerating honesty. Those are, as it happens, key notes in Wasserstein's durable play, and Ms. Moss and her collaborators in this sterling production sing them forth with a revitalizing warmth.