Charles McNulty

'Tootsie,' the new Broadway musical by David Yazbek (music and lyrics) and Robert Horn (book) that opened Tuesday at the Marquis Theatre, is a marvel of movie-to-musical reinvention. As much an update as it is an adaptation, the show acknowledges that gender politics have undergone significant changes in the last four decades while embracing what makes this loony tale still so much fun today. But what really stands out is the wit. This 'Tootsie' yields more laughs per minute than any musical since 'The Book of Mormon.' Yazbek and Horn are like Woody Allen in the early days, only campier and completely besotted with Broadway.

O'Brien's production includes actors of color in important roles. Hampton Fluker plays George and Chinasa Ogbuagu plays Sue Bayliss, a neighbor with sharp opinions on the Keller family's self-deceiving ways. The casting, neither colorblind nor thematic, is part of a theatrical tradition that has become more or less standard. If the company seems unsettled, the issue isn't race but style. O'Brien's ensemble mixes realism with contemporary classicism in a catch-as-catch-can way. It's the acting equivalent of a mixed salad.

Much of Jackson's performance takes place on the elocutionary level. She doesn't so much speak her lines as seethe them. Vowels are stretched for whooshing emphasis; consonants are crashed upon with the force of a speeding car against a highway divider. The diction is so pyrotechnical that it may come as a surprise to learn that Jackson's Lear is more personalized this time around, more human. In London, she was a stylized archetype waging war against the gods. Here, she's a declining father whose dictatorial temperament is making for a rough ending. Unfortunately, the production and her performance often seem at loggerheads.

'What the Constitution Means to Me' concludes with a debate between Schreck and a bright teenager (Rosdely Ciprian alternates performances with Thursday Williams) over whether the Constitution should be defended or abolished and redrafted. The play loses some of its emotional force in the final stretch. (The structural looseness does wear thin at points.) But in bringing to the stage a youngster with the same passionate engagement of the 15-year-old Schreck, the show ends on a note of optimism that the battle for social progress is in confident hands.

The show stars Broadway divinity Kelli O'Hara, who endows whatever musical role she's playing with coloratura splendor. Muscularly directed by Scott Ellis, the production showcases Warren Carlyle's exhilarating choreography, which looks ready to compete in a new category at the next Summer Olympics, with tap-dancing Corbin Bleu in line for a gold medal.

Directed by Stephen Brackett, the production differentiates itself from the Broadway pack by being even more riotous and extreme. The imagination is gaudy, the volume deafening and the plot kinetically convoluted. Exhaustingly exaggerated, the show should consider an advisory that some material might not be suitable for adults.

Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird' will gratefully always be with us. This is Sorkin's version and, for all the distortions and limitations, it finds ways through Atticus' character to speak directly to our troubled times about the inseparability of race and justice in America. I look forward to future productions from female and African American perspectives that can match this level of theatrical excellence, but they too will be incomplete.

Just how horrifying is the new show? It has turned a self-respecting drama critic into a screaming Fay Wray. No, I'm not really afraid of being mauled to death by a giant ape in midtown Manhattan. But I am terrified of the monstrous concoction that has been cooked up in the international laboratory of mercenary producers eager to remake Broadway in the image of Barnum & Bailey.

The drama depends on the sustained pitch of Washington's portrayal of a mother ferociously battling forces larger, though not greater, than herself. The 'Scandal' star could use more modulation in the early going, a fault of the direction as much as the writing. But the anguish of Demos-Brown's play is coiled inside a performance rooted in one character's story but containing real-world multitudes. Washington honors all the shattered loved ones who have gone through Kendra's experience.

The play is set up as a diptych, but it's really an anatomy of a single life. This Broadway production, gracefully directed by Joe Mantello, performs the work without an intermission, underscoring the seamlessness of Albee's vision.

'Frozen' likely won't have many repeat customers, but its agreeable competence will satisfy hardcore fans who are curious to understand more about the plucky, climate-meddling heroines who devise their own happy ending through sisterly solidarity.

The laughter is definitely more raucous on Broadway than it was in San Diego. The daffy non-sequiturs are delivered with lunatic aplomb. Everything is crisper, including the modern Californian home in Ojai (designed by Beowulf Boritt to tickle Broadway theatergoers' fetish for flashy real estate). The blasts of Beethoven and the jaunty celestial displays between scenes accentuate the briskness of Zaks' staging. But the play is still the play, which is to say it's barely a play at all. 'Meteor Shower' is really a collection of funny (in both senses of the word) lines, packaged together with a few conceptual ideas tossed about in a manner that can seem random even if there's an all-too-tidy explanation written into this new version of the script.

A Doll's House, Part 2,' which is receiving its world premiere at South Coast Repertory, had its official opening on Thursday at Broadway's Golden Theatre in a separate production confirming that Lucas Hnath has written one of the year's best plays. Sam Gold's production resembles in its tasteful austerity Shelley Butler's slightly more posh West Coast staging. There's the same looming door that Nora slammed at the end of Ibsen's 'A Doll's House,' leaving behind her husband and three small children. There's the same vacated sitting room, equipped with just a few elegant chairs that can be shuffled around in the unlikely event anyone pays a social call to what looks like a domestic crime scene of a very cold case.

Half the fun of seeing Midler and Pierce face off as Dolly and Mr. Vandergelder comes from watching two pros at the top of their game. An electric current of comic ingenuity runs between them...The diversity of the supporting cast's strengths is a marvel. As Cornelius and Irene, the romantically appealing if unexpected lovebirds, Creel and Baldwin provide majestic singing. As bashful Barnaby and bold Minnie Fay (the clerk at Irene's store who isn't shy about signaling her interest), Trensch and Beanie Feldstein bring delightful eccentricity to their sidekick roles. Even the dazzling chorus dancers possess striking individuality - there's nothing at all cookie-cutter about Zaks' production.

A Broadway history lesson is being delivered these days at the Music Box Theatre, and never has anything this educational been so sensationally staged. All credit to Professor George C. Wolfe, holder of a PhD in theatrical pizazz, for adapting and directing this homage to 'Shuffle Along'...Wolfe has assembled an African American dream team of theatrical talent, led by six-time Tony-winner Audra McDonald, to channel the pluck, perseverance and panache of artists who might be forgotten by Broadway but only after they changed it for good. Just when you think McDonald can't impress us anymore than she already has, she blows you away with a tap dancing prowess that must have left even choreographer Savion Glover in awe.

Grueling in the wrong hands, the play's relentless attacks and counterattacks have a revelatory power when the right cast comes together. On paper, the Roundabout Theatre Company revival...looks like a 'Long Day's Journey' for our time. But I found myself arguing as heatedly with this disconnected production as the characters were quarreling with one another...The actors simply don't meld...Lange, perhaps the most emotionally supple actress of her generation, portrays Mary as cut off from her loved ones by her morphine addiction...she's continuing to pursue the same unsentimental line that Mary, fixated on her next fix, may be even more of a monster than her grandstanding, tight-fisted husband. This approach worked better in London, where Lange played opposite Charles Dance, who brought an imposing patriarchal authority to James Tyrone.

Musicals commonly have a second-act problem. 'Waitress' is one of the few that actually gets better as it goes along. Paulus' direction grows more supple, the quirks of the characters become more richly inhabited, the music travels to more poignant places and Mueller's performance just goes from strength to strength....Admittedly, the comic coincidences and plot conveniences don't stand the test of realism and the ending is sentimental in a non-rom-com way. But the show's heart is earned through the beauty and integrity of Mueller's work....In an era glutted with gifted musical theater performers, she stands out as a luminous everywoman.

The emptiness at the heart of 'American Psycho' is the source of both its originality and its eventual tediousness. What succeeds as satiric comedy falters when the mood turns more serious. But when the show works, it does so with tremendous flair. This isn't another 'Sweeney Todd,' but its sharp style lifts it above the mercenary rung of most musicals spun from pop cultural ephemera.

Jeff Daniels has returned to Scottish playwright David Harrower's disquieting drama 'Blackbird,' and his experience in the play has not only deepened but galvanized his performance...Here he shares the stage with the intensely captivating Michelle Williams, in a production by Mantello that perfectly calibrates the volatile sexual chemistry of the leads. Daniels' portrayal seems more urgently embodied than before...the most dangerous aspect of the work...is the playwright's refusal to moralize...Daniels makes every moment of this faceoff vibratingly real. Even when practically bouncing off the walls in anxiety and resentment, he remains grounded in his character...Williams is more stylized in her delivery, but there's no doubt that she is fully experiencing her character's anguish. Her performance calls attention to itself, but never in a gratuitous way.

This is an ensemble piece, not a star vehicle, but Nyong'o can't help standing out even as the girl becomes a fully fledged member of this unenviable community of war-ravaged women. Her plight is terrifying, and Nyong'o makes the tragedy achingly personal.

What a difference a director makes...Rather than rehashing the drama, Doyle has reconceived 'The Color Purple' as a communal meditation on a modern American myth. The result...is a spiritually transcendent theatricalization of the tale that had me silently shouting 'hallelujah' and 'amen.' Doyle is aided by a glorious female cast. Jennifer Hudson, who plays Shug Avery, has been brought in for the Broadway production for box office mojo. But luscious as her singing and stage presence are, she's not the star here. Front and center is the London-trained Cynthia Erivo as Celie...Relatively unheralded, she brings stark humanity -- and an astonishing voice -- to the role of the abused young woman dismissed as ugly and worthless who somehow manages to persevere long enough to have her radiant light recognized. It's hard to imagine that Erivo's heart-stirring Broadway debut, a portrayal that derives enormous power from humility, won't be recognized once award season arrives.

Between the cacophonous score and over-obvious book, I was ready to pronounce 'School of Rock' a miserable failure before the first act was even halfway through, but something happens once Dewey decides to turn his classroom into an incubator for the next Mick Jagger and Janis Joplin. The connection between Brightman and the young cast begins to glisten, and I found myself smiling delightedly during the jaunty 'You're in the Band' number...

With his gray mane and gravelly roar, Al Pacino skulks around the stage like an old lion in 'China Doll,' David Mamet's yakking character study of an aging oligarch still trying to intimidate the world despite his declining power. The play...could be interpreted as a commentary on two singular artists, once the kings of their respective jungles, who are now going through the motions of their former majesty. The qualities that lustrously set them apart are being worn here like the disassembled tux of Pacino's character -- fancy attire for a forgotten function from the night before. Style, emptied of meaning, has devolved into mannerism.

Daniel Aukin's production...is also sensationally acted...Arianda vividly embodies the conflict between May's sensuality and shame as she bounces from the bed to the bathroom to the front door of the shabby motel room...(The way she wields her long blond hair, which covers her face when she's disgusted and furiously flies in all directions when her violent temper has been stoked, is something to see.) But the revelation for me was Rockwell, who sheds new light on Eddie...Eddie is often portrayed as a Marlboro Man, a last holdout of the iconic West. Rockwell shows that he can lasso furniture as adroitly as any carnival cowboy, but there's a charming clumsiness to his characterization. He's fleshy and clownish -- qualities that intensify the violent threat.

Of course, it helps that this production, even with its narrative limitations, is so fluidly pulled off. But I for one am relieved that 'Hamilton' is on its way to Broadway. We might not have a king disposing of wives as though they were leased cars, but we have plenty of historical intrigue of our own to sort through.