Chris Jones — Theater Critic

With most of its stellar original cast from the Steppenwolf Theatrein Chicago intact, Lisa D'Amour's 'Airline Highway' moves to Broadway as...a gentle, even sentimental, portrait of those who keep New Orleans humming...D'Amour, whose previous works include another Steppenwolf premiere, 'Detroit,' has positioned herself as a chronicler of the souls of American towns and cities...But while much of this play, warmly directed both in Chicago and on Broadway by Joe Mantello, is about the lives of those who form a tight community in their cheap hotel, the other side of D'Amour's protective instincts involves the preservation of New Orleans' distinctively outre counterculture.

Watching Rees and Rivera...On Broadway, it feels far sadder and more plaintive, and perhaps a commentary on Europe's less than stellar record with outsiders. Most of all, though, 'The Visit' now feels to be about the pain of growing older and, however rich we may or may not have grown, our inability to assuage our past mistakes, or even stop the demons that thud in our chests...It remains a weird musical, of course...Rivera is older now, and thus her Claire's determination for finality, her lack of any fear of anyone's death, makes more sense, especially when surrounded by Rees' cagey sadness (his performance is so complex and credible, it unlocks much previously hidden). Doyle, as one might expect from his past work, eschews literal staging. That works for this piece, aside from a few too many swings of a coffin.

For the first half hour of 'Something Rotten!'...it feels like same winds that blew Mel Brooks' 'The Producers' into the St. James Theatre finally are back...This musical...has the best opening comedic number of the season -- heck, several seasons...It's not just the cleverness of the song and director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw's triple-time staging -- it's the sticky melody the Kirkpatrick brothers have crafted...It's catchier than the plague, that darn thing...'A Musical' makes reference to every musical on God's green earth, given that the vision thing offers a delicious license for anachronism. Nicholaw stages this one within an inch of its life, too, stopping the show for a sustained ovation...That level of anarchic comedy is not, alas, fully sustained...Certainly the most fun of the spring musical openings on Broadway, 'Something Rotten!' is a sharply directed piece that achieves a consistent world and never checks its own literacy.

Rare indeed are the musicals that begin, in essence, with three consecutive memorial services...but it is emblematic of the problems that beset this new Broadway musical...that love story is lost in a melange of flame, ice, death and frantic characters rushing around a heavily raked stage without ever seeming really to know where they are going...Nolan has an extraordinary singing voice, and Mutu certainly is no slouch in the vocal department, but he's a tad stiff and unyielding. There is a certain poignancy and truth in McAnuff's staging of a marriage rooted in warm affection but not the life force of sexual passion. And a few of Simon's songs are quite beautiful, although they all seem squelched by the conceptual whole, unable to break free. 'Doctor Zhivago' is one of those shows that needed to cut through the icy clutter and find the optimism of love and the sacrifices it spawns. Alas, the poetic leanings of the title character are never fully explored.

Cerveris - no doubt with the help of the director, Sam Gold, whose storytelling has surety and sensitivity - figured out that the way to play Bruce was the opposite of the obvious choice of a repressed, bottled-up man. Cerveris, whose performance is deeply disturbing in all the right ways, shows you a man acting out constantly, a man whose denial of self has meant excessive hunger for stimuli of all kinds.

[Morrison's] Barrie is cool, distant and strangely invulnerable; neutrality is one of the more unusual aspects of this performance. And in a show with a cacophony of different styles and ideas in play at once, it stands in stark contrast with the work of Kelsey Grammer...But the real-life story of 'Finding Neverland' is rich in complexity...In a deeper and gutsier musical, we'd better understand all that people felt about these matters -- indeed, we'd also probe the downside of not growing up and Barrie's interest therein. But 'Finding Neverland'...does not want any piece of that...Time and again, it resorts to papering over any crack that opens up...Director Diane Paulus' staging, Scott Pask's set and Mia Michaels' choreography all play with the language of the circus, or at least of the musical hall. These approaches tend to work against the trajectory of the show...the score, which often has a rootsy, 'Big River' feel and, despite some sticky melodies, remains far removed from the show's milieu. The show lacks a journey.

...there are times when 'It Shoulda Been You,' replete with its snarky mothers-in-law...perfidious groom, lusty servers, neurotic bride (played, mostly straight, by Sierra Boggess) and various hangers-on with agendas, feels as if it belongs to a previous generation of shows with similarly chirpy scores that you thought had choked long ago on the prime rib once served for dinner. Then again, the reason for the resilience of the comedy about the wedding...is that most of us have either had one, are relishing one or are worrying that there never will be one for us. That ease of identification, coupled with strikingly lively direction from David Hyde Pierce and a veritable plethora of superb farcical performances from the likes of Tyne Daly and Harriet Harris, explains why a great deal of the content in this show -- which actually is much better than the above description implies -- lands with its audience.

Had this ambitious new musical fully committed to telling its story through the love, pain, rush and insecurity of movement, especially movement that does not have to compete with digitized scenery drawing pictures of its own, and had it more overtly abandoned the usual way of musicals, then 'American in Paris' would have touched the heart and soul more than currently is possible. The expanded narrative, penned by Craig Lucas for this first legitimate staging of the 1951 movie, has resulted in an overly complex and less-than-involving story, exploring the residue of the Nazi occupation of Paris.

Hudgens has to come up with a Gigi in an era when it is generally thought best that little girls are allowed to grow up in a most delightful way, far away from the prying eyes of older suitors waiting for them to bloom...Heidi Thomas...clearly is aware of these issues. She amps up Gigi's moments of rebellion from her chosen path...That would all be well and good if Hudgens had got the memo. But for most of this show she comes up with the most girlie Gigi you could possibly imagine: it is as if she were told to be as chirpy and childlike as possible, skipping around the stage and, at times, bending at the waist like a rag doll...Hudgens is, for sure, sincere and working hard. But her safe-as-the-valley Gigi feels Californian all the way and, well, not even remotely French. Actually, nothing in this show (and I include both the earnest McGillin and the setting by Derek McLane, replete with a mini Eiffel Tower) feels even remotely French. And without that je ne sais quoi, well, you're left with a piece sans any viable identity.

...In this highly original and laudably fearless and politically incorrect piece - far indeed from the usual fare here - playwright Robert Askins has essentially taken this performance tradition further...Von Stuelpnagel's cast certainly goes everywhere this piece asks it to go, but the actors also convey a sense of ordinary folks struggling with the chaos that life can suddenly inflict on us all, whether it's in the form of troubled teenagers or bereavement or unfulfilled desire. That compassion is what takes 'Hand to God' beyond the usual condescension you find on Broadway toward Texans or people of faith in general...Boyer, the remarkable star of this enterprise, is thoroughly believable at every moment...'

...it was a savvy idea to cast Moss as Heidi in director Pam MacKinnon's mostly faithful, mostly pleasurable, sometimes frustrating revival of a play...Moss' performance focuses on Heidi's reticence, her inclination to stand back and observe, her disdain for conflict. All are part of Heidi, but this sometimes comes at the expense of the requisite backbone of steel that Joan Allen brought to the role when I first saw this show on Broadway in 1989 (it ran for more than 600 performances). In some ways, MacKinnon's production, aided by the charm of the actor, makes Scoop overly sympathetic and too much in control, when we need to see more of Heidi constantly matching his intelligence and his vivacity while exceeding his morality. On the other hand, Pinkham's Peter is a tad too much in the other direction, too detached, a bit unfeeling. And that means we don't fully see the relationship that might have been - in Heidi's head, at least.

Aside from giving the redoubtable Helen Mirren another chance to essay Queen Elizabeth II - a necessarily reclusive character with whom this actress is now so closely allied that the two verge on a coalition, with Mirren doing all the talking - Peter Morgan's 'The Audience' succeeds because it intuits the heavy price a monarch must pay in a constitutional democracy... Daldry, like Morgan, knows how to mix the serious and the flashily theatrical, and thus 'The Audience' is neither dull nor dry... It's a coup de theater of the old school, and watching Mirren seem to peel off years and cares is nothing short of a dazzling experience.

Larry David's first foray into Broadway comedy is like watching a weird -- but undeniably entertaining and, God help us all, even potentially transformative -- fusion of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' Borscht Belt comedy of the old school, long-form improv of the Chicago school, and the kind of black situational farce associated with Joe Orton or other radicals with dark, anarchic souls and a taste for shows commanding premium prices. Well, that, and 'Old Jews Telling Jokes'...To say that David looks new to the dramaturgical game ain't the half of it...So, David wrote a play that you actually could do without him (people will). And both he and the play go to some very funny places. Thanks to the plot being centered on a death in the family, and the ensuing fights over a Rolex watch and even an unexpected, illegitimate kid, the show has a life-affirming, or at least a death-cheating, quality...In its best moments, it feels as if David actually has succeeded in forming a new and potentially lucrative stand up-TV-Broadway fusion.

This is, of course, an old-fashioned musical comedy, a genre not known for its progressive values. And the warm-centered tone of 'Honeymoon' is never crass or sleazy. Still, this thing badly needed the safety of some chronological remove, especially given that it's women who buy most of the tickets to shows like this. It may seem like a weird transition to now say that much of 'Honeymoon' is artful, but it's true. Brown's songs are packed with big-band energy, as if in tribute to old Vegas with all its good jobs for union musicians. Moreover, many of his lyrics are extremely amusing...In the lead role, McClure brings charm, energy and comic chops (when not overplaying). And then there's Danza, who is so clearly thrilled to be standing onstage. He's a fair singer and, all things considered, a classy tapper...'Honeymoon' would have been better off with a sharper satirical scalpel, something closer to that of Mel Brooks or 'The Book of Mormon'...You can see bits and beginning of a potential edge...But in the end, the show does not want to go there.

Albee likes his works to be directed by MacKinnon because, I think, she makes no attempt to amplify the angst, but concentrates instead on total veracity in primary colors and on turning her actors -- no small feat here -- into an ensemble of interdependent players...Close, returning to Broadway after many years away, will need more time to fully lubricate her considerable skills in this kind of stage-savvy company, although a note of self-consciousness is hardly inapt for Agnes, and Close is always true. But with Lithgow, everything is always in play. Right now. As Tobias, Lithgow's colors are as ample as his fellow's growing understanding that a drink cart is about all that separates a well-appointed home from an elevator, going down...This is, to say the least, a pleasurable three acts of watching others teeter on the brink, which always helps you last another day on terra firma yourself. Albee's gift to humanity, you might say.

The original production, which starred Alice Ripley and Emily Skinner, is not easily erased from memory...The piece has been revised for this Condon revival, which is a serviceable rendition of the main material with generally solid leading performances, but will, for die-hard fans, be something of a disappointment...The main problem with the production...is simple, although it might sound weird. As played by Erin Davie and Emily Padgett, their charms and clear talents notwithstanding, the twins Violet and Daisy Hilton are too much alike. And thus they're too much of a wash for the show to have the requisite fire...Violet and Daisy must learn to accept their lot, as we all must do, to change what they can and accept what they cannot. But that theme, which is the main pull of the show, can't really operate if they do not first try to wrench themselves away. Instead, this show looks too often toward its own ending...Condon's work is atmospheric and, occasionally, has some richness...The freakishness of 'Side Show' has to be as real as the desires of the human exhibit with two bodies, two personalties, two sets of desires and yet only one vehicle for mutual delivery. Davie and Padgett are fine, but they should make you feel like their song is coming from the depths of their own two guts, not one shared.

In the first scene, you watch Nixon and Josh Hamilton, both of whom are playing actors, stage a scene about infidelity. You think you're watching the real thing, but it's really just a play within a play. But while the play centers on two couples who work in the theater (we witness the real-life relationships of the actors we're watching at first), the creative professions on display actually are secondary to the needs of these poor, over-educated souls as people - ordinary, dumb people.

Part sentimental confessional, part caustic farce rooted in bitterness and wholly insider theatrical baseball, this intermittently amusing, celebrity-juiced Terrence McNally comedy from 1982 has been updated, often painfully, for an age of gossip, annoying media personalities and an all-powerful critic likely to eat your precious creative baby as his late-night sushi on the train home...Fine, so this is a comedy. As directed by Jack O'Brien, it is also a depressingly uneven production. The first scene, which takes place between the immaculate Lane, who is superb, and the one no-name in the cast, Micah Stock -- having a career-making moment playing a newbie to Broadway and thus the guy serving the drinks -- sparkles with pleasures...But then Grint...enters...And then the otherworldly Broderick shows up...and, well, the air goes out of the whole affair because Grint is about six sizes too large and Broderick's performance is, with a few funny exceptions, just too creepy to be funny.

It is hard to think of a single revival of any musical that has achieved such fusion with the popular perception of the material. That makes this remounting, or reviving, or whatever the Tony Awards committee is calling it, perfectly justifiable in my book. Mendes' 'Cabaret' was, and is, a brilliantly inventive and revealing conception. Then and now...Cumming now oozes relaxed confidence in his charms, whereas he formerly spilled unctuous ambition. Both work, frankly. Cumming does not kill himself anymore, but there is no demonstrable need. He is, really, the consummate Emcee -- others who take on hosting duties at the Kit Kat Klub invariably copy him -- and his relationship with his delighted audience now arrives with ease...Williams, who makes her Broadway debut as Sally, certainly taps into the fragility of her character...She does not, however, deliver the famous numbers with the force (or tonal quality) of a great Broadway singer, which she is not.

If your memory of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask's brilliant 1988 rock musical, 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch,' is that it works best in a grungy joint, ideally where the floors are sticky, the seats half-empty and the air heavy with tragedy...there is much about director Michael Mayer's new Broadway production, which fuses the character of Hedwig with a megawatt star and thus cures her desperation, to pull you up short...But there is no denying that Harris has thrown himself into the old girl, roaring through this 90 minutes with more tricks in his pants than Hedwig has sad yarns. And this is by no means an inauthentic piece of acting; on the contrary, Harris offers up a bravura, frequently thrilling, deeply committed, self-pushing performance that doubtless will introduce Hedwig, whose cult following was dwindling, to an entirely new generation.

Much of 'Violet' takes places on a bus, which lends itself to a minimalist staging with just a few chairs. The flashbacks should be simple, too. But once Violet and her GIs exit the bus, this production (which is designed by David Zinn) can't decide how (or whether) to build on its initial, simple style. The set expands and contracts. Some of the onstage musicians don robes and join a gospel choir. But you never really feel the pull of place, or of a lost time, nor the comforts of a well-defined imagined world. Foster throws herself into this unglamorous role, her face pale and her body propelled into a world of no self-confidence. It is a very honorable performance, filled with craft. Foster never condescends, and she clearly enjoys her character's intelligence, although she, too, struggles toward the end with the need for climax and consequence.

Of the three Radcliffe performances I've seen on Broadway (the others were in Equus and How to Succeed), this by far is the best. It really breathes as it hobbles along, and yet it's never showy nor overly optimistic. Radcliffe, who reveals chops here I've never seen on stage nor screen, is surrounded by superb character work throughout, including the killer likes of June Watson and Gary Lilburn.

Watching James Lapine's long, laborious and, well, hackneyed, Lincoln Center adaptation of Hart's book, you are constantly struck by the notion that Hart himself, had he been a creative consultant on the project, would have been leaping out of his seat, ready to cut some of his own scenes (plenty!), rewrite others and restage almost everything, being a fellow who understood the difference between autobiography and a work for the theater, between life and carefully constructed artifice. He knew the dance around the archetype without its actual embrace, the revelation of joy and the sorrow that cuts the treacle. And he would, I think, have been pushing for many more truths along with many more laughs.

Many in the audience for 'Of Mice and Men' are coming to see James Franco. But given director Anna D. Shapiro's long history with Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble, it's perhaps not surprising that the main pleasures of her straight-up but resonant Broadway revival of 'Of Mice and Men' lie with the gray-toned, journeymen actors who wander in and out of the Steinbeckian shadows of the Salinas Valley, cloutless traveling workers and those who wrangle them with various degrees of fear and loathing. All are writ and here played as fearful. Whether it's Jim Parrack as Slim, Ron Cephas Jones as Crooks, Joel Marsh Garland as Carlson, Jim Ortlieb as The Boss or Jim Norton as the elderly Candy, a heart-wrenching character who must suffer through the loss of his beloved old dog and immediately understand that they will be coming for him next, the valley on the stage of the aptly named Longacre Theatre is filled with small but beautifully crafted, and deftly cast, performances.

Pastore is exceedingly funny, as is the delicious Marin Mazzie, who blows her way deliciously and fearlessly through the Dianne Wiest role in the film... Brooks Ashmanskas eats his way through the night as the gourmand-actor Warner Purcell, and Nick Cordero stays sandpaper dry, perhaps to a fault, as Cheech... And Lenny Wolpe holds down the normative character, the agent Julian Marx, whose job is to set up the funny lines of the wackos and keep the narrative moving. There are, for sure, times when 'Bullets' is stymied by its lack of an original score, although the lyrics have been thoroughly subjugated to its comedic purpose, wittily so. The use of standards was not such a problem on film, since part of Allen's cinematic gestalt was to forge a gauzy comic tribute to a golden age of Broadway. But when you translate Allen and Douglas McGrath's backstage comedy to the Main Stem, somehow the Great American Songbook starts to feel a bit like a cop-out.