Chris Jones — Theater Critic

The noir-like design for the show by Dane Laffrey, though, is really something, and its sudden visual tricks and life-affirming pleasures far exceed what most people would expect from a one-person show. Joshua D. Reid’s sound offers as visceral and riveting a sonic affair as any show currently on Broadway.

The noir-like design for the show by Dane Laffrey, though, is really something, and its sudden visual tricks and life-affirming pleasures far exceed what most people would expect from a one-person show. Joshua D. Reid’s sound offers as visceral and riveting a sonic affair as any show currently on Broadway.

Enter “& Juliet,” a savvy if stunningly unsubtle mashup of a musical from London that aims to redress that balance for Broadway fun and profit. This nonstop party-empowerment show gets its theme of feminist revisionist British history from “Six,” its Shakespearean humor from “Something Rotten,” its nonbinary savvy from “Head Over Heels,” and its collage-like spectacle from “Moulin Rouge.”

It's a great truth that acting is not so much about people but people in motion. And that's what is so enthralling about the luminous work of both Clark and Cooley. As is the case with Tesori's roiling score, their work here is kinetic. They throw out their hearts on to a cruel wind and hope for at least a little gust in their sails, before the tempest that awaits us all.

Fully competent and coherent, 'Almost Famous' also has many skilled and engaging performers and a nicely droll visual pallet from the designers Derek McLane, David Zinn and Natasha Katz. But when Penny Lane overdoses, the pain of that moment is brushed over with a nervous joke. That's also true of William's sexual awakening and, ultimately, even the rebellion of sister Anita Miller (Emily Schultheis). Irony and pain only rarely enter the building.

'Walking with Ghosts,' directed by Lonny Price, has some quirks. It's only loosely staged with minimal visual accoutrements and it hews too closely to the memoir. The piece, which could use more narrative drive for a two-act night of theater, unfolds, chapter-like, on the stage. Some of the transitions are abrupt. And the mix of theme and chronology sometimes feels better suited to the page than the stage.

'Walking with Ghosts,' directed by Lonny Price, has some quirks. It's only loosely staged with minimal visual accoutrements and it hews too closely to the memoir. The piece, which could use more narrative drive for a two-act night of theater, unfolds, chapter-like, on the stage. Some of the transitions are abrupt. And the mix of theme and chronology sometimes feels better suited to the page than the stage.

Suzan-Lori Parks' 'Topdog/Underdog' is a phenomenal two-brother drama, every bit as intense and rich as anything by Sam Shepard and, frankly, as good an American play as most anything written during the last quarter century. And on Broadway, the director Kenny Leon has put this 2001 masterpiece back on a fresh, vital pedestal.

Suzan-Lori Parks' 'Topdog/Underdog' is a phenomenal two-brother drama, every bit as intense and rich as anything by Sam Shepard and, frankly, as good an American play as most anything written during the last quarter century. And on Broadway, the director Kenny Leon has put this 2001 masterpiece back on a fresh, vital pedestal.

In the present, though, the show is often superb: the scene between Willy and Howard, ruthlessly played by Blake DeLong, is riveting, amplified by unspoken racism as are the scenes with Stanley, played by the same fabulous actor, here taking what's usually a plot functionary and forging a blend of obsequiousness, kindness and racism, all at once. Clarke's monologues are potent, rooted and deeply touching and, as Happy, McKinley Belcher III brings far more to that role than we usually see; in this production, the relationship between Happy and Willy seems more central than between Biff and Willy. And Delaney Williams (also known for 'The Wire') is an honest, earnest Charlie, a decent white guy holding up a Black family in crisis, understanding he's probably next for a cemetery that levels us all.

In short, then, you have a revival that wants both to revive the material and blow it up, even though '1776″ hardly was a crude work of musical triumphalism. Sure, '1776″ is problematic, not unlike most cultural entities from 1969, but if that it was it wanted to foreground, the production needed to have better sense of the irony of bringing it back to our attention. As distinct, say, from supporting a new musical by people of color about the complexities of American history.

what will impress the audience the most will be Michele's acting chops. She's very touching as her Fanny gets trapped in the net with that same handsome loser and you get the sense, as a young star who has been through the wringers of Twitter and its snap-judgement squeeze, that Michele now knows full well how fame and fortune ain't ever all fun, not least because men usually can't easily handle successful women.

The actors, working under the direction of Jo Bonney, are honest and solid; Mozgala is a veritable forcefield of signals and manipulations. But the performance from Young is on its own plane. She's a formidable young star in the making, richly detailed, moving, present and profoundly vulnerable. Her reactions alone are enough to sustain a couple of hours of provocative drama, revealing quietly desperate American characters whom we so rarely see.

Marber's production has enough energy and forward motion to ensure that the emphasis on character does not impede its dramatic intensity. And he helps make it easier to follow (it's not always easy to recall who is related to whom, as the years spin on to 1955). But the unfussy direction also lets everyone talk, emote, kvetch and, of course, go on with their lives as best as they can.

Seeing everything through one pair of narrative eyes limits what the show can achieve on stage. And time and time again - most notably when Amir finally explains the past to his underwritten new wife, Soraya (Azita Ghanizada) - we are told about a scene rather than shown. Sure, there's an imperative to be honest to the novel and the protagonist's journey through guilt is easily understood by a broad audience. But this is now a play and it's a different time. It's clear that Sirakian is a deeply moving actor; but the show never gives him enough power in his own part of the story to fully demonstrate. The same applies to Ghanizada, playing the one woman on the stage with any kind of role. Frankly, it's egregious.

There is an alternate way to do this show, which is to say in a less stylized and less comic way than deBessonet chooses. It can be played as if these characters were realistic humans and I'd like to see it done that way again someday on Broadway, for I have it seen work a different kind of spell that way. More than once. But this is a legitimate way to go and deBessonet and her supremely talented cast certainly deepen their vulnerability as the material darkens and the winds of agony and change swirl around the forests of life.

The songs are witty and droll, but they're mostly what they used to call specialty numbers and you never entirely feel like they're integrated into the emotional logic of the whole. As directed by John Rando, 'Mr. Saturday Night' feels more like a play with music: its focus is on the price paid to be funny, a fee not just exacted from the comedian, but also a family. In an ideal world, all of the comedic energy in those routines would flow directly into the songs, making them an organic part of the comedy-pain axis on which this show turns as it probes Buddy's shifting but perpetually destructive psyche. But that never entirely happens, partly because the juiciest sections of the show are given over to comedy routines and scenes.

The songs are witty and droll, but they're mostly what they used to call specialty numbers and you never entirely feel like they're integrated into the emotional logic of the whole. As directed by John Rando, 'Mr. Saturday Night' feels more like a play with music: its focus is on the price paid to be funny, a fee not just exacted from the comedian, but also a family. In an ideal world, all of the comedic energy in those routines would flow directly into the songs, making them an organic part of the comedy-pain axis on which this show turns as it probes Buddy's shifting but perpetually destructive psyche. But that never entirely happens, partly because the juiciest sections of the show are given over to comedy routines and scenes.

As directed by Stephen Brackett, 'A Strange Loop' presents a dilemma for critics. It has many stunning sequences and, more than any musical in years, charts a brave path determined to confront not just the assumptions of the genre but their impact on those who take up the mantle of writing them. But it will not appeal to a broad swath of the theatergoing population. It's not for kids. It likely will offend Black conservatives. And some gay theatergoers will not care for its amplification of self-loathing, nor its determined argument that racism is always in the bedroom.

Watching the performance of this 28-year-old actress actually feels like a living referendum on what now makes a great lead performance in a classic musical comedy. Feldstein struggles mightily with the internal vocal demands of numbers like 'Don't Rain on My Parade' and 'People,' her voice coming and going. She has, though, figured out how to sustain the crucial final note, which is, for some, what matters most. She throws back her head, summons up every inch of her heart and soul and lets fly on, like, 'pa-RAAADE.' Boom. Its amalgam of theatricality and raw determination inspires forgiveness. All of Feldstein's chips are in the middle of the table at every moment and who does not enjoy seeing that in a Broadway theater on a Saturday night, surrounded by people who need people?

Is he a relative of someone Harry hanged looking for revenge? A reporter looking for a story? A devil come to take Harry's soul? All three of those options and plenty more beside remain on the table throughout this play and I'll keep shut on the truth, finally revealed in a way that will, I swear, turn you into the sort of goop you typically find on the head of a foaming pint of bitter.

The best moments in this production, which features the performers Amara Granderson, Tendayi Kuumba, Kenita R. Miller, Okwui Okpokwasili, Stacey Sargeant, Alexandria Wailes and D Woods, are those when the words face forward, the speaker tells truths, and the lyrical beauty of the piece is allowed to soar, without apology. Pain and all. That said, there are many rich and vibrant moments. It's great to see this spectacular American piece of writing now reaching a new generation of Broadway theatergoers. Shange, who could and perhaps should have been poet laureate, deserves every last piece of applause.

In the case of Parker, a riveting, restless explorer of the human psyche who can bend time, it seems, it truly does. This is, after all, a memory play and memories abide and perhaps even clarify. That said, and with all due respect to a remarkable actor, Morse feels rather less sexually menacing. That might well be a smokescreen or even a dangerous learned stereotype, given the way abuse issues often play out in reality. But if you recall the energy of his manipulations the last time, the way he clung on Li'l Bit's youth like an insect sucking blood, you will feel the difference this time around.

I wish Shapiro's powerful original production had not been obliged by all the COVID-19 chaos to move to Studio 54, a bigger theater than ideal and a space that diffuses some of the original intensity of the piece, especially since people moving on and off microphones is baked into the play. Still, 'The Minutes,' which has a set from David Zinn that deliciously parodies small-town self-mythologizing, can survive that. It's an important play, a visceral theatrical experience, all about what has happened to retail American democracy and how this nation decides on which stories about itself it wants to believe.

There are times when director Vivienne Benesch's production, staged on a single setting from Christine Jones, does not fully exploit the epic, metaphysical sense of the writing; transitions are marked by annoying sound cues when we'd be fully aware of what transpires without them. Some moments are rushed, others too broad. But those really are minor quibbles in a truly must-see show that is fully successful when it comes to everything that really matters. Messing didn't pick some revival or obvious showcase for her comedic chops: she strives mightily and beautifully to find her way through a wise and sad drama, just like the character she plays.