Christopher Arnott

Josh Rhodes, who directed both the 2023 Broadway revival and this tour, has made some interesting and not unfunny choices that test the comedy material without disappointing Python purists. As with Nichols’ production, a lot of the fun is in seeing how some big moments from the film, like the catapulting of a cow or the dismembering of a Knight in denial about his fatal injuries or a vicious rabbit attack, can be accomplished live on stage. The answer? With extreme silliness, which makes the high resolution projected backdrops and confetti cannons all the more pointless.

This is a show that piles on the humor, the hoofing and the sweet romancing but also knows when it might be too much. It may seem hard to credit this excessively lively, often over-the-top whirl of witticisms, sweet-talking and terpsichore with restraint, but “Some Like It Hot” can cool it down when required. That goes for the jokes, too.

As MJ, the biggest of the three manifestations of Michael Jackson in the show (which also gives us Josiah Benson and Bane Griffith alternating performances as Jackson 5-era “Little Michael” and Erik Hamilton as the Quincy Jones-era solo star simply dubbed “Michael”), Jamaal Fields-Green is imbued an intense Jackson energy. He doesn’t overdo the high shy voice and he’s able to command the stage while being appropriately reticent and withdrawn in MJ’s interactions with other characters. His dancing isn’t quite as angular and precise as the real thing, but it’s more than close enough. His moonwalks and glides are exceptional. The dancing is at least as important as the singing in this show . This is not to say that Fields-Green doesn’t have a voice. His sustained notes of “She’s Out of My Life” are astounding.

Connecticut’s own Nick Fradiani brings “America” crooner Neil Diamond to stolid, sultry life in the first national tour of “A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical,” a jukebox musical that not only zips through dozens of Diamond hits but plumbs the depths of the sequin-bedazzled singer/songwriter’s psyche.

“Funny Girl” wants to be an intimate relationship drama, not a historical vaudeville pageant. This revival, despite some big rewrites by Harvey Fierstein, is still stuck around the sort of romantic cliches and hoary old body-image issues that most Broadway musicals strenuously avoid these days. Brice feels she is too unattractive to be loved by someone as dashing as Arnstein and goes through a lot of emotional abuse because of it. Scene after scene, not to mention the show’s title, continually makes the strained and distasteful point that it’s a good thing Brice is funny because she’s certainly not pretty. There are several songs that underscore this, plus the gender-typing male power tune “You Are Woman, I Am Man.” It gets really hard to take after a while.

“Beetlejuice” is a howl. The musical theater adventures of the cartoonish demon created for the 1985 film have a gritty grace and a less panicky panache than you might expect, but the results are still highly entertaining and even a little sentimental.

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“Mrs. Doubtfire” fires on all cylinders, including the two starring roles played by Rob McClure. The Broadway stalwart (who was also on the ground floor of “Something Rotten”) has been with every U.S. iteration of this show — in regional theater, then on Broadway and now on its first national tour. He is profoundly appealing both as the irrepressible impressionist Daniel Hillard and as Hillard’s greatest creation: Euphegenia Doubtfire, the Scottish woman he embodies so that he can spend time with his kids after his hyper enthusiasm and obliviousness to certain grown-up responsibilities screws up his marriage.

In its yearlong journey from Hartford to Broadway, 'Anastasia' has found itself. When this sweet-natured musical of self-discovery premiered a year ago at Hartford Stage, it was just as lush and romantic, but underneath those gorgeous trappings it seemed uneven, insincere, unsure of itself. At the Broadhurst Theatre, where it opened Monday night, the show is now fluid, smooth and clear-headed. 'Anastasia' has not fundamentally changed. But dozens of small fixes have made it a much sharper show. Had the Hartford Stage version hurried to Broadway sooner without these tweaks - or heaven forbid, had not tried out in Hartford at all - the show's stylistic inconsistencies would have doomed it. It speaks and sings now with a stronger voice.