Dan Rubins — Theater Critic

Throughout the play, Lou keeps complaining about an ever-present dread, and that’s the element that Holloway and Barrett get just right in passing along to the audience. Places aren’t haunted, people are, and, however little you care about James and Lou’s marriage, Paranormal Activity’s abiding creepiness will probably follow you home.

Giulia shows flashes of the more tautly funny show that would be worthy of Zimmerman’s vision. If Nettles embraces what makes the show feel most shocking—its celebration of a community of women who take justice into their own hands with joyful, righteous bloodlust—it could become strikingly special. As Giulia says herself, let mama up the ante.

Pajak fortunately also gets to lead the show’s more delightful vampiric coming-out number, “My Brother Is a…,” as he pieces together the clues (sleeping during the day, aversion to light, crashing through the second-story window, and so forth): “Well, this explains a lot/He’s been acting like a freak/It’s worse than I thought/It’s turning out to be a real shit week.” A chorus of cartoonish Draculas pop up around him in the show’s most sensible embrace of its own ridiculousness. Nobody’s flying just then, but The Lost Boys, with its addictive sense of whimsical wonder, is soaring all on its own.

When we meet Cee Cee in flashback, she’s been dressed by her stage mother in red sequins and fishnet stockings, all the better to catch the attention of the show biz bigwigs. She’s smart and well-meaning, a kid stuffed into grown-up clothing. Adorable as she is, she doesn’t really fit. Beaches is kind of like that, a lovely little show with a sweet heart that’s all dolled up for a the nearly 2,000-seat Majestic Theatre when it could alight with greater grace somewhere cozier.

When we meet Cee Cee in flashback, she’s been dressed by her stage mother in red sequins and fishnet stockings, all the better to catch the attention of the show biz bigwigs. She’s smart and well-meaning, a kid stuffed into grown-up clothing. Adorable as she is, she doesn’t really fit. Beaches is kind of like that, a lovely little show with a sweet heart that’s all dolled up for a the nearly 2,000-seat Majestic Theatre when it could alight with greater grace somewhere cozier.

That’s striking stage sorcery, but this Death of a Salesman’s real magic sizzles in the cast’s gutsy, gutting portrait of the Loman family’s striving as they reach, together and apart, to find something, anything to make life worth living.

That’s striking stage sorcery, but this Death of a Salesman’s real magic sizzles in the cast’s gutsy, gutting portrait of the Loman family’s striving as they reach, together and apart, to find something, anything to make life worth living.

Cats: The Jellicle Ball radiates, too, in its particular interest in honoring queer elders. That’s baked into this version of the story, with projections of real founding house mothers from the ballroom scene that includes the fictional Grizabella and her own House of Glamour. Her legacy, Old Deutronomy reminds the next generation, must be venerated. And that extends to the presence of de Shields and LaBeija, meta-theatrically embodying living history in both their on-stage relationships and off-stage bios. There’s a generous spirit here, one that Nunn and Lloyd Webber didn’t quite conceive of

Cats: The Jellicle Ball radiates, too, in its particular interest in honoring queer elders. That’s baked into this version of the story, with projections of real founding house mothers from the ballroom scene that includes the fictional Grizabella and her own House of Glamour. Her legacy, Old Deutronomy reminds the next generation, must be venerated. And that extends to the presence of de Shields and LaBeija, meta-theatrically embodying living history in both their on-stage relationships and off-stage bios. There’s a generous spirit here, one that Nunn and Lloyd Webber didn’t quite conceive of

Strangely, Guirgis, who’s caringly created transgender characters before, fumbles the characterization of Leon (Esteban Andres Cruz), whose need for expensive gender-affirming surgery spurred Sonny’s heist plan in the first place. What played in 1975 as an impressively humanizing mainstream depiction of a trans woman struggling with her mental health becomes a coarse stereotype here of promiscuity (“I’m like McDonald’s—over a million served!”). That’s a cheapening approach, and it makes Sonny’s motivations hard to believe in too.

if Jackie is the show’s complex centerpiece, the show is most moving in a brief aside, a monologue lifted from the documentary in which the family nanny (Melody Butiu) laments that she hasn’t seen her own kids in the Philippines in decades. Jackie might not grasp the fullness of her nanny’s humanity, but the creators of The Queen of Versailles would have done well to build an extra wing or two for these everyday people living in the socialite’s shadow.

But the score, at its passionate and melodramatic heights, is Andrew Lloyd Webber’s best, and only two years later, that music has a new ingenious and most alive production, the immersive Masquerade, filling out all the floors, from rooftop to basement lair, of a creepy building just west of Carnegie Hall. Walking a tightrope between dramatic musical work and theme-park attraction, Masquerade is a mightily inventive twist on Webber’s classic stage musical.

“We are bored to death, there’s no denying it,” Vladimir reminds Estragon. “A diversion comes along and what do we do? We let it go to waste.” If there’s a deeper meaning bleeding out from Lloyd’s revival, perhaps it’s this production’s exploration of how desperately we try to grapple with the passing of time, toiling to turn each ephemeral moment into a scene worth playing.

Prince Faggot, from its title on down, seems designed to attract the same sort of Daily Mail headlines that plague its characters: “Softcore Off-Broadway Play Sexualizes Royal Minor” and so forth. The play’s provocations may attract audiences—the run is mostly sold-out, presumably on the basis of its title alone (marketing doesn’t disclose the subject matter)—and they’ll be rewarded by Tannahill’s subverted expectations when they attend.

Prince Faggot, from its title on down, seems designed to attract the same sort of Daily Mail headlines that plague its characters: “Softcore Off-Broadway Play Sexualizes Royal Minor” and so forth. The play’s provocations may attract audiences—the run is mostly sold-out, presumably on the basis of its title alone (marketing doesn’t disclose the subject matter)—and they’ll be rewarded by Tannahill’s subverted expectations when they attend.

We learn all this from Roger in a lightning-speed monologue, staged smoothly and playfully by Sam Gold and delivered by Krasinski with jovial, almost folksy charm. And Skinner breaks down Roger’s increasingly appalling ideas into small enough leaps of logic that we sometimes don’t realize how far from reality he’s traveled until he’s already too far gone

Viewers of the series know that Henry will eventually become the demonic Vecna, ruler of the Upside Down and the monsters within, and how this backstory plays out since The First Shadow is ultimately an evening-long adaptation of a flashback sequence from season four. Most of the plot twists will be retrodden territory for Netflix viewers, and as such, when it comes to the story, the play’s fan service lies mostly in the recreation of iconic images from the series and in the supporting cast laying Easter eggs.

Viewers of the series know that Henry will eventually become the demonic Vecna, ruler of the Upside Down and the monsters within, and how this backstory plays out since The First Shadow is ultimately an evening-long adaptation of a flashback sequence from season four. Most of the plot twists will be retrodden territory for Netflix viewers, and as such, when it comes to the story, the play’s fan service lies mostly in the recreation of iconic images from the series and in the supporting cast laying Easter eggs.

But even if Boop! delivers a low-key #DeepMessage, it’s mainly just a rollicking good time that earns the confetti cannon that goes off in the show’s final moments. Director-choreographer Jerry Mitchell’s exorbitantly exuberant production numbers fuse old-school tap excess with a bit of hip-hop fluidity. Finn Ross’s projections design playfully incorporate glimpses of the original Boop animation throughout David Rockwell’s set. And for its sense of childlike wonder and whimsy, Gregg Barnes’s show-stopping costume designs for the second-act opener, in which half-black-and-white, half-color outfits allow the ensemble to swap between ToonTown and the real world from beat to beat, ought to melt the hearts of even the steeliest theater critics.

But even if Boop! delivers a low-key #DeepMessage, it’s mainly just a rollicking good time that earns the confetti cannon that goes off in the show’s final moments. Director-choreographer Jerry Mitchell’s exorbitantly exuberant production numbers fuse old-school tap excess with a bit of hip-hop fluidity. Finn Ross’s projections design playfully incorporate glimpses of the original Boop animation throughout David Rockwell’s set. And for its sense of childlike wonder and whimsy, Gregg Barnes’s show-stopping costume designs for the second-act opener, in which half-black-and-white, half-color outfits allow the ensemble to swap between ToonTown and the real world from beat to beat, ought to melt the hearts of even the steeliest theater critics.

But even if Boop! delivers a low-key #DeepMessage, it’s mainly just a rollicking good time that earns the confetti cannon that goes off in the show’s final moments. Director-choreographer Jerry Mitchell’s exorbitantly exuberant production numbers fuse old-school tap excess with a bit of hip-hop fluidity. Finn Ross’s projections design playfully incorporate glimpses of the original Boop animation throughout David Rockwell’s set. And for its sense of childlike wonder and whimsy, Gregg Barnes’s show-stopping costume designs for the second-act opener, in which half-black-and-white, half-color outfits allow the ensemble to swap between ToonTown and the real world from beat to beat, ought to melt the hearts of even the steeliest theater critics.

And if there’s a good reason to revive Glengarry Glen Ross again, and Mamet’s cavernously amoral depiction of immorality inside it, Marber hasn’t made that apparent either. One self-serving prick is just like the next? We knew that much already.

Menzel has range, but Jesse doesn’t, and that’s Redwood’s chief failure. One moment she’s gregariously chatty and wisecracking, the next caustically defensive. Then she’s half-deliriously humming “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid. She’s also prone to PTSD-like flashbacks and quasi-hallucinations that sear across the stage with jolting sound and lighting effects. Menzel plays each of these individual moments convincingly, loosely tracing Jesse’s growing understanding that she can’t hide from her grief, but the music is too repetitive, the lyrics too broad, and the structure too airy for Jesse’s idiosyncrasies to ever cohere.

And because Gold lets the initial energy and urgency go limp, he sacrifices the chance to say something 2024-ish about youth culture or the inevitable violence of tribalism, the sort of low-hanging but potent fruit that he seems to be intent on plucking early on. But just as first love can blind the smitten to obvious flaws, maybe the imperfections of first Shakespeares can be similarly ignored. Let’s hope the Bard’s new bevy of devotees are won over and here to stay.

Our Town, though, is a play not about death but about how to live. And if the final scene, in which Wilder tears down the shutters to stare directly at the audience, asking whether our lives have been lived less than fully, pummels across the footlights with the blistering force that it does here, Our Town has done its job. When Emily, whom Deutch, in her Broadway debut, lends a healthy balance of melancholy and cheekiness, pleads, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?,” Leon lets Wilder take us by the shoulders and shake.