Daniel D'Addario — Theater Critic

“Giant” is not without flaws; I would note without spoiling that, after a barnburning next-to-last sequence, it did not entirely stick its landing. (We’re meant to think that the bill is coming due for Dahl and his reputation is about to be torched, but his antisemitism, while known to this day, has seemed not to stick much to his legacy, and a few years after the events of this play, he did get offered an OBE by the Queen — which he turned down.) Rosenblatt, too, nails the back-and-forth of dialogue but, in his first attempt, can land, for fleeting but unwelcome moments, in a schematic place. The audience, for instance, will realize that Dahl is, yes, a child in an adult’s body about an hour before Cash’s character announces it. But its working through a series of debates that many potential viewers likely will have grown weary of — “separating the art from the artist” being only the first — is by and large done elegantly. “Giant” was conceived of years before the events of Oct. 7, 2023, a recent salvo in an age-old conflict, and yet its approach to geopolitical conversations feels up to the minute.

The show is at its best when allowing Ethan and Sarah’s relationship to unfold without forcing the revelations. (Lead producer Scott Rudin, returning to the industry after a four-year hiatus following reports of an alleged pattern of bullying subordinates, can at least be said to have long had an eye for the truly literary, which this show at its best achieves; perhaps, too, a story about trying to make possible past misdeeds right had its appeals.)

This review isn’t meant to slight Cannavale and Harris: The former is characteristically able to conjure smartest-guy-in-the-room umbrage, as if irritated to even be forced to explain himself, while the latter is at his best when preening over his new investment. (Just under the surface, Harris lets us understand, is a fear that there’s a joke he’s not quite getting.) But it’s Corden, who wraps up his scene of rage pallid and gasping in a manner that somehow doesn’t feel showy and unearned, who’s the standout. When he reaches a point beyond reason, it’s a moment that transforms, first, our sense of what the performer can do and, then, the play itself. Up to Corden’s breakdown, the play’s been in a tradition of talky comedies of manners that stretches from “Seinfeld” back to Wilde and Molière; after it, we’re on more treacherous ground, and, suddenly, anything seems possible. The play itself becomes a blank white space waiting for the actors to color it with something unexpected.

Dialed to a slightly lower register, the delicacy and intricacy of the language here lands with a punch whose impact comes on the subway ride home. “Glengarry Glen Ross” is a part, now, of our shared canon; a production that sheds light by emitting slightly less noise allows its performers to probe all its contours, and to make it fresh for a new audience.

That Washingtonian authority demonstrates the production’s one big idea — to place two big stars at the center of the stage and trust that their talent and charisma will carry the day. And, for the most part, they do; no fan of Washington or of Gyllenhaal will leave disappointed in the actors. Leon lets his two stars cook, but hasn’t stocked the production with anything to give what they’re doing any flavor.

Written by Jonathan Spector — a playwright based in California’s East Bay area, where the show is set — and directed by Anna D. Shapiro, “Eureka Day” is a cleverly staged social satire, one that earns enough goodwill to buoy it even as certain of its flourishes don’t quite land.

The play then moves into a protracted endgame; at 100 minutes without an intermission, “Cult of Love” feels, for lack of a better word, long. Part of it, yes, is that, for a while, the escalating revelations about the family dynamics come to make us feel pleasurably trapped. But once the drama comes to a head, there is a long journey toward Christmas morning, one in which serial one-on-one conversations come to feel, eventually, like what had been a sure-footed piece of writing is suddenly dithering toward meaning in the midst of human messiness.

Lloyd flips those weaknesses into strengths: The songs that previously seemed like filler material are bulked out with angular, crisp dancing and now register as cris de coeur about the cruel vicissitudes of Hollywood. And the small circle of characters feels more dimensional than ever, with strong supporting turns by David Thaxton as Norma’s devoted, threatening butler and Grace Hodgett Young as the winsomely ambitious studio employee Betty Schaefer. It’s among the most remarkable aspects of Scherzinger’s performance that she creates space for Tom Francis, the appealing and gifted actor playing doomed writer Joe Gillis. (Like his three main castmates, Francis reprises the role after appearing in the West End production.) It’s through Joe’s eyes that we see Norma; he’s a broke and unemployed scribe who finds in Norma an easy mark. Together, they’re working on her comeback vehicle, one that Joe knows will go nowhere even as he gladly takes Norma’s money. As written, there’s a touch too much film-noir chill to the exchange: That Norma and Joe are mutually using one another is apparent, and somewhat thin gruel for an evening of theater.

The particulars, here, are fictionalized, but the sense we get of DHH’s failure to meet the expectations he’s set for himself in taking on a contentious issue is painful and real. Kim excels in performing DHH’s hubristic pride at his own accomplishments and then his scrambling, desperate desire to keep things aloft; Eggold, a discovery for this audience member, conjures actorly vanity and obliviousness to pitch-perfect effect. Braided throughout is a sense of just how much is at stake for DHH, as his father, who rose from modest beginnings as a Chinese immigrant to become a millionaire banker, insists upon his son manifesting his own destiny. (As played by Francis Jue, this character, named HYH after the late Henry Y. Hwang, is a comic jolt, all aphorisms about the greatness of America and his own unrelenting self-belief.)

In the main, “The Roommate” is a spirited entry on Broadway and a welcome showcase for LuPone and — in particular — Farrow. That actress’s last scenes in the play, giving nothing away, are utterly haunting, having moved beyond been-there-done-that comedy to something outright wrenching, an examination of a character whose whole point is that she’d gone through her whole life not examining herself. It wouldn’t be right to say that these scenes, at the play’s end, make you forget what came before, the jokes that didn’t land. Instead, they put them into context: She’d been playing at being a person, and now, so many hilarious scams later, she’s become one.

Instead, there’s a certain stubbornness to this show’s insistence on trying to get by on sheer nerve, its refusal to try anything beyond the realm of physical comedy (through which Foster will try everything). In its staging and production, it’s of the highest order — the costumes, by Andrea Hood, wowed me, for instance. (I was particularly partial to the gaudily looping sleeves on the garment worn by the Jester — an outfit with more indulgence and wit than anything in the script.) And the show finally cannot overcome the casting of Foster, a game and fantastic performer who simply can’t find her way into a character who’s all sloppy id. Like a legume under your mattress, this casting is a small thing that, as the evening wears on, comes to feel massive.

An “Enemy” in which Strong had the moral advantage but was, say, annoying about it, or brusque, or purposefully alienating, would be one that’s more intriguingly unsettled, and would leave you staring into the seats across the stage a bit more urgently. This production has much to recommend it, and Strong in particular should return to the stage as often as he can. But it’s hard not to feel as though this “Enemy of the People,” in which as rootable as possible a hero is ground down by the forces of evil, ended up presenting an opportunity for the audience to put themselves on trial, and then, with a sigh of relief, exonerate themselves.

That’s not to say that “Prayer for the French Republic” should have been about something other than the story it tells. But it doesn’t tell it in a compelling or nuanced manner — despite Harmon having set himself up to succeed with a flashback story that could, but does not, provide real context and present-day interlocutors who could, but do not, push the Benhamous beyond platitudes. The debates the Benhamous are having are ones that are happening in our own republic — at dinner tables and in group chats, on Instagram and at protests. And in that way the play is right on time. But for all the capaciousness of the show’s story, what it’s ultimately trying to do is narrow: To explain a choice a group of characters make by proving that those opposed to it just aren’t being serious. It’s a case, it turns out, that takes three hours to conclusively prove.

Mamet's eagerness to join in a vivified backlash against gay and trans people will likely come as a disappointment to those who see, in works like 'American Buffalo,' a rich and textured critique of how this country's way of life pits citizen against citizen. And it comes at a less-than-apt moment for this show, which already feels emptied of the vitality that characterizes the best of Mamet. Delayed for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and set in an indeterminate urban landscape of the semi-recent past, this 'American Buffalo' lacks the granularity and specificity to say much of anything, let alone make a case for its creator's continued relevance.

So thank goodness for Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick - the two contemporary stars perhaps most apt for an exercise in squareness. To call their work in the new Broadway revival of 'Plaza Suite' at the Hudson Theatre 'diligent' is to suggest a leaden night out. But the real-life married couple bring a serious commitment to the spirit of the work, allowing their own personas to throw some metatextual sparks without overtaking the spirit of Simon. As directed by John Benjamin Hickey, Parker and Broderick provoke, alienate and woo one another, and provide a strong argument for a playwright whose work seems next-to-impossible to subvert.