David Cote — Theater Critic

The fact that Genao is a poor actor with a grating, nasal voice, and negative comic timing makes Cinderella less appealing than the gyrating cartoons around her. Pairing Fennell’s quippy and shallow book with lyricist David Zippel’s strenuously slangy lyrics and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s lugubrious, syrupy music might have screamed cross-generational synergy on paper, but it’s a woeful marriage: TikTok meets grandfather clock.

Instead, it’s just, you know, Chastain standing up. The static performance vocabulary, while it focuses attention, errs on the side of neatness and consistency—constipation, to be blunt. Even so, the lively cast infuses a fair amount of humor and warmth into the chilly, restrained minimalism. The world-weary but irreverent Dr. Rank (Michael Patrick Thornton, a sly, dry delight) punctuates a tense moment between Nora and Torvald with the unexpected, “Just do what she’s saying, man.” Nora drops the one and only f-bomb with a yearning to say, “Fuck it all.” Apart from these two cheeky flourishes, Herzog delivers a script in formal but flowing English. The always charming Moayed luxuriates in Torvald’s fussy, oblivious dickishness. Chastain, unfairly piled on for The Heiress a decade ago, is perhaps more safely cast here, using her unique blend of iciness and vulnerability to strong effect.

Despite its distinctive visual source, the optics generally disappoint. Scenic designer Michael Yeargan’s suburban living-room set and Jennifer Tipton’s lights clutter and flood the broad stage of Studio 54, when they ought to be boxing, isolating, and rotating domestic areas for detailed inspection. Everything looks a bit loud and obvious, as if the elder generation’s kitschy, bright-hued aesthetic were allowed to call the shots. Sultan’s photographs are projected to fill the rear wall, a digital blow-up that does the art a disservice and only underscores the compositional blandness around it. No matter how many millions producers poured into the affair, Broadway stars and a team of designers can’t manifest what Larry Sultan did with his camera: the mystery and grace of people we thought we knew our whole lives.

Nearly decade on, Friedman’s elegant, emotionally searching revival is Off Broadway and it’s remarkably satisfying—and sold-out, thanks to ex-Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe (a talented comic crooner) as angsty Charley. One also must factor in cult adoration among musical-theater fans (of all ages), in addition to the inspired casting of super-charismatic Jonathan Groff as Franklin and iron-lunged Lindsay Mendez as Mary. Operating at their prime, these ace performers anchor the show and sing the daylights out of the scrumptious score. Don’t be surprised if a Broadway transfer is announced before the January 21 closing. So: Did Friedman fix the flop, widely believed to yoke one of the master’s catchiest, most touching scores to one of the sketchiest books? Pardon my Sondheimian ambivalence: yes and no.

It all comes down to storytelling: the story Neil tells himself; the one A Beautiful Noise re-tells us. Musicals (most of them) need a resonant, gluey book the way an oak needs root structure; successful books are rhizomatic—invisible and everywhere. It’s a more urgent criterion for the love-it-or-hate-it jukebox subgenre, which decays into meta-silliness so easily. Sure, audiences flock to a beloved icon’s catalog, but if fame were enough, past flops cobbled around The Beach Boys, Elvis, and Johnny Cash would still be running, not near-forgotten (Good Vibrations, All Shook Up, and Ring of Fire for those who don’t hoard Playbills). Beautiful—The Carole King Musical and Jersey Boys caught that pop lightning in the bottle through a combination of humor and ruthless fictive devices. “Rockstar in analysis” is an idea with potential; the couch is a charged locus for rage, tears, and revelation. Or a nice nap.

Adapting novels for the stage is a noble endeavor; a healthy culture should be eager to translate its new (or classic) narratives into other media. I've seen revelatory theatrical versions of Dostoyevsky's Demons (twice), Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (verbatim in the marathon masterpiece by Elevator Repair Service) and others-many at New YorkTheatre Workshop. While popular fiction generally gravitates to movies or streaming series, there is an argument to be made for transforming novels into live performance. The Kite Runner, long on talking and short on showing, does not make that argument very strongly.

Judging by the waves of screaming and applause that greeted every character entrance, and which followed every number, people who encountered Into the Woods as young adults are already flocking to the St. James Theatre to unite their inner child with their outer show queen. I'm right there with them. A Sondheim revival with vocally superior, perfectly cast performers, intelligent direction and design, and a sizable orchestra? Sometimes wishes do come true.

Judging by the waves of screaming and applause that greeted every character entrance, and which followed every number, people who encountered Into the Woods as young adults are already flocking to the St. James Theatre to unite their inner child with their outer show queen. I'm right there with them. A Sondheim revival with vocally superior, perfectly cast performers, intelligent direction and design, and a sizable orchestra? Sometimes wishes do come true.

Personally I have no desire for Macbeth set during the Civil War, or in space, or the Trump Administration. I won't say I felt completely satisfied (for that, give me a truly kickass Macbeth-Macduff fight). But I was entertained, and heard some great language spoken by legends of my time. And evil, in the end, was defeated. I think. What was the soup? Whatever you want it to be.

A Strange Loop is profanely funny and courageously raw, but on a second viewing (I reviewed its world premiere Off Broadway in 2019), it's also claustrophobically fixated on the wounds of youth, a howl of rage at gay lookism, white gatekeepers, and toxic Christianity. All those targets deserve to be howled down to hell. But Jackson is 41 years old; his avatar is identified as 26. That's a telling gap, one that permits a rebel's outrage rather than a middle-aged artist's mellower view. The lack of self-awareness combined with merciless self-examination comes to a bathetic head when Thought #1 says, '[it's not about] Tyler or your parents or anybody else. And as scary as this world might seem, all of this ugliness ... this pain and anger...is about you. So how about you focus on yourself?' Which is rich after 90 minutes of Usher running screaming around his hall of mirrors.

Looking at the big picture, this gorgeous monster of a production brings together two urgent trends in theatrical discourse today: casting reparations by creating Black space in the white canon and also, embracing a sprawling meta-drama that feeds a hunger for stories that are not merely sociological but cosmological. We know that patriarchy, greed, and white supremacy have spawned misery across ages; without pretending they have the solution, theater artists can find deep bass strings of commonality to pluck. For me, The Skin of Our Teeth is a boisterous hymn to humanity, the most moving and inspiring work of the season. Even so, Skin won't be to everyone's taste. There are tonal fumbles in the second act-the French accent laid on a bit thick, Priscilla Lopez's Fortune Teller too wispy, the chaos before the flood overly manic-but I think a certain degree of failure has always been baked into this idiosyncratic classic. Yes, It's long and taxing on the brain, but the exhaustion you feel while leaving has the afterglow of exhilaration. We survived this speeding glacier, this world-drowning deluge of a play; we're spent and dazed; but isn't life a miracle, and aren't you glad for tomorrow?

It's such a bonanza of great tunes and comic bits, what Broadway dreamer could resist? I wish the gamble had paid off. Feldstein comes across as too sensible, too sane, too body positive to incarnate the cauldron of self-mocking, self-aggrandizing, and self-doubt that drives Fanny to success in the Ziegfeld Follies and then into the arms of handsome Nicky Arnstein (Ramin Karimloo, suavely solid). The latter, a debonair professional gambler, was supposed to be the love of her life, but he becomes an emotional and financial weight around her neck. In the end, Fanny has but one paramour: the spotlight.

What keeps you focused on Hangmen is the retro mood and the superb ensemble, not innovative storytelling or genuine insight into character. His plays are tightly constructed, with dialogue that uses repetition and profanity to musical effect, but they are woefully mechanical. Once you realize that McDonagh's M.O. is crudely to undermine expectations, you expect the undermining, and boredom sets in. After nearly 30 years, his view of humanity has barely evolved: men are brutal bastards, women aren't much better, law and justice are a farce, and I'm rather handsome.

Director Mark Brokaw returns to the production 25 years later with a big heart and clear eyes on a neutral set of cool blue walls and linoleum floor by Rachel Hauck, warmly lit by Mark McCullough. In the choric roles, Day, Gold and Myers expertly generate the comic froth at the edges of the drama, keeping it from foundering in lurid scenes of exploitation. Much as the play makes a contemporary audience cringe, it is full of deliberate laughs and notes of sympathy for the doomed Peck that deliberately fuzz our moral sensors.

The current revival at the Hayes, produced by Second Stage Theatre and ably directed by Scott Ellis, is quite good - well-acted, smart in tone and pace, handsomely designed, with some reservations. (The Hayes is tad too small for a show of this amplitude, and David Rockwell's set feels pinched and flat. The shower scenes, for example, seem squashed downstage in a monotonous row.)

For both actors, Plaza Suite ought to be a wonderful workout, a chance to show off versatility while nailing Simon's well-crafted yuks. Instead, it feels like community theater for rich people, amateurish despite the deluxe sets and costumes (by John Lee Beatty and Jane Greenwood, respectively). When you leave Neil Simon feeling protective of his literary reputation, you know something's gone terribly wrong.

Should directors flip gender on other Sondheim classics? I don't know how much we'd gain from a Ms. Sweeney Todd or a male-model Dot. In Company, human properties of trust, love, and loneliness are transitive across male, female, straight, and gay lines. One thing I am certain of: Company is the most sophisticated fun I've had in a theater in ages. It's sexy, hilarious, and hits home in a way that's honest and shockingly resonant. Sondheim fanatics already know what a genius score it is, an explosion of wit and insight and addictive melodies. I can't wait to go again and tear up as Lenk bares her soul in 'Being Alive' or the phenomenal ensemble slays the house in the maniacal razzle-dazzle of 'Side By Side by Side.' The great man passed away two weeks ago; there is no more fitting tribute than a breakthrough work given a whole new life.

Childress's witty, insightful play-in which an interracial group of theater makers chafes against stereotypes in their anti-lynching melodrama-makes that awakening painful and real. I wonder if the discussions in the past two years have been as sharp and complex as those in this backstage satire.

I'm ignorant as to whether or not Jeanna de Waal intends to live in the States, the German-born yet English-raised actress who stars in Diana: The Musical, but she may want to weigh options. If any of her countrymen catch her in this tedious tuner about the trials of Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales, she could be denied reentry. Actually, too late! Last year during lockdown, this Platonic ideal of a Broadway faceplant did an onstage video capture for Netflix. The tacky, bewildering result is there for all to stream, very useful for reviewers who suffered dissociative amnesia during the live event.

When Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori's Caroline, or Change opened at the Public Theater in December 2003, later moving to Broadway for a paltry four-month run, we weren't worthy of it. In 1963 Louisiana, an embittered Black maid's ambivalent relationship with her employer's child is poisoned by money. Reviews were mixed, audiences thin. Ticket buyers shied from a multilayered morality tale about broken, grieving people divided by race and class, triggered by charity, who prized resentment over empathy. Today, thanks to an outstanding revival starring the majestic Sharon D. Clarke, we're not just worthy of Caroline, or Change; we are it.

Such basic storytelling, a collection of vignettes peppered with musical passages, could have been presented quite minimally, but MTC wraps Santiago-Hudson's colorful yarns in a handsome package. Michael Carnahan's grandly dilapidated proscenium arcs over the stage; Jen Schriever's lights evoke the ghosts and shadows of yesteryear; Darron L. West's sound design balances speech and music - of which there's an abundance. Santiago-Hudson isn't alone on stage: He's backed by accomplished guitarist Junior Mack, who strums and frets the original blues score by Bill Simms, Jr. Santiago-Hudson jams along on harmonica, wailing and keening into the air when words just aren't enough.

Such basic storytelling, a collection of vignettes peppered with musical passages, could have been presented quite minimally, but MTC wraps Santiago-Hudson's colorful yarns in a handsome package. Michael Carnahan's grandly dilapidated proscenium arcs over the stage; Jen Schriever's lights evoke the ghosts and shadows of yesteryear; Darron L. West's sound design balances speech and music - of which there's an abundance. Santiago-Hudson isn't alone on stage: He's backed by accomplished guitarist Junior Mack, who strums and frets the original blues score by Bill Simms, Jr. Santiago-Hudson jams along on harmonica, wailing and keening into the air when words just aren't enough.

The six actresses are tremendous talents, equally skilled at scaling the high notes (solo numbers and beaucoup backup) and executing Carrie-Anne Ingrouille's slinky dance moves. Gabriella Slade's glam outfits are sparkling, jewel-encrusted multi-signifiers: both midriff-baring sexy, but also sharp and stiff like armor; these doomed damsels are going to war. Tim Deiling's stadium-raking lights set the perfect rock concert vibe, and Paul Gatehouse's ace sound design makes sure we get every funky bass lick, as well as each goofy pun. Co-directed by Moss and Jamie Armitage, Six is a glossy, well-engineered Fringe stunt made good.

The six actresses are tremendous talents, equally skilled at scaling the high notes (solo numbers and beaucoup backup) and executing Carrie-Anne Ingrouille's slinky dance moves. Gabriella Slade's glam outfits are sparkling, jewel-encrusted multi-signifiers: both midriff-baring sexy, but also sharp and stiff like armor; these doomed damsels are going to war. Tim Deiling's stadium-raking lights set the perfect rock concert vibe, and Paul Gatehouse's ace sound design makes sure we get every funky bass lick, as well as each goofy pun. Co-directed by Moss and Jamie Armitage, Six is a glossy, well-engineered Fringe stunt made good.

My takeaway when Girl From the North Country opened at the Public Theater last fall: 'An American musical by people who hate musicals and don't know America.' Sounds harsh, but I stand by it. Although I've adored Irish writer-director Conor McPherson's work for years, I found his book for this Bob Dylan jukebox musical to be a pile of Depression-era clichés one might amass from a week of binging TCM or skimming Steinbeck. As for the integration of Dylan songs, the tracks don't illuminate character or plot so much as pause the narrative so everyone can enjoy a folksy singalong (cast members even climb into the drum kit). The result - which began as a hit on London's West End with a non-American cast - seemed to me a creaky period play wrapped around a tribute concert, all imbued with a gothic, melancholic vibe because everyone onstage is broke, unloved, addicted, mad or running from the past.