David Cote — Theater Critic

'Tonight, everyone's a critic,' says TV actor James Wicker (Lane), in town to celebrate the Broadway debut of his playwright friend Peter (Broderick)...Wicker's line is one of the few honest remarks in Terrence McNally's otherwise cliché-filled It's Only a Play. Mostly plotless and spun from the sketchiest of stereotypes and hoariest of showbiz prejudices, this insider trifle is too long, too shallow and not nearly funny enough...There are the customary paeans to the nobility of theater artists and their sacrifices for the wicked stage, but the evening's dominant mood is bitter, out-of-touch self-regard...If you're a show person of any sort...you may get a hearty laugh at the low-hanging fruit. If not, It's Only a Play may seem alien and awkward, a hybrid of 1980s sitcom schmaltz and 2014 Gawker trolling. Either way, it's a night of shameless, attenuated playwright navel-gazing.

That combination of intense emotionalism and visual dazzle is captured brilliantly in Marianne Elliott's production, awash in video projections and moving parts (the ingenious grid-lined set is by Bunny Christie). Simon Stephens's lean, fast-moving adaptation makes smart use of the ensemble to create a polyphony of voices for narrative heavy lifting, while his domestic scenes don't stint on grimness.

Masterful the blueprint may be, but a weak ensemble and tin-eared direction can screw it up. But this revival (the first in more than 30 years) is stuffed with the city's finest comic talents. Besides the aforementioned pros, marvelous Reg Rogers lopes around the periphery as a raffish Russian dance teacher, while Julie Halston stops the show as a dipsomaniacal stage hack Penny brings home. Scott Ellis conducts the escalating craziness with style and grace on David Rockwell's perfectly cluttered, eclectic living-room set. The Sycamores will welcome literally anyone into the family: It's hard to resist running away to join their circus.

Director Gregory Mosher keeps it sweet and simple: Mia Farrow and Brian Dennehy sit at a comfy wooden desk, water glasses within reach, reciting from scripts. Both seasoned actors slide easily into their carefully shaded roles: She affects a pixieish impudence as free-thinking rich girl Melissa Gardner; he maintains a stiff sense of propriety as rules-bound Andrew Makepeace Ladd III...As usual with Gurney, the language is wry, witty and balanced by reflexive sadness, a mixed admiration and horror for Eastern WASP repression and snobbery. Although the piece may not push the envelope, it does leave a stamp.

...Cera has managed to appear both fetally unguarded and crushed by the weight of the world (a millennial Charlie Brown). That broken-naïf vibe makes him perfect for Warren Straub in Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth, in which Cera plays a jumpy and immature 19-year-old who already seems soured by the seedy banalities of 1982 New York....Anna D. Shapiro's clear-eyed and tight staging brings out earnest, honest performances from the young trio. Cera's facial deadpan and vocal drone have the curious effect of deepening, not lessening, our sympathy for Warren. Culkin gets to shine in the flashier role, and Gevinson toggles amusingly between prim ingenue and panicked urbanite. They're nice kids; I think they've got a bright future ahead of them.

While there have been rap-rich musicals (In the Heights), the fusion of hip-hop and razzle-dazzle has been tricky at best, tacky at worst. The latest attempt is Holler if Ya Hear Me, a ghetto-not-so-fabulous repurposing of songs by Tupac Shakur (1971-96) for a ramshackle morality tale about revenge and second chances. Although songwriting purists will shrink and wince at Shakur's freewheeling meter and propensity to rhyme slant, the real crime against craft is Todd Kreidler's weak book...Director Kenny Leon has a surer hand with straight plays (such as his solid revival of A Raisin in the Sun), and the enterprise deserves respect for bringing Shakur's verbal pyrotechnics and political rage before a new audience. But Holler is a shapeless mix of melodrama, music video and half-grasped musical clichés.

Transitioning from child star to adult gay icon, sitcom prince and social-media wizard, Neil Patrick Harris always seemed to be a cultural rock star. But in his latest reinvention, it turns out that the actor is, y'know, an actual rock star. As the imperious, spurned, fright-bewigged, sweaty glitterbomb at the heart of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Harris makes Broadway rock harder than it ever has before...Mitchell juices his 1998 script with topical jabs: dating sites, TMZ and Mark Rylance, while Harris winks at some of the ephemera that remain embedded in the lyrics. Director Michael Mayer expertly balances the needs of a messy, punk protest with jaw-dropping visuals (Julian Crouch's mock-Broadway set design decays brilliantly).

Clothes unmake the men in Casa Valentina, Harvey Fierstein's mostly effective period drama about cross-dressers in 1962. Set at a Catskills resort that caters to straight married fellows who secretly dress and act like women, the play delicately traverses a midcentury American subculture at the time represented only in dirty jokes and horror movies. But if you want to know what impels these men to externalize their feminine sides, the play has difficulty peeling away more than a layer or two-it's more about gussying up than stripping bare.

Ironically, the dominant sensation produced by Eric Coble's anemic two-hander is also that of growing old. The minutes slip by, you lose feeling in parts of your body and find yourself 90 minutes closer to the grave, with nothing to show for it but a crumpled Playbill. If producers were set on bringing a regional-theater sitcom to Broadway, at least they hired pros: Parsons does her crazy-bird shtick, holed up in a brownstone with Molotov cocktails that she'll ignite if her children force her into a nursing home. Spinella is sweetly hangdog as an estranged gay son who tries to talk her off the ledge.

Of course, people aren't flocking to the Cort Theatre to see the play-they want to ogle Daniel Radcliffe. They've also probably never heard of The Playboy of the Western World, so all those bog-stupid villagers might seem novel and amusing. One old maid converses with stones; another gorges on her store's candy inventory; a town lass throws eggs at anyone she doesn't like; her idiot brother talks incessantly of telescopes. Then there's Billy (Radcliffe), whom everyone calls Cripple Billy on account of his twisted arm and rigid leg. McDonagh's heavy-handed irony is that kind, thoughtful Billy is the most recognizably human of these grotesques...In fact, six years ago, I actually liked the play. But supersizing it for Broadway (even with Christopher Oram's handsome sets and costumes), Grandage does the brittle comedy no favors. McDonagh just doesn't have much to say, only romantic conventions to cynically flip over.

In its trajectory and most memorable scenes and players, Lapine's stage adaptation of Hart's sprawling tale -- part rags-to-riches fable, part showbiz fantasy, part professional handbook -- is quite faithful and wrought with abundant skill and empathy...Less smoothly transferred from page to stage is Hart's narrative tone...But Lapine's Act One is a play, not an audiobook or TV miniseries. If this adaptation included considerably more narration, it would invite complaints of too much telling, not enough showing. So credit is due to Lapine for efffectively distilling a fast-moving memory play...Lapine has a superb cast at his disposal -- the thoroughly charming Fontana, the drolly tetchy and bilious Shalhoub, and, in a few crucial, nurturing mother-figure roles, the grace-filled Andrea Martin.

Truth is, the men need each other -- just as Franco needs O'Dowd to help him achieve full stageworthiness in John Steinbeck's 1937 theatrical adaptation of his novel Of Mice and Men. Franco gives an easy, well-shaded performance, but it's O'Dowd who stuns with a harrowingly real Lennie. The role of a mentally disabled character can be either technically overdone or a wallow in bathos, but O'Dowd is superb -- watch his delicate hand fluttering and how he steals looks at the boss's flirty daughter-in-law (Leighton Meester). As Lennie grows too excited, causing death when he only wants to pet (animals and people), the hulking O'Dowd combines incredible physical menace with terrorized vacancy.

The actors are excellent, playing the minimalist music of the lines without losing warmth or individuality; if it's possible to make us care deeply about characters intentionally fashioned as gnomic ciphers, these fine performers come closest. Whether or not you share Eno's severe, brittle and frankly despairing view of existence, there's much to savor: the dry but meaningful banter, the joy of humans sharing time and space, battling the darkness with a joke or silence. Life in Enoland isn't what you'd call realistic-it's more real than that.

If you're getting Sondheim hot flashes-Merrily We Roll Along for its retrospective rue and Company for insights into urban singledom-you know where If/Then lives. It's a smart, contemporary piece for adults. It doesn't condescend-to its sympathetic and fallible same-sex couples, or to an Army reservist (James Snyder) for whom Liz falls...Menzel imbues her character with maximum pluck and vulnerabilty. But for all the charisma of the lead and ensemble, Kitt's score blurs into similar-sounding midtempo pop ballads. Menzel carries the show but can't force us to care about Liz/Beth's average life choices. People are just too darn nice in If/Then's world. We need more bitchery and satire, more injustice for our hero to fight against, to inspire an anthem as thrilling (if as slick) as 'Let It Go.' Otherwise, we get a Choose Your Own Adventure that's not really venturesome.

Every few years, a piece of stagecraft drops so many jaws and pops so many eyes, it becomes a Broadway insta-icon: The Phantom of the Opera's glorious falling chandelier; the awe-inspiring march of animals inThe Lion King's 'Circle of Life.' In recent years, the nonpareil has been green-skinned Elphaba levitating while hitting the high F in Wicked's 'Defying Gravity.' Add to that list the spectacular final bout in Rocky. The 20-minute closing coup (spoilers ahead) brings a section of the audience onto the stage, drops in jumbo screens, extends a boxing ring over the orchestra and puts on one hell of a fight before the bloodied guy gets the girl-bellowing her name, of course. Director Alex Timbers throws every ingredient into the pot-immersive staging, live video, slo-mo choreography, gruesomely realistic makeup-to send us staggering into the night punch-drunk, love-struck and begging for more.

Bryan Cranston recently ended five seasons playing a good man surrounded by depraved criminals, drowning by inches in a cesspool of guilt, paranoia and homicidal rage. In other words, he was training to be President of the United States. As Lyndon B. Johnson, borne into the Oval Office on a wave of blood and hemmed in by enemies within and without his party, Cranston rules the boards with a vengeance, a latter-day Abe Lincoln who drops f-bombs and talks plenty about balls. The TV star's galvanic turn and the layered, polyphonic production around him take the dried facts of history and make them walk, talk and kick ass to victory...Director Bill Rauch keeps the action flowing through Schenkkan's lively use of direct address, split scenes, soliloquy and fourth-wall-breaking exhortation. This being a political potboiler, there's plenty of rousing rhetoric, and Cranston imbues his inspiring speeches and profane rants with a larger-than-life intensity that leaps off the page. Even if the script sometimes lapses into History Channel expositional mode, its humor and passion never lag-and neither does Cranston.

If penning sports plays were a competition, Eric Simonson would be MVP. He's found drama in football coaching (Lombardi), basketball rivalry (Magic/Bird) and now, with Bronx Bombers, the national pastime. None of these qualify as great works, but for some theatergoers, they offer tantalizing glimpses into exotic subcultures...Bronx Bombers touches on high points of 20th-century Yankee history, although it hasn't been so much plotted as researched and pitched to guys who get a lump in the throat from seeing Lou Gehrig shake hands with Derek Jeter...Simonson, who directs his own script too laxly, touches on predictable tensions between individual excellence versus team spirit, but in terms of ideas or visual flair, there are no curves here.

Mullingar is Shanley's best play since Doubt, and like that hit from a decade ago, it's lean, dialectical and packed with wise saws and aphoristic gems. The Irish setting also gives him license to wax lyrical-pastoral-a pleasure if you've no allergy to rants and blarney. 'You might as well try to stop the calendar from naming the days,' Rosemary loftily informs stubborn Tony. 'I've been older than all of you since I was born, and sure I ache for my own youth.' If such stuff doesn't cause a wild rose to bloom in your heart, it's turned barren as stone.

The Roundabout has been on a good streak, with daring and punchy revivals of Picnic, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Big Knife, Man and Boy andLook Back in Anger (not to mention several good new plays). Machinaltakes the biggest risks, and has the greatest payoff. If you care about American theater-particularly its experimental heritage-go now. I seriously hope that the Roundabout's audiences are thrilled by what they see. But if Todd Haimes gets complaints from people who were rattled or disturbed, that only means the machine is working smoothly.

I won't flatter Billy Crystal by saying he hasn't aged a bit: He's a little older and slower than when he debuted this theatrical memoir on Broadway nine years ago. True, the 65-year-old looks amazingly young (how he avoids aging is one area not mined for humor). But what really stands the test of time is 700 Sundays itself, an unabashedly sentimental but laugh-filled portrait of the artist as family clown, nerd and Jewish everykid. While most comedians revel in tortured childhoods or horrid parents, Crystal proudly lets his normal flag fly.

The performances are all pitched perfectly between light comedy and pensive melancholy, which is precisely where Twelfth Night lives. Rylance tempers his typical eccentricities for Olivia, who is vain and impetuous, but adorable and demure. Paul Chahidi’s scheming servant, Maria, maintains a kind of quiet dignity, gliding along the stage as if on a skateboard. And there’s something touchingly plaintive in Peter Hamilton Dyer’s deadpan clown, Feste, who speaks truth to power, but seems just as bemused by more common foibles and frailties of those around him. This fool knows he’s one wrong joke away from prison. All in all, it’s a marvelous cast, and no one tries to “act” Elizabethan; they just serve the words and the words serve them.

There are many insults hurled at the hunched back of Richard of Gloucester (later to game his way to the throne as Richard III): Most of the taunts are animal-based (toad, boar, dog). No one, however, calls him a dummy. In Mark Rylance’s innovative, sickly comic turn, Richard simpers like a royal family’s idiot son. Dull-eyed and slack-jawed, the wretch’s withered left arm is pinned to his side, the paralyzed hand the size of a toddler’s (the actor wears a repulsive prosthetic). Of course, the I, Claudius act is just a front for bloody ambition. Richard is always good for a few nasty chuckles, but Rylance clowns it up shamelessly. His apish glee upon seducing the mourning Lady Anne (Joseph Timms) is almost infectious. And his shrimpy skittering is contrasted nicely by Angus Wright’s strapping, manly Buckingham, the lord who helps Richard murder and slander his way to the crown.

Daniel Craig shucks off his 007 persona to become Robert, a successful book publisher whose wife, Emma (Rachel Weisz) conducts a seven-year affair with Robert's friend Jerry (Rafe Spall), a literary agent. The compact, rugged Craig hasn't shrunken from years behind the camera: he projects himself fully and muscularly to the back stalls. Craig even enlivened vastly inferior material when last he was on the Great White Way, in the 2009 police melodrama A Steady Rain. And he's not emoting in a vacuum: Weisz and Spall have charisma to spare, not to mention keen sexual chemistry for their Kilburn flat trysts. So the design is lovely, the cast is appealing and the play itself, while of its time, is not essentially dated. It's simply that nobody gets the tone...I can't recommend this event to anyone who loves Pinter or Betrayal. If you don't care and you've got a few hundred burning a hole in your pocket, then have at it. But for goodness' sake, don't watch the 1983 movie starring Patricia Hodge, Jeremy Irons and Sir Ben Kingsley too soon after. It is an ideal transfer of play to film, and impeccably acted. If you were to screen it after seeing this glossy, empty revival, you'd feel cheated.

Arcelus exudes decency without losing charm, but more notable is Thompson as the unrepentant vigilante. Hailey could have been indigestibly dignified and tragic, but thanks to Thompson's gruff yet light touch, he's richly human: neither fully innocent nor guilty.

The 1944 drama was a call for lyricism and emotional rawness on the American stage. This fresh and keenly urgent production feels like a triumphant homecoming.