David Finkle

Democrats, be seated. Be seated with great anticipation. Playwright Mario Correa has a sizzling partisan entertainment for you, called succinctly N/A. And before any additional info is passed along, be aware that the N/A doesn’t stand for “Not Acceptable.” Certainly not unacceptable for Democrats, but then again maybe, just maybe, for Republicans. For Democrats N/A is so acceptable, it approaches cheers-level, if not reaches and surpasses it.

The canny Pre-Existing Condition result is that Ireland as much as anything else presents a clever satirical screed on how we communicate nowadays. She hears how often we’ve integrated psychological jargon into our discourse and just as often blithely — though, we think, seriously — pass it along as meaningful observation. She’s taken in how regularly we satisfy ourselves with what we have to say, assuming it has more value than it does. The outcome, she implies — maybe as regularly as not — is less broad satisfaction than self-satisfaction.

What impressed me about the hyperkinetic piece — written and directed by the Danish Tue Biering, co-directed and choreographed by Nhlanhla Mahlangu — is its recognizing the marked difference between the lessons learned by American youth of the DuMont days and the takeaways that the South Africans reaped at a later date. Put succinctly, stateside viewers were indulged in visions of what could be distilled to a Cowboys-and-Indians ethic. They (we?) were shown partial truths indelibly integrated, a template for games played in local schoolyards. In contrast, South Africans were exposed to an up-close-and-personal look at white dominance of a country where other immigrants — slaves and the Chinese imported as cheap labor to lay the cross-country railroad — were seen as second-class citizens, or worse. (Is there any need to note it’s a cock-eyed assessment too often enduring today?)

It’s no news that the best composers and lyricists are said to have style, which means that to some extent their work is recognizable for repeated hallmarks. Of lesser composers and lyricists, the assessment is that everything they come up with sounds alike. Maybe Dave Malloy fits his own intriguing category: Everything tends to sound alike and yet everything unmistakably has style.

Presented without an intermission – clearly, Kaufman wants no interruption of the mounting intensity – the documentary is an invaluable addition to Holocaust literature. It’s made even more so by the excellent ensemble, all conveying the Tectonic Theater Project’s gravity.

There’s no denying that Illinoise is effective, a large billboard on Adam Rigg’s industrial-slash-forest set announcing the title as well as other information. It may be that longtime Stevens fans need only hear the material they love now presented as dance to carry on about it. But providing the cherished songs with a connecting plot hasn’t necessarily resulted in an instantly graspable tale.

This musical take on The Great Gatsby presents Jay Gatsby and Daisy Fay Buchanan as a sympathetic couple caught in unfortunate Jazz Age circumstances. In other words, the transfiguration of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is, sorry to report, a travesty.

The unfortunate news is that while not outrightly deficient, this Uncle Vanya — presenting figures dealing with boredom in an at-sixes-and-sevens societal climate — is somehow flat more often, surely, than director Neugebauer intends.

Pulling all this together — with Jack Knowles’ dramatic lighting, Adam Cork’s sound and original music, and Ash J. Woodward’s striking video design — is Rupert Goold. Ever since he startled Manhattan audiences with his 2008 Macbeth, he has never lowered his standards. He has only raised them. Patriots is a new high.

So, give a round of applause to Jonathan A. Abrams, who (from a story by producer Tyler Mitchell and himself) dreamed up a plot in which to lodge the Huey Lewis and the News songs so’s a talented gaggle of singers and dancers can give Great White Way life to them. For added stage heat, choreographer Lorin Latarro grabs every opportunity for her multi-talented troupe to maximize the excitement with inexhaustible energy.

With all the show-stopping singing and dancing and voluptuous acting — from most prominently Lewis, Freeman, Richardson, and Wilson — it could be said that The Wiz gives the enthusiastic audience its money’s worth. True and not so true. What about giving the audience more than its money’s worth? What about giving the ticket buyers a better tale than this backwards glance is currently providing? Or is this version of The Wiz not so much a backward glance as a flash forward? As a matter of disappointing fact, what’s on view now is not entirely Williams’ book.

Attempting to lend Lempicka a canvas broader than Lempicka’s voluptuous canvases, Kreitzer and Gould arrange a stylized look at the Russian Revolution — and its eventually sending Tamara and Tadeusz, penniless and unprepared to work for a living, to Paris. They bookend that theatrical documentation with a fascist-foreboding routine, highlighted by symbolic figure Marinetti (the hyper-active George Abud) conjuring Hitler’s rise. (Choreographer Kelly, always at the ready, has his indefatigable contingent execute gestures subtly suggesting German citizens “Heil”-ing.)

Let’s just say for a moment that McAnuff and crew on-stage and backstage have morphed into pinball wizards themselves. As such, they’re hitting record-breaking numbers on the flashing and whistling revival machine they’re playing.

The sketches are good, clean — uh, mostly clean — fun, but it’s likely that audience members on exiting (a large percentage are fans, it’s to be presumed) will remember having spent the past hours with a man whose honesty about his achievements and shortcomings won’t soon be dismissed and may even serve as a model for living a life free of secrets and lies. Nice work if you can get it, and you can get it here.

The actors distinguish themselves under Sarah Benson’s direction and Raja Feather Kelly’s abundant choreography. Jacobs and Jackson provide a strong score, a bounce back for Michael “A Strange Loop” Jackson from his White Girl in Danger follow-up. Yes, the occasional lyric may elicit the wrong kind of chuckle. But even if patrons don’t exit Teeth clamoring for the score on an original cast album, many will appreciate it most of the time, as it hurtles along under Patrick Sulken’s conducting. The same can most likely be said for the avenging-women vs. rapacious-men enterprise.

Is there anything wrong with Corruption? Putting aside the title as one handy for numberless other dramas throughout the ages, there is the above-mentioned cast list. From time to time, many of them appear as one person and reappear shortly as someone else. Observers may find themselves spending a few distracted seconds recognizing the differences. There is another element with which Rogers has had to reckon. Seemingly concerned that American audiences might not be as familiar as English audiences with the Brooks scandal, he’s gone about weighting — and said so — his important work as relevant to today’s stateside political climate. He inserts references like “above the law” occasionally and actually ends with a cry for preserving democracy, a condition that does not quite jibe with Corruption’s probe. Never mind. Rogers and Sher can take responsibility and credit for one of the season’s few must-sees.

Perhaps it’s shamelessly obvious to end a review of this Doubt: A Parable by declaring it succeeds without a doubt, but, okay, a few doubts aside, that’s still exactly what it does.

Reviewer’s recollection: I’ve only seen two previous Pericles productions, the first out of curiosity, the second out of duty. Subsequently, I intended to forego future opportunities. I was definitely reluctant to attend this one, until I reminded myself that the Fiasco bunch were likely to offer something appealingly off-kilter. Now I’d like to think that if I ever see another Pericles, it’s a revival of this nifty Fiasco rigmarole.

Not able completely to keep all Seavey’s twists clear, Scott Elliott nonetheless directs with style. He’s greatly helped by lighting director Jeff Croiter, sound designers Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen, and perhaps most of all by projection designer Narun. Despite Seavey’s many distracting features, they all contribute to an unusually elegant production, maybe elegant in spite of itself.

During the lengthy first act and the short second act, Morton’s biography is sketchy in large part to keep the Morton-Birkenhead songs coming—Birkenhead’s clever, often effectively boisterous lyrics neatly enhancing Morton’s irresistible melodies. One title—“That’s How You Jazz”—stands for the triumph of the others. The jazzing that prevails is infectious, especially in the ensemble numbers, although Birkenhead’s words are often lost in the exhilarating shuffle.

Morisseau is one of those rare playwrights who never lets an audience down. She doesn’t mar her record here. Listening to Kenyatta’s free-association outpouring as it introduces a character in barely contained quiet desperation, I was hooked — and stayed that way, or even more so, for the rest of the 100 intermissionless Sunset Baby minutes.

A few final questions about a production trimmed but not extensively by Mark Izzard: Might Eddie Izzard’s impressive achievement now as well as Cumming’s nine years back trigger a trend? For over four centuries, actors (male and females) have sought to prove themselves by putting on some version of Hamlet’s doublet. Is it possible that in the future actors will decide that electrifying as Hamlet only isn’t sufficient? Will playing Hamlet and everyone else become the supreme acting test?

Did I and the others in that gleeful crowd receive the enormous treat? That won’t be blabbed here. It may be, however, that Escola has already primed themselves an Oh, Mary! sequel: 80 minutes of a giddy ooh-la-la Mary turn, complete with cabaret favorites. How about Mary on Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” and, maybe more pertinent, “Drinking Again”? I cannot wait.

One strength of the 90-minute intermissionless piece is its refusal to offer any easy explanation of addiction’s origins, on the assumption that explanations don’t carry much meaning when the alcoholic’s throes are what need to be immediately addressed. When Kirsten and Joe first spend time together at a waterfront, she tells him that she prefers to watch the water farther out. The water immediately below her, she insists, is too dirty. That’s all the rationale needed to set the parameters for this bold, unflinching musical gaze at drinking to cruel excess.

To little avail. The story still awkwardly jumps from sequence to sequence with spare logic, jokes landing with pea-sized humor. Plenty registers as forced, Queen Aggravain’s character probably the most forced. Tiresome time is given to Prince Harry and Lady Larken with the result that Winnifred disappears for long stretches. Myriad shenanigans serve as time fillers before Winnifred, nickname Fred, finally gets to bed down over the miniscule pea.