David Finkle — Theater Critic

Leon's demands of the cast are met in full. It's as if every member is a stick of just-lighted dynamite. Grier and Underwood detonate the brightest and account for the most emotional damage inflicted, but everyone is outstanding. The same goes for Derek McLane's set, Dede Ayite's costumes, the Allen Lee Hughes lighting and the Dan Moses Schreier sound.

Saying that Adam Rapp's The Sound Inside has an unusual meta-literary quality may seem off-putting, but it's meant to be a compliment, a heartfelt encouragement aimed at anyone eager to attend a play with subtly deep rewards.

But with Tomei, the Williams heartbreak is elusive. She looks the neighborhood scourge in costume designer Clint Ramos's slips and robes and Tom Watson's wigs, but the debilitating weight of her loss and the fear that it won't be regained is not in her eyes or in the effortful way she carries herself. Tomei is effective as far as she goes, and it's likely she has it in her to go much farther. But she hasn't been guided that way.

Luke Halls provides a late projection subtly implying that Alex and Abe are stand-ins for any number of men everywhere trying to make sense of life as we live it and only having the flimsiest success in their daily groping. That finale lifts a already exceptional production to an even higher plane.

So with the adjusted book, audiences are now treated to this watered down, gussied up Beetlejuice. The production seesaws somewhat precariously between the dead Adam and Barbara, and the spots-the-dead Lydia. Adam and Barbara, sometimes throwing sheets over themselves to appear as traditional ghosts, seem to be fighting for attention with Lydia's wanting to resurrect her mother. All the while, the comically desperate Beetlejuice contrives to do his handwringing worst.

In a season where straight plays-often relegated to second-class Broadway status-have been in unusual number, this All My Sons goes a far way, or further, to reminding audiences what perceptive, inspired, engaged playwriting is. If anyone is leaving the Roundabout's American Airlines with a blithe ho-hum, I'll turn in my critic's spurs. If anyone is exiting the auditorium having seen the drama for the first time and wondering what all the fuss over Miller is about, I'm here to recommend a psychotherapist expert in healing emotional blockage.

Daunno, who plays his guitar a good bit, and Jones sing out with gusto and swap insults not far from the level of Benedick and Beatrice in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Testa has fun with Aunt Eller's orneriness and adds to the evening's singing (in a traditionally non-singing role). Special praise has to be aimed the way of Ali Stroker, who's taken on the prairie-promiscuous Ado Annie. She bounds about with fervor in a wheel chair. It may be that her countrified version of 'I Cain't Say No' is the highest of the highlights on display. James Davis comes purty close with his sung and danced 'Everything's Up to Date in Kansas City.' Will Brill doesn't lift his voice in song much, but he nails down the meddling peddler well enough, particularly on his 'mind your own business' line.

It's no news that Metcalf is a superlative actress. Looking elegant and completely self-possessed, she presents a Nora who has changed greatly from the 'little bird' she was to Torvald. Metcalf's Nora is very much a modern woman-an obviously calculated manifestation of how Ibsen's implied message about future equality of the sexes has materialized.

Bandstand is being promoted as 'a swing musical,' and that's what it joyfully is, as director-choreographer Andy (Hamilton) Blankenbuehler deploys a cast headed by the sparkling and tough Laura Osnes and Corey Cott and boasting some of the most spectacular dancers on Broadway this minute. The brilliant Blankenbuehler keeps his stageful of remarkable performers moving just about constantly in ways that make spectators watch what each of them is doing individually and what all of them are doing as a lithe, athletic team. For that, abundant bravos.

There's enough on-stage pizzazz to keep the pre-teens charged and cheering at the story of chocolate-loving Charlie hoping to tour Willy Wonka's mysterious factory on a hard-to-come-by golden ticket. This recommendation is in large part due to Dahl's understanding that the under-12 contingent gets a big kick out of seeing their fictional peers behaving badly. It's also in large part due to Mark Thompson's imaginative sets that include all sorts of comically menacing apparatus and comically menacing out-sized animals.

The Frankel-Korie score has its pluses and minuses. Korie's words cleverly reveal the convictions as well as the doubts Rubinstein and Arden have about themselves, often simultaneously-the point being made that though the two industry monarchs disliked each other with fervor, they both regularly encountered the same obstacles.

How does Falsettos look nearly 25 years on? Just great--with only the merest reservations that certainly don't have anything to do with the several brilliant Finn songs. They begin with the outrageous (particularly in Jennifer Caprio's Biblical costumes) opening number, 'Four Jews in a Room Bitching' and include Trina's 'I'm Breaking Down,' Marvin's 'What More Can I Say?' and Whizzer's 'The Games I Play.'

It's undoubtedly coincidence that Cats arrives on cats' feet just after the national political conventions have concluded. Patrons seeing it this week and in the weeks to come may find themselves reminded of those congregations. Truth to tell, they're more likely to see the Democrat Convention echoed rather than the Republican Convention. The diversity of the former outshines the divisiveness of the latter-the many unison dance routines being a visual metaphor for cohesion and promise. And it may be that when Grizabella, a woman, is selected to rise to new heights, more than a few spectators will flash on the Democrat's 2016 nominee ascending to her next vaunted level.

That depends on what you're in the mood for. If topping your list of requirements is a stunning enterprise, you're advised to speed yourself-not necessarily on speed-to the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, where Es Devlin has constructed a sleek white-and-grey set that instantly announces the film-noirish treatment director Rupert Goold has committed to make of Bret Easton Ellis's 1991 American Psychonovel.

They're in modern dress for all but the final scenes when John Proctor (Ben Whishaw) and wife Elizabeth (Sophie Okonedo) are brought from the jail where they've been mistreated and he's been tortured. They're in rags to confront each other before possibly going to the gallows for denying they've dealt in witchcraft. Moreover, most of the women in the troupe appear in long, straight and usually blond hair, which is today's prominent Jennifer Aniston-popularized coiffeur of choice.

Oh, yes, musical comedy aficionados, it's the non-voting-age players, including the adorably proficient Isabella Russo as the band manager, who steal this undertaking while the bigger names above and below the title hit wonky notes on their figurative Fender guitars. Now, [Lloyd Webber]'s more likely to be called out for trying to prove he's as contemporary as can be, though his newest melodies and riffs, which he orchestrated, conjure only Broadway-rock of the '70s. If just about all the numbers swiftly begin to sound alike, that's because they are--as is JoAnn M. Hunter's choreography.

Van Hove knows what he's doing, all right. Where I've often thought the playwrights he's toyed with would greatly disapprove of the toying, I suspect that were Miller to have seen this treatment, he would've applauded. As the actors aren't being asked to underline subtexts along with the text, they're free to play Miller's script to the utmost.

Let it immediately be said, audiences will certainly get their money's worth at On Your Feet! if they're enamored of the hot-hot music spread around the globe in tandem by Gloria (Ana Villafane, standing in for the real thing and with energy to spare) and hubby Emilio (Josh Segarra, soigné and sexy as hell in this incarnation). Director Jerry Mitchell helps deliver what's called for in jukebox endeavors like this one. Providing even more oomph is choreographer Sergio Trujillo, who brings on his dancers at the first high-decibel sound blast from the large band Lon Hoyt conducts. Then Trujillo carries on with great regularity from big start to even bigger finish and then right into the curtain call. He hardly stops sending his indefatigable terpers into routines characterized by much shoulder manipulation, hand-clapping and hip swiveling.

Everyone connected with Therese Raquin seems to know what a powerhouse it is as a portrait of 19th-century middle-class French malaise. It's a shame that Cabnet hasn't quite propelled that past the footlights.

If you think you're about to hear anything critical of the two old pros James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson in director Leonard Foglia's revival of D. L. Coburn's 1977 comedy, The Gin Game, at the Golden Theatre, you better think again. As two lonely residents at a home for the aged who find comfort playing cards with each other in a rundown backyard, they're well nigh perfect -- which is what you already knew they would be.

It may be that the lure for actors of such pungent roles explains the frequent Fool for Love sightings. Indeed, it may be that Shepard's demanding work-out is more entertaining for the performers who get to take on Eddie and May than it is for anyone who gets to watch them.

In for big praise, considering the size of the cast--all of whom are full of the right kind of personality crochets--is director Joe Mantello, who also helmed Sting's large-crewThe Last Ship earlier this season. Aided by designer Japhy Weideman's lighting, he directs the constant Airline Highway traffic with immeasurable facility, maximizing the downbeat, while frantic, motel life.

..two hours and 40 minutes of tireless earnestness...The industriousness expended by all those creators has been, it's a true pity to relate, in the service of a Wikipedia go at Pasternak's brilliant, if occasionally turgid, take on the physician-poet Yuri Zhivago...Yes, it's a couple mouthfuls of love story...Battles rage, conflagrations torture the sky, explosions split the air, rifles spit...Mutu...has a rich baritone he puts to good use. Barrett...has a clear soprano she also employs well. Actually, the singing by everyone--certainly by Gayer, Nolan and Hewitt--is at a praise-worthy level. The catch is that as persuasive as they sound, they'd fare better were they given persuasive songs to sing. Instead, Simon's melodies are unrelentingly derivative. More than anything, they give the impression of being one extremely long song written for Les Miserables...Perhaps worse even than the music are the Michael Korie-Amy Powers lyrics.

Another way to look at it has to do with snow globes. Raquel and Vito collect them. A few dozen are displayed on a series of shelves. Some are even hurled before final fade-out. But what do you usually do with snow globes? You turn them upside down, shake them and then watch the fake snow fall through the water enclosed for a perhaps a minute of bland prettiness. What you get when you cross this crossed Private Livesand Kiss Me, Kate are a few moments of bland silliness.

...it would be a pleasure to say that all the difficulties stirred up as impresario Weinstein piloted this one in has resulted in a whopper of show. Not to be...it's at best a treasure chest of only mixed delights...Morrison as a successful playwright dry of ideas but thick with Scottish accent is earnest and sturdy...Laura Michelle Kelly is appealing as a widow trying to raise her sons to the best of her ability. The Llewelyn Davies boys...have charm to spare...To gussy up the proceedings, Graham, Barlow, Kennedy and director Diane Paulus, relying on her Pippin-like circus instincts, turn to all sorts of diversions. One of the fussiest is Frohman's acting troupe. They behave like something from Charles Dickens but diluted and cheapened in the transition...Since this is a musical, the score is the biggest disappointment...Off-rhymes have become increasingly acceptable in Top 40 realms, but only come across as lazy in a period piece such as Finding Neverland...They can organize '90s power ballads but not imbue them with anything that clings to the memory once the last full notes fade.