David Finkle — Theater Critic

Christopher Wheeldon's choreography for An American in Paris, at the Palace, is so spectacular that you have to forgive anything else wrong with the production--and believe you me, there's plenty to forgive... Featuring New York City Ballet soloist Robert Fairchild and the Royal Ballet's Leanne Cope in a thrilling pas de deux that you wish could go on forever, it's one of the highest lights of a 2014-2015 season notable for more and better dancing than has been seen for years.

...Thomas has gone about jiggling Colette's story of a young girl being trained as a courtesan and a rich family friend who grow over time into lovers. But the misguided Thomas only succeeds in denaturing Colette so that Gigi (Vanessa Hudgens), now older, and eventual swain Gaston Lachaille (Corey Cott), now younger, progress to a happy ending with any number of destructive changes to the story...The damage that politically correctness has done to the arts only worsens as time goes on...Clark shows off her clarion voice and otherwise does okay as Madame Alvarez, or Mamita...McGillin smiles well as the compering Honoré Lachaille. His duet with Clarke on 'I Remember It Well' is the one musical highlight. Cott does passably as Gaston...Firstly, congratulations to [Hudgens] for taking on a role associated in the mind of many a Gigi fan with Audrey Hepburn and Leslie Caron. She sings perfectly well and dances nicely. She does everything competently, but as Gigi she doesn't have the essential ingredient: charm. If it comes to that, this whole Gigi is lacking in charm, if not nerve.

Tyrone is a puppet with sharp teeth that lives at the end of the right arm belonging to timid Jason (Steven Boyer). The fabric creature struts his considerable stuff in Hand to God, Robert Askins's career-making play that has now and for all the best reasons been transferred from off-off-Broadway to off-Broadway to Broadway, at the Booth...Boyer -- who resembles Irving Penn's photographs of the young Truman Capote -- is giving a career-making performance every bit equal to Askins's work. He's utterly captivating, utterly heart-breaking in his transition from a shy boy with a puppeteering inclination to a terrified young man in possibly unbreakable thrall to a virtually autonomous bully who's not reluctant to declare himself the Devil...The truth is, that the Hand to God assault on religion as irrevocable healer both tickles the ribs and gives them a powerful punch.

It occurs to me that because it's now 2015, some theatergoers will think Wasserstein's vision of a particular past quarter-century is now dated. If so, they're confusing the concept of 'dated' with the concept of indelibly recreating a specific date, time and place. The late and very much missed Wasserstein has impeccably done the latter.

There's no gainsaying that the beloved Chenoweth -- seemingly born to play the role (whereas she wasn't nearly right for Fran Kubelik in Promises Promises, her last B'way stint) -- and Gallagher carry off as much of the yuk-hunting love-hate relationship as they can. It's also undeniable that somehow what the book writers kept of the comically combustible give-and-take for this treatment doesn't provide the performers enough to sink their honed teeth into. Comden and Green never supply a sense of what Jaffee did to alienate Lily to the extent he apparently has. Nor do they suggest what her rise to fame might have contributed to her side of the rift.

As Stoppard hints in his title, he wants to raise questions about the connections and disconnections between reality and imagination. The beauty of The Real Thing is the wit and pathos with which he achieves his end, and Stoppard achieves them despite a less than satisfying production. The ubiquitous Sam Gold directs, and perhaps it's his crowded schedule that explains what goes wrong with this Real Thing when things do go wrong. The chief problem is that he has the actors present their characters as terribly, teddibly arch. It's an off-putting approach that somehow renders banter of an amusing slant not very amusing at all. It's just tedious--with the result being that none of the four central figures are very likable.

The grey-walled apartment with pass-through window to the kitchen is this week's John Lee Beatty set. Last week's--or maybe it was two week's back--offering was for the above-mentioned Donald Margulies's new play, A Country House. Beatty never stops, and it's possible, given the misfortunes occurring in the Disgraced manuscript, that this house beautiful could come onto on the market sometime soon. If so, grab it at whatever the asking price.

Some plays about actors, acting and other theater concerns can be quite good--a worthy example being Anton Chekhov's 1895 work, The Seagull. Most plays about actors, acting and other theater concerns, however, are not so rewarding. Sorry to say that one of them is Donald Margulies's newest comedy-drama, The Country House...Curiously, one of the reasons the play falls short of Pulitzer Prize-winning Margulies's usual vaunted mark is that he's chosen, as many playwrights before him have, to make The Country House an homage to Chekhov...Although the characters forge through a good deal during the two acts, torpor gathers quickly. Something stultifying creeps in that lends The Country House the feel of a middling sitcom...As modern-day Chekhov counterparts, the six actors here acquit themselves well. To pay them and director Sullivan the best compliment under these circumstances is to say it would be a pleasure to see them tackling the real thing(s).

Rarely have I seen such a large collection of scene-stealers on one stage. Check that. There's so much hilarity occurring that no one can steal a complete scene. What these thieving actors do is steal extended moments. They make off with eye-popping sequences that have been carefully focused by Ellis, whose contribution here is impeccable.

Cera and Culkin, both committed and eagerly expressive actors, make good use of that phone and cord. Speaking to his angry father, Cera's Warren can barely hold the phone bottom aloft. Culkin uses the cord like a whip. He turns one phone call with Valerie -- who's furious over a sculpture of hers having been destroyed (by Warren) -- into an act-two tour de force.

Let me quickly specify that Cumming, repeating the role that brought him a Tony 16 years ago, is every juicy leer as good now as he was then in his role of the deliciously decadent compere at the Third Reich's Kit Kat Klub in Berlin...Time now unfortunately, for the problems besetting this Cabaret incarnation. The major one is the accomplished movie star Michelle Williams in her Main Stem bow as Sally Bowles...The singing's not the snag. Just about everything else, starting with her English accent, is...The high point and low point of her performance are the same: her rendition of the title song. Technically, she delivers it extremely well and for her efforts receives sustained applause. As an expression of Sally Bowles's state of mind, the way librettist Joe Masteroff and Ebb write, Williams has it all wrong--and so have director Mendes, Marshall and Onrubia, if they're allowing this misconstrued treatment.

It's possible to leave Casa Valentina believing that drag for straight men -- as is drag for homosexual men and women in Hedwig and the Angry Inch -- is an ultimately imprisoning mental state. Yet, I have a psychotherapist acquaintance who maintains that some men who dress as women do so because they're so smitten with women, so enamored of their wives in many instances, that they want to find out what it feels like to be women. They're turned on by it -- as Albert/Bessie declares he is here. Fierstein might have made a point of getting around to that and to other psychological insights. That he hasn't hardly detracts from an amazing accomplishment and one that, as the Tony season ends, will be a strong contender for the coveted prize.

Shaping all this, Mayer does his usual skillful work. He takes on Hedwig and the Angry Inch after putting Spring Awakening and American Idiot on their feet -- and on their feat. It's tempting to say -- and I'm giving in to the temptation -- that with his third obvious click, he's made himself our foremost director of rock musicals. Over the last several decades, too many of the so-called rock musicals have merely been ersatz. Mayer is expert at the real thing. The closing number 'Midnight Radio' exhorts everyone to 'lift up your hands.' Not only will many Hedwig and the Angry Inch audience members lift up their hands, they'll eagerly and happily put then together for sustained applause.

Daniel Radcliffe is out to prove something, and he's doing a bang-up job of it. Set for life as the #1 Harry Potter alumnus, he could undoubtedly make a career of movie romcoms. He absolutely refuses, and now after giving his all--and showing it, too--inEquus and singing and dancing on Broadway in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, he's taken on the physically punishing eponymous role in The Cripple of Inishmaan, Martin McDonagh's hilarious, heart-shattering 1997 dramedy.

When theater veteran Moss Hart published his bestselling Act One in 1959, he packed a lot into it about his impoverished childhood and neophyte playwriting years with the already famous, successful and legendarily acerbic George S. Kaufman. James Lapine, who's adapted the chockfull memoir at the Vivian Beaumont, packs just as much into it--and what can seem like even more--on Beowulf Boritt's magnificent three-story revolving set.

The beauty of Steinbeck's themes is that they're embedded in any number of pungent scenes that the cast members--many of them, like Franco, and Meester, making the Broadway bows--bring to vivid, heart-wrenching life under Shapiro's taut direction...Although Franco overdoes the level of his disappointment with Lennie at the opening, he pulls back through the remaining two acts to give a shaded view of a strong, moral man who has an obligation he can't refuse to honor and yet knows could be his undoing. O'Dowd brings all manner of subtlety to Lennie. What he does with his fluttery hands alone is acting inspiration. He sees that Lennie's feelings are all unguardedly on the surface and expresses that through mood changes often simultaneously funny and sorrowful.

Perhaps the most complimentary remark to be made about Audra McDonald in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill is that in 90 minutes and under Lonny Price's fully empathetic direction, she nails that voice and she gets that whole life. Send her flowers. Send her carloads of Holiday's favored gardenias.

Under Sam Gold's direction, the alphabetically billed Collette, Hall, Letts and Tomei are collectively giving it their best shot. Unfortunately their best is not good enough.The Realistic Joneses from the highly regarded (though not necessarily by me) Will Eno is an example of that wise old saying, 'There's less here than meets the eye.'

For this version, Walter Lee describes himself as 40, and therein lies the problem. Washington is 59, and can get away (almost) with appearing as a man almost 20 years younger than he is, but something is still wrong. Hansberry intends Walter Lee's playing fast and loose with the much needed incoming funds to be attributed to a young man's impetuosity. His behavior in those circumstances is understandable if not excusable. Washington, on the other hand, looks too much like a man who long should have known better...Having established all that, I should add that the manner in which Washington skews Hansberry's purpose probably won't bother the actor's fans. They'll be thrilled again to see him up close and personal. And it isn't as if--aside from the way he's miscast himself (the revival is, of course, his choice)--he doesn't give a committed performance.

At this point, Les Miserables is entrenched in our culture as a musical for the ages. You can't beat it with a stick. So just go ahead and beat a path to it. And when you do, notice that on the program the sole producer named is Cameron Mackintosh. How often does that happen nowadays? Like never?

...it should have a long and healthy run, if, that is, the producers can either convince Jessie Mueller to remain in the title role forever or, failing that, if they can find replacements as enormously talented as she is and as cannily cast... Beautiful is snappily moved along by Derek McLane's shifting sets...But while everything mentioned above contributes to Beautiful, Douglas McGrath's libretto pulls it down several notches. Not so many that it threatens irreversible damage, but still.

...it should have a long and healthy run, if, that is, the producers can either convince Jessie Mueller to remain in the title role forever or, failing that, if they can find replacements as enormously talented as she is and as cannily cast... Beautiful is snappily moved along by Derek McLane's shifting sets...But while everything mentioned above contributes to Beautiful, Douglas McGrath's libretto pulls it down several notches. Not so many that it threatens irreversible damage, but still.

Here's a woman grieving over her brother's death, a woman of surpassing refinement who's found nothing to comfort her until an emissary from a suitor for her hand arrives and melts her frozen heart. Even then, she retains her equanimity, gliding about the stage as if transported on wheels. Her speech has lute-like qualities. In the role, Rylance is depression embodied. He's as different from Richard as could be envisioned.

It's not news that the ill-formed nobleman can be funny as he stops at nothing while maneuvering himself to be crowned king -- and, when, on the throne, still isn't satisfied. But Rylance compounds the fun by turning into a Richard of York who unabashedly giggles at his own jokes while he strides about with a decided limp and never using his withered and gloved left hand. Plotting to eliminate all competitors, this Richard frequently emits room-shaking guffaws at what he's getting up to. At one point, he literally crooks (pun intended) a finger at the audience to join him in his merry malevolence.

Why go on about any of this when the wise thing to do is to advise readers they really ought to stop reading and secure those precious seats. As Langston Hughes insists, nothing good happens to a dream deferred. Therefore, where this dream is concerned, defer no longer. Or as Yip Harburg puts in some crooning mouths during the marvy evening, 'Ain't it de solid truth?