David Rooney — Theater Critic

One might question whether the grim inevitability of such a punitive ending was necessary, and whether the play might have gained complexity without diluting its message by subverting audience expectations with a different, less predictable outcome. But this is tense theater designed to shake up our complacency and make us think. In that aim, it succeeds.

The production felt a little choppy and uncertain last fall, with the talented Urie doubling down on self-satirizing Arnold by rendering the lovelorn professional drag queen a mushy caricature. Not only does he now feel more like a flesh-and-blood person - his needs and vulnerabilities and the self-defense mechanism of his caustic wit all achingly human; his vocal mannerisms part of who he is, not just a layer of performance - but the staging has acquired greater fluidity and emotional richness. David Zinn's sets (ranging from suggestive minimalism through playful stylization to homey detail) and David Lander's descriptive lighting also look gorgeous on the Hayes stage, as do the pleasingly understated period costumes of Clint Ramos.

What a pleasure to see improv queen Elaine May, erstwhile half of a legendary comedy double-act with Mike Nichols, back on Broadway after 50-plus years at 86, her timing as sharply idiosyncratic as ever. Even for those of us who know her acerbic style only from recordings, movies and playwriting, there's a special satisfaction in watching this influential humorist perform. She's alternately funny, maddening and heartbreaking as a longtime Greenwich Village fixture whose mind is deteriorating faster than her body in Kenneth Lonergan's The Waverly Gallery.

The performances are too good, right across the board, to single out all that merit recognition. But I particularly loved watching Flanagan emerge periodically from waking slumber, her eyes burning with feverish intensity. Another distinguished Irish stage veteran, Molloy, is so caustic as Aunt Pat that her words sting, but there's fathomless sadness beneath her bitter humor. O'Reilly cuts through Mary's fragile presence with a gorgeous speech that spills out of her toward the end, full of conflicting impulses of hurt and compassion. And Edwards' Tom Kettle is a figure of wrenching innocence and haunting pathos.

If this makes the play sound in any way didactic, more dialectic than drama, be assured it's not. The exchanges have the vigorous back-and-forth zing of a sweaty squash match, not to mention a stinging relevance to so much of what's been happening for years now in American social, cultural and political discourse. It's hard to imagine this pithy play ever being more timely or more ideally cast, and the dynamic of the three actors is thrilling to watch.

Sorry, but American actors can't do regional English accents. OK, maybe Meryl Streep and a handful of others. But too few of the people on stage in The Nap, in which many of the best lines acquire their flavor from colorful Sheffield vernacular. Effortful delivery is just one issue with the wheezy direction of Daniel Sullivan, whose forte is definitely not this kind of snappy, suspenseful comedy, in which timing is everything.

Few performers today have the quicksilver command and agile wit of Janet McTeer, so casting her as Sarah Bernhardt, the famed French thespian of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was inspired. Even more so once the focus tightens onto 'The Divine Sarah' as she chafes against the limited avenues open to women in the theater, ignoring naysayers in her determination to tackle one of the greatest male roles in the dramatic canon, Shakespeare's Hamlet. But despite many tantalizing elements and historical material ripe for exploration from a contemporary feminist perspective, Theresa Rebeck's Bernhardt/Hamlet doesn't add up to a play. At least not a satisfying one.

Few performers today have the quicksilver command and agile wit of Janet McTeer, so casting her as Sarah Bernhardt, the famed French thespian of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was inspired. Even more so once the focus tightens onto 'The Divine Sarah' as she chafes against the limited avenues open to women in the theater, ignoring naysayers in her determination to tackle one of the greatest male roles in the dramatic canon, Shakespeare's Hamlet. But despite many tantalizing elements and historical material ripe for exploration from a contemporary feminist perspective, Theresa Rebeck's Bernhardt/Hamlet doesn't add up to a play. At least not a satisfying one.

End-of-the-'80s nostalgia rules at the Nederlander Theatre, where the cut-and-paste musical version of Garry Marshall's 1990 romantic comedy, Pretty Woman, is re-creating the cultural-touchstone movie beat for beat, set to a score by Bryan Adams and songwriting partner Jim Vallance that could easily pass for vintage FM-radio pop-rock singles. Just as the film was a stellar vehicle for Julia Roberts, the musical showcases a radiant performance from Samantha Barks as the Hollywood Boulevard prostitute that becomes the 'beck and call girl' of a corporate raider.

Fifty years after Mart Crowley's landmark comic drama about a group of gay men in pre-Stonewall New York first made waves, director Joe Mantello vigorously shakes the dust off The Boys in the Band. What might have been another bulletin from the distant queer past is transformed into a scintillating portrait of the self-loathing that festers in ghettoized subcultures, perhaps as much now as then. Starring a high-caliber cast of out gay actors led by Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Matt Bomer and Andrew Rannells, the production is sharpest when the zingers are flying back and forth like missiles, but the anger coursing through the play's veins still scalds.

The surest way to get as pickled as the self-deceiving regulars at Harry Hope's downtown New York dive bar in The Iceman Cometh would be to take a shot of whiskey every time someone says 'pipe dreams.' Eugene O'Neill was seldom one to go easy on emphatic repetition of his themes, and the playwright's bleak vision of men drowning their deferred plans in cheap booze can be as prolix as it is poetic. George C. Wolfe's revival feels on some levels like it's still cohering, the underlying despair remaining muted for too much of the three-hour-45-minute running time. But it comes together in a powerful final act driven by the searing confessional monologue of Denzel Washington's Hickey.

Sadly, that's one of the few decent jokes in this tacky little show, a feebly dramatized Wikipedia page with lackluster covers, which was rushed to Broadway following a fall tryout at La Jolla Playhouse that received mostly tepid reviews. And yet it shows no sign of improvements having been attempted. Heaven knows it's not the way it should be.

Sadly, that's one of the few decent jokes in this tacky little show, a feebly dramatized Wikipedia page with lackluster covers, which was rushed to Broadway following a fall tryout at La Jolla Playhouse that received mostly tepid reviews. And yet it shows no sign of improvements having been attempted. Heaven knows it's not the way it should be.

Is it strictly for Potterheads? Not at all, though anyone going in cold, with no prior knowledge of the stories, will miss much of the clever cross-referencing of characters and events from throughout the series. A detailed recap starting with the key prophecy that propelled the entire saga and continuing with a breakdown of each of the seven novels is provided in the program and will be helpful to the uninitiated. But there's also a universal dimension to the human drama here - the challenges of parenting, the conflict between fathers and teenage sons burdened by intimidating legacies, the sustaining force of love and friendship, the eternal grip of the past - that will prove poignant and meaningful even to audiences unversed in the wizarding wars. I'm by no means a Potter obsessive but I was amazed, watching the plays, at how vividly these characters are embedded in our cultural consciousness. You can feel the electric charge in the theater even before the action begins, and it's highly infectious, whatever your prior exposure.

The changes are minor enough to go virtually unnoticed but sufficiently considered to fuel discussion among those convinced this light period piece has problems that needed addressing. Beyond that, it's a polished production with an accomplished - if not spectacular - cast. But it doesn't come close to the sweeping cinematic fluidity of Sher's best work, which filled the immense Beaumont stage with a majestic breadth seldom equaled. Nor does it approach the thrilling emotional engagement of those earlier shows.

A remarkable aspect of O'Brien's production - and of Henry's staggering, soulful performance, which is this revival's smoldering core - is that even in our current moment of heightened attention toward mistreatment of women, in which a hot-tempered man like Billy might seem an automatic villain, there's a tormented helplessness to this doomed, rootless transient that makes you understand Julie's surrender. Even when she swallows her shame and makes excuses for his reprehensible behavior; it's almost as if in choosing to love him she has chosen to be an outsider like him too.

Leon's sluggish production does eventually gather some steam in the second act, expanding beyond the banal romantic focus of impassioned teacher James Leeds (Joshua Jackson) and reluctant student Sarah Norman (Lauren Ridloff) into more complex issues. When it tightens its focus on the rights of deaf people to choose the terms on which they interact with the hearing world - weighing the virtues of American Sign Language, lip-reading, and speech with conflicting ideologies - you can see why this was an important work back in its time.

Ironically, given that the musical has a more cartoonish quality amplified by the extensive use of video in the design, the key transformation plays more believably on stage. That's also because fresh-faced Henningsen, with her big, bright voice, brings such assurance to Cady's ricochets from guileless adventurer in a strange land to cool conqueror and back to humbled do-gooder, who is able to see the redeeming qualities in everyone. And Henningsen's sweet chemistry with Selig lends spark to their scenes; Aaron's own reawakening from Regina's spell contributes to Cady's growth as he tears down her misguided belief that 'More is Better.'

Stage acting doesn't get any better than Glenda Jackson's performance as the autocratic nonagenarian in Edward Albee's Three Tall Women, modeled on the adoptive mother with whom the playwright had a famously thorny relationship. On Broadway for the first time in 30 years (23 of which she spent as a member of British Parliament), the two-time Oscar winner shows no trace of rustiness in a characterization of such diamond-hard ferocity you dare not take your eyes off her. It's an almost ridiculous luxury that in Joe Mantello's crystalline production of this brittle but moving play about death and self-knowledge, two such accomplished actors as Laurie Metcalf and Alison Pill become supplementary dividends.

Let's get the obvious question out of the way up front: Does Chris Evans cut it in his leap from the superhero universe to the naturalistic comedy-drama of Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero? Absolutely. Evans fully inhabits his character of a vain but well-liked New York City career cop on track to make detective, who is quite comfortable rationalizing to himself abuses of power large and small in a profession where gender inequality and toxic masculinity come with the badge. The actor best known as Captain America brings plenty of cocky swagger, his thumbs hooked into his utility belt like an Old West cowboy with a bushy mustache to match, but his assured performance never aims to be a star turn. Rather, it's an integral part of an evenly balanced, four-person ensemble piece.

Lane brings yet another kind of volatility to Roy's spiky scenes with Belize (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), a nurse at St. Vincent's Hospital and Prior's former drag sister. Stewart-Jarrett nails every laugh with his imperious attitude, bouncing Cohn's abuse right back at him. But his swishy attitude doesn't hide his wounded indignation over the disease that's ravaging the gay community, finding a worthy target in defensive Louis in one particularly memorable encounter.

Under the direction of Michael Grandage, Frozen doesn't entirely go wrong, but it does evince signs of the struggle to establish a consistent, unifying tone and to settle on a center in a story inherently bifurcated by having two heroines kept apart for most of the action. It ends up being merely adequate, a bland facsimile when it should have been something memorable in its own right.

Unlike in Alan Bennett's play The Madness of George III, and its film adaptation, the deteriorating mental health of a monarch here doesn't constitute a sustaining narrative arc, even if Rylance's commanding performance remains the center of attention. (It's certainly the main reason for the production's Broadway transfer.) The more interesting thread is the motivation of Farinelli to keep extending his stay in Madrid, his love for Isabella becoming a contributing factor, and his refusal ever to sing in public again.

I confess I had never been drawn to linger long in Bikini Bottom, the character's underwater home. And for much of the show I was dazed by the sensory overload of Tina Landau's acid-trip production while groaning at its fusillade of cornball aquatic puns and absence of musical cohesion. But whether it wore me down like coral erosion or grew on me like algae, the show's unstinting commitment to anarchic plotting, goopy sentiment and bonkers ADHD juvenilia had me grinning like an idiot, even before I got knocked in the head with an inflated plastic orb (lawsuit pending) during the crowd-pleasing closing number.

Together with his resourceful design team and cast of expressive, vocally gifted performers, Arden has approached the piece with the nurturing hand it requires - striking a balance between child-like story theater and folkloric ritual with a fantastical dash of dangerous voodoo. It's a show about the healing power of storytelling, which makes it perfect for these grim times. Themes concerning the divisions of class, race, skin-color pigmentation and wealth also give the material timeless currency.