Elisabeth Vincentelli — Theater Critic

'Comedies' implies humor, wit and gags, and they’re in short supply in the show, flatly directed by John Turturro. Subpar at best, these efforts -- I use the term loosely, because it looks as if nobody tried very hard -- come nowhere near the authors' best. This is an egregious case of selling your audience short.

Considering one of the characters is a civil-rights hero, the 90-minute two-hander has some surprisingly corny moments. But the finale offers a fantastic pay-off that ranks among the most exhilarating 10 minutes of the year. The path to the peak may be uneven, but the view from there is worth it.

Zach Grenier and especially Michael Siberry, terrific as Antonescu's shifty confidant, give excellent support, but there are too many stretches when Langella is left to fend for himself. Too bad: 'Man and Boy' isn't a great play, but with equal sparring partners, it could have been a very good show.

The revival that opened last night is in the shaky mitts of journeyman director Eric Schaeffer and a tentative cast led by Bernadette Peters, Jan Maxwell and soap-opera star Ron Raines. Rather than a seamless whole, the show feels like barely connected musical numbers of varying quality.

Daly achieves a decent approximation of Callas' look thanks to spot-on makeup and a wig. But while she's a terrific actress, her basic earthiness is at odds with the role of the refined woman nicknamed 'La Divina.' Daly nails the catty asides about Callas' peers and can switch from imperious to coyly flirtatious in the blink of an eye. But there are also times when you wonder if Callas is coaching aspiring opera singers or a softball team. And when she drops the soprano's signature 'eh' at the end of sentences, Daly's lands in the Atlantic somewhere between Italy and Canada.

In the last year, 'Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark' has gone from artistic oddity to conventional family entertainment. Between that and the strength of its brand name, it's ready to join Madame Tussauds and Shake Shack on a tourist's Times Square itinerary.

Above all, star Donna Murphy is a Tony winner who's lit up the likes of 'Passion' and 'Wonderful Town.' Here, she works tirelessly to perform CPR on a DOA show...it's not just the music that's subpar: The book is full of holes, and pulls at the heartstrings without earning its pathos, ensnaring good supporting performers like Alexander Gemignani (Paul's son), Nicole Parker, Chip Zien and Christopher Innvar into a gooey mess.

Mutrux and Sheldon Epps' in-and-out staging is like a glorified revue, an impression reinforced by the book's bullet-point approach. The biographical elements dig barely deeper than the superfluous historical markers ('As 1960 passes, 'Bonanza' is TV's best'). With more ambition and focus, 'Baby It's You!' could have been 'Jersey Girls' -- the female answer to the juggernaut musical about the Four Seasons.

Mutrux and Sheldon Epps' in-and-out staging is like a glorified revue, an impression reinforced by the book's bullet-point approach. The biographical elements dig barely deeper than the superfluous historical markers ('As 1960 passes, 'Bonanza' is TV's best'). With more ambition and focus, 'Baby It's You!' could have been 'Jersey Girls' -- the female answer to the juggernaut musical about the Four Seasons.

In its Broadway debut with a starry cast that includes Joe Mantello, Ellen Barkin and Jim Parsons, 'The Normal Heart' hasn't lost any of its anger or biting humor, but it feels more like a fascinating time capsule. Most impressive is John Benjamin Hickey as Ned's lover. As he changes from handsome, assured newspaper reporter into a shell of a man ravaged by disease, he embodies the painful intersection of the political and the personal where 'The Normal Heart' beats.

But Stiller, who can't entirely dim his natural charisma, doesn't quite convince as a sad sack caught between hope and despondency. We buy Artie's attraction to the toxic Bunny, but not the complex feelings for Bananas that make his final gesture tragic rather than merely dramatic...Together, these characters make up Broadway's most oddball gallery, flailing in a hot mess of a play. But you can't get them out of your head, and that counts for a lot.

Watching these two lock horns is so pleasurable, you want to see them again as soon as the curtain comes down.

Before the show even opened on Broadway last night, Mark Rylance's performance in 'Jerusalem' was generating a big buzz. We've come to expect greatness from this actor -- he was superlative in 'Boeing-Boeing' and 'La Bete' -- and once again he delivers.

Big, glitzy numbers are the toast of Broadway musicals. The only thing better? Big, glitzy numbers . . . with nuns! 'Sister Act' has plenty of both - and it's one of the season's happiest surprises. Menken evokes the lush, funky sound of Philly soul without falling into mere pastiche: 'When I Find My Baby' starts off like bedroom R&B before the lyrics take a hilarious turn. 'Take Me to Heaven' and 'Spread the Love Around' bloom into full-throttle disco epics, the latter building up to an ecstatic finale.

Indeed, 'High' has twists and revelations, but no suspense. Nobody will bat an eye upon learning about Sister Jamie's stormy past, or the reasons Father Michael is so invested in Cody's well-being. And when someone eventually makes a direct appeal to God, you think, 'What took so long?' Indeed, everything's foreshadowed with clumsy insistence. While the play clearly hits close to home for Lombardo -- who's been candid about his own faith and past drug problem -- its purple prose and potboiler flourishes could easily have come from a 1960s 'social issues' flick.

At first, the Queen seems faithful to Carroll's creation, albeit with nods to 'Evita' and Momma Rose. Then she turns out to be downright grandmotherly. What a cop-out: It's hard to care for Alice's safety if there's no real danger. This is also typical of the work's misguided approach. Who is a musical about a grown-up Alice for? This show clearly casts a wide net, but it also takes family-friendliness as a license to be simplistic. Come on, 'Wonderland,' test us -- we're smarter than you think.

Some have branded the show as sentimental. Have we become so jaded that people are called suckers for crying during a good, old-fashioned tale? 'War Horse' isn't sentimental: It's just not afraid to be emotional. Ultimately, the show succeeds because it tells children and reminds adults that some of life's joys are made great by terrible hardships.

In his Broadway debut, Chris Rock plays Ralph D., the AA sponsor of Bobby Cannavale's Jackie. They share some heavy scenes -- red-blooded, profanity-laden bouts -- but Rock is a lightweight: The more experienced, more assured Cannavale knocks him out without even trying.

In his Broadway debut, Chris Rock plays Ralph D., the AA sponsor of Bobby Cannavale's Jackie. They share some heavy scenes -- red-blooded, profanity-laden bouts -- but Rock is a lightweight: The more experienced, more assured Cannavale knocks him out without even trying.

'Catch Me If You Can' makes Abagnale a sympathetic figure guilty mainly of charming everybody. Tveit is handsome and sings well, but overuses his Colgate smile and lacks the pizazz necessary to sell the snake oil. This Frank is a junior, all right: many personas but little personality. Butz, on the other hand, has charisma to spare -- which is saying something, since he puts the 'ratty' back in Hanratty. His body hunched at an angle, a greasy-looking hat perched on his head, he creates a fully rounded character, and displays unfailing musical-comedy flair.

Kathleen Marshall's revival for the Roundabout, which opened on Broadway last night, is like one of those old Hollywood movies with Bette Davis as a frumpy schoolteacher: You don't really buy it, but the star's still fun to watch.

Rajiv Joseph's 'Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo,' which opened last night on Broadway, blends black humor and surreal drama. Yet the comedian's portrayal of the title's big cat is so consistently understated that it becomes self-effacing. Like the show in general, it doesn't deliver on its promise.

Daniel Radcliffe is so ador able in his Broadway musical debut, you just want to pinch his cheeks. It's not just his youth -- the 'Harry Potter' star is 21 -- but the endearing amount of dedication and enthusiasm he pours into steering the new revival of 'How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.'

Told the creators of 'South Park' were making a Broadway musical, you'd naturally expect a broad, foul-mouthed, juvenile, scatological, irreverent satire. Sure enough, 'The Book of Mormon,' which opened last night, is all that - and much, much more. It's a fiendishly well-crafted, hilariously smart - or maybe smartly hilarious - song-and-dance extravaganza. The show's a hoot. The show's a hit.

Luckily, our host is such a relentlessly entertaining character that it's a real fun trip, seemingly fueled by gallons of Red Bull. Leguizamo enters by pulling hip-hop moves to the sound of James Brown's 'Sex Machine,' and comes very close to sustaining that frenetic pace for more than two hours, though the energy -- both his and ours -- flags toward the end.