Elisabeth Vincentelli

Granted, you often wish the show bared more teeth instead of settling into comfortable, sepia-toned banter. But for better or for worse, this is not that kind of play, and this is not that kind of production. Besides, a soft touch can also leave an impact. Just look at the last scene, when Miss Daisy is mentally and physically fragile, in a wheelchair.

Lombardi was idolized by players and fans for his tough-love approach. His reputation lives on, bolstered by his real accomplishments on the field and maybe even more by his inspirational speeches - he's basically Elizabeth Gilbert for guys. It would have been good to spice up the play with some plays.

In the end, though, the message couldn't be clearer. With its mix of flatulence gags and learned references, 'La Bete' proves that it's possible to be sophisticated and entertaining at the same time. Elomire and Valere aren't as irreconcilable as they seem to be.

And yet 'Bloody Bloody' never fails to entertain: It stays faithful to the people's president by making him a crowd-pleaser.

It's a trifle, but one that's dished out by Patrick Stewart and T.R. Knight (the puppyish George on 'Grey's Anatomy'), two skilled, likable stars with a mellow chemistry and spot-on timing.

Laura Linney -- whose initial performance of Sarah earned her a Tony nomination -- has made her less abrasive this time around. A welcome side effect is that we now understand better what Sarah's writer boyfriend, James (Brian d'Arcy James), sees in her.

This Roundabout revival of George Bernard Shaw's 'Mrs. Warren's Profession' is agonizingly static and slow, with a tone that navigates a narrow range between flat and distinctly off. Nobody seems to know how to handle the play's wicked balance of anger and comedy.

Still, Hall gets enough right, and by the end, it's practically impossible not to root for 'The Pitmen Painters' -- both the show and the characters.

The brilliant production of 'Brief Encounter' that opened on Broadway last night should make all but the sourest puss believe in romance again. It's a spirited charm offensive that's just impossible to resist.

Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley, married in real life, now play Diana and her long-suffering husband, Dan (previously J. Robert Spencer). This Diana has a caustic, self-aware edge absent from Ripley's portrayal. Ripley exteriorized the character's mental anguish; the poised, lion-maned Mazzie plays things closer to the vest. While the impact of Diana's illness on her loved ones was always an integral part of the show, Mazzie's contained turn helps shift focus to the family dynamics.

With everybody firing on all cylinders, Nunn's spare, twilit staging finally makes sense, and even the smallness of the orchestra feels appropriate. This is about presenting Sondheim's sorry-grateful, regretful-happy take on love, sex and marriage without pretenses or adornments -- but with plenty of style and wit. How adult!

The musical interludes are uniformly splendid. Backed by her two Mennonettes (Lindsay Mendez, Betsy Wolfe), Scott is a stylist in full control of her instrument. The low-key arrangements by Tom Kitt ('Next to Normal') only enhance her amalgam of precision and warmth. And yet the show sometimes feels out of joint. In a smaller setting, 'Everyday Rapture' achieved a near-miraculous balance between narcissistic bravado, self-mocking and sentimentality. But the last weighs heavier here, and the inspirational tidbits take over. If there's a lesson in this, it's that corn should stay in Kansas.

It doesn't matter that the relationship between Ruth Steiner and Lisa Morrison follows a course so calculated, it could have been set by NASA. That's because they're played by the expert Linda Lavin and Sarah Paulson, respectively, who find a world of ambiguities in a fairly standard story.

After snoozing through many well-meaning tracts about Iraq, the prospect of a play about a financial meltdown wasn't appealing. But 'Enron' is a whip-smart, edge-of-your-seat ride that'd rival anything at Six Flags -- there are even raptor-headed businessmen prancing around.

Denzel Washington is the draw for this revival of August Wilson's 'Fences.' But it's the play itself that keeps audiences on the edge of their seats: This is pure, unabashed melodrama -- the kind where the line 'Got something to tell you' never introduces good news. The 1987 play, which won both the Pulitzer and Tony, may not be Wilson's most sophisticated effort -- brace yourself for multiple baseball analogies -- but it's one of his most emotionally effective. And it feels good to be taken for a ride by such a storyteller, especially when the ride is as delicately staged, as gorgeously acted as it is here.

Hayes, Chenoweth and the excellent supporting cast -- including Dick Latessa -- benefit from Ashford's direction: The staging of pop songs has rarely been as sharp as it is in this show. On the other hand, Ashford underwhelms as choreographer, which is odd considering the bang-up dances he created for 'Thoroughly Modern Millie' and 'Cry-Baby.' The biggest letdown is 'Turkey Lurkey Time,' an ensemble number with a single purpose: to kill. Here, it delivers only a flesh wound. But this isn't enough to spoil the fun. 'Promises, Promises' is a candy-flavored ride that more than delivers on its title.

The orchestra is too small and David Loud's horrid arrangements sap the life out of most of the songs. Doing 'Something's Coming' from 'West Side Story' and 'The Gun Song' from 'Assassins' in a lite jazz, Manhattan Transfer style is wrong, wrong, wrong. Unbelievably, a medley of 'Company' and 'Old Friends' is borderline barbershop.

The new Broadway musical 'American Idiot' starts off at a fever pitch -- and stays there. By the time it ends, 90 minutes later, you may feel more numbed than stirred. Based on Green Day's 2004 concept album of the same name, the show, which opened last night, delivers an impressive amount of terrific numbers. Many have a genuine melodic pull underneath their brash power, and they are imaginatively, punchily staged by director Michael Mayer ('Spring Awakening') and choreographer Steven Hoggett ('Black Watch'). If only we could take a breather once in a while.

Hodge exposes the mix of rage, fear and uncertainty underneath Zaza's sequins, but that's almost expected in this type of semi-revisionist production. Having Brits look for the dark lining in the silver cloud has become as predictable as Americans going for the flash that dominated Jerry Zaks and Jerry Mitchell's take in 2004.

The problem is that these four stars are played by journeymen. Only Levi Kreis, as Jerry Lee Lewis, projects any kind of energy. Lance Guest displays an impressive baritone as Cash, but he trips on half his spoken lines. Robert Britton Lyons' Carl Perkins barely registers, even though the character has a chip on his shoulder that could have made for good drama -- if, you know, the show had been remotely interested in drama. Worse of all, Eddie Clendening's Elvis is completely neutered. It's impossible to picture this guy driving millions of women crazy. Even the girlfriend who accompanies him to the studio, Dyanne (Elizabeth Stanley, from 'Cry-Baby'), seems vaguely bored.

It's definitely a feat of some kind: Broadway's 'The Addams Family' has watered down one of the quirkiest pop- culture creations ever. And to think it had so much going for it.

There are bona fide stars in the re vival of Ken Ludwig's 'Lend Me a Tenor,' which opened last night: Tony Shalhoub from 'Monk' and Anthony LaPaglia, a Tony winner for 'A View From the Bridge' in 1998. But it's Justin Bartha -- the missing groom from the hit movie 'The Hangover' -- who takes the final bow. And Bartha deserves it: He's the engine that powers this show. He doesn't just make his Broadway debut, he dynamites the doors open. Happily, the rest of the cast rises to the challenge, and 'Lend Me a Tenor' is exactly what it needs to be: hilarious.

The show, directed by Michael Grandage (who staged the Jude Law 'Hamlet' on Broadway), is at its most engaging when this physicality takes over and the two men throw themselves into their work. It climaxes in a scene in which they slather maroon primer on a canvas in a competitive, quasi-sexual frenzy -- Rothko even lights up a cigarette afterward... But oh, the empty verbiage, the showoff name-dropping we have to wade through.

Tharp doesn't illustrate the lyrics, going instead for mood inspired by the music itself. The upside is that this avoids heavy-handed (or is that heavy-footed?) mimicry. Many of the most compelling moments occur when seduction is coated in ferocity, as in 'That's Life,' which feels true to Sinatra's less savory side. The downside is that, after a while, repetitiveness seeps in. Plantadit, for instance, is a force of nature, but after seeing her roar her way through yet another number, you start hoping she'd just chill a bit.

The show often drifts toward movie-of-the-week goodwill, but, then, movies of the week are rarely as charming and as humbly moving as 'Next Fall'... The play has lost some of its intimacy in the transfer, and the characters sometimes look lost on Wilson Chin's cheap-looking set -- especially in the scenes set in a hospital waiting room.