Elisabeth Vincentelli — Theater Critic

The ever-fine Clarkson is a marvel of sympathetic restraint. The tender way in which Mrs. Kendal disrobes for Merrick, who's never seen a naked woman, is one of the most moving moments in the show. 'The Elephant Man' isn't a great play, especially in the way it openly tugs at the heartstrings. But when it's performed well, it's satisfying on a primal level. And yes, it's OK to cry.

This new 'A Delicate Balance' is like a Christmas fruitcake that's been left out too long: It's boozy and loaded with goodies -- Glenn Close! John Lithgow! -- but it's also on the dry side. The booze you can almost taste because Edward Albee's characters are constantly liquoring up, probably to make up for their boredom. It's a feeling you too may share during Pam MacKinnon's bloodless production. She did a much better job with 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' two years ago...As the play turns to the absurd, Albee's writing brims with black humor and red-hot loathing. The show, by contrast, is a benign beige. Lithgow is best when Tobias is playing along with the women in his life, but his big letting-it-all-out scene feels forced. And Close's one-note, tight-lipped performance keeps the audience at arms' length, the way Agnes distances herself from family and friends. A delicate balance? By the end of Act 3, it might refer to the one between wakefulness and sleep.

What hasn't changed is the punch delivered by those symbiotic girls. Here Erin Davie plays the retiring Violet, who wants to be 'like everyone else/So no one will point and stare.' She's attached -- via strong, hidden magnets -- to Emily Padgett's bolder Daisy, who wants to be 'like everyone else/But richer and more acclaimed.' Both actresses are impeccable, funny and affecting...Inevitably, love complicates matters. If you think relationships are hard, try having one with a conjoined twin...Even after all the surgery, 'Side Show' is far from a great musical. The second act piles on heavy-handed calls for tolerance. The production's also handicapped by the blandness of Silverman and Hydzik, who have matinee-idol good looks but little acting depth. Yet this show also has a strange, slightly demented charm, especially in the vaudeville and carnival scenes. And while it makes its plea for tolerance with a big heart, it's not afraid to unleash even bigger anthems.

If 'The River' was playing some dinky little theater with a bunch of unknowns, it'd be dismissed as flimsy and gimmicky. Yet the above description still applies: This show is overreaching and underachieving, its hollow pretentiousness even more glaring under the bright Broadway lights. Playwright Jez Butterworth's previous effort, the Tony-nominated 'Jerusalem,' was overrated, but compared to this, it's a masterpiece. At least Ian Rickson's production - he also directed the London premiere, starring Dominic West ('The Affair') - looks good. Ultz's rustic set and Ian Dickinson's elaborate sound design make the most of the Circle in the Square's in-the-round design, taking us to a lived-in cabin by a babbling brook.

In his Broadway debut, McGregor is too cuddly as the snobbish Henry...Sam Gold...underlines this by having his cast join in singalongs of the pop songs Henry loves so much...This gimmick actually works because Henry is obsessed with the intersection of craft, emotion and entertainment...While 'The Real Thing' traffics in big ideas -- art, love, cynicism, fidelity -- the whole feels muted. This has partly to do with Stoppard's middle-of-the-roadness, and partly with McGregor's refusal to engage with Henry's darker side. Even Gyllenhaal's feline sexiness seems overly laid-back. Nixon, on the other hand, is a standout as the cool, collected Charlotte...The star...has a haughty, coiled energy, and things flag when she's offstage for most of Act 2. Were she to stick around a little more, the kettle may actually whistle.

'Disgraced' was far from perfect when it opened off-Broadway two years ago, but it worked up to a point...Now 'Disgraced' is back, with a new cast, on Broadway at that. But the bigger stage hasn't been kind to the show. Because the play seems like a PowerPoint lecture about current hot topics -- terrorism, Islam, Jews, religion, art -- it requires excellent acting. Pity the performances here are wildly uneven, and a couple of them are downright bad. Purists may look suspiciously at Josh Radnor...But Radnor's actually quite good as Isaac, a smarmy, smug Whitney Museum curator -- and Karen Pittman, the original cast's lone survivor, is even better as Isaac's no-nonsense wife, Jory. No, the problems are Hari Dhillon and Gretchen Mol. Inconveniently they play the leads, attorney Amir Kapoor and his wife, the WASP-y painter Emily. And they're never believable -- either as a couple or as, you know, people.

In other words, this is a grown-up musical the way Sting is a grown-up musician - offering literate, haunting ballads and well-crafted, pop-folky barnburners. It's also overly earnest and a wee bit grandiose. This duality is reflected in the show's two overlapping stories. One is very effective, the other not so much.

The bell-bottomed boys traditionally dominate this show, but the brightest star in this new revival isn't one of them: It's Megan Fairchild, a New York City Ballet principal now making her Broadway debut. That she's graceful and strikes breathtakingly beautiful lines was a given. Which is good because Fairchild plays a key role in this dance-heavy musical -- originally choreographed by Jerome Robbins, now by Joshua Bergasse. But it turns out the elfin ballerina's also a nimble, effortlessly funny comedienne. The show explodes with unfettered joy every time she's onstage. When she's not, it's more complicated...Betty Comden and Adolph Green's book and lyrics still crackle and pop after all these decades, and therein lies the rub: The show's already written funny, so director John Rando's frantic oversell can feel a little desperate.

Aside from Broderick - who looks and moves as if he's embalmed, even during Peter's big aria of a speech - the cast works overtime under Jack O'Brien's direction. Mullally and Lane alone are almost worth the price of admission, with a sense of timing that's a thing of wonder. As for the rest? It's barely a play.

As technically dazzling as the show is, it needs a great cast to work. After all, this is also the story of a torn family that slowly, painfully reconfigures itself. Especially key is the actor portraying Christopher, who's onstage the entire time. A 25-year-old Juilliard grad with credible youthful looks, Sharp delivers an incredibly warm and sympathetic performance as someone who, ironically, has no capacity for empathy. After the razzle-dazzle has died down, his dogged, utterly human Christopher is what you remember.

...this comfort-food of a play by Donald Margulies ('Time Stands Still') is like Goldilocks' porridge: not too hot, not too cold -- just . . . lukewarm...Margulies draws from Chekhov, especially 'The Seagull' and 'Uncle Vanya,' for his fractious weekend in the country. Spotting the parallels will keep you busy for a while, along with Danner, who's amusing and blessedly restrained in a role that could easily have turned into a caricature. Steele, so good as Alan Cumming's daughter on 'The Good Wife,' is earthy and keen, her character a breath of fresh air in this hothouse of self-regard. Under the direction of the prolific Daniel Sullivan, classy and subdued as usual, the show trots along at a solid clip, dotted with the expected bon mots...episodes of painful truth-telling, arguments and fights. Add a typically luxurious set by John Lee Beatty and you've got yourself a pleasant evening out. And yes, that is faint praise.

At times the stage is so crowded that you're not sure where to look - David Rockwell's busy set, covered with dozens and dozens of framed pictures, doesn't help. But no matter where the eye wanders, something wacky is happening. It could be Julie Halston emerging from a drunken slumber. Or Ashford clumsily standing en pointe. Or Nielsen rolling her eyes as she lifts a (real live) kitten from her typing-paper supply. Clearly, too much of a good thing is just right.

Surprisingly, Farrow - who has considerably less stage experience than Dennehy - is the stronger. She looks slightly nerdy, as if she hasn't changed her eyeglasses since the 1980s, and still has a waifish, diffident presence. Yet she also easily handles Melissa's flip, seemingly insouciant personality, as when blithely dismissing one of her friend's letters: 'I guess you have a lot of interesting things to say, Andy, but some of them are not terribly interesting to me.' Granted, Melissa is more colorful - she goes through a greater variety of emotions, and has all the good lines. But Dennehy's Andy remains pretty much the same throughout, while Farrow subtly suggests the arc from child to teen to college student to grown woman.

Culkin and Cera are the indispensable yin and yang of this funny, touching production...Lonergan's portrait of young adults fumbling for purpose has lost some of its edge -- or maybe it was never that edgy to begin with. Yet under the sharp direction of Anna D. Shapiro ('August: Osage County') the actors are so in sync with the material and with each other that they lift up the show. Cera, in particular, is terrific at making Warren...more than a nerdy loser. Instead, the character comes across as smart but insecure, well-meaning but lost...Gevinson has only limited acting experience, but she's blessed with genuine presence...That we end up caring so much for her -- and Warren, and Dennis -- is why this show works so well. We just want to know the kids are all right.

What do you call a revival of a revival? A re-revival? In the case of this 'Cabaret,' you just call it fantastic.

The show, tightly directed by Joe Mantello, cruises through its first act, where Fierstein neatly balances pathos, killer one-liners -- 'I'm so pretty I should be set to music' -- and a battle of ideas after Charlotte reveals her agenda. Things bog down after intermission, when there are one too many earnest speeches and saintly Rita admits to an unease with her marriage. Still, the entire cast is a delight, making us empathize with the characters' plights, dreams and journeys. And it's especially fun to watch Birney -- a specialist of milquetoast characters -- play a villainess with a messiah complex. Paradise may be lost by the end, but it's quite a ride to see it go down.

Sometimes you wonder if there's anything Neil Patrick Harris can't do: He switches from 'How I Met Your Mother' to singing Sondheim on Broadway, directing a magic show to hosting any award ceremony you throw at him. And he makes it all look easy. Except, that is, Broadway's 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch,' in which he's working very hard -- and not just because he's onstage the entire show performing all of the songs. The strain we see is that of a show-tune guy trying on rock 'n' roll for size. That music's fury and danger don't come naturally to Harris, who fares a lot better in the show's more emotional scenes...Only when he finally clicks with the material -- as on the heartbreaking 'Wig in a Box,' about the process of becoming someone else -- is the show suddenly worth the effort he's poured into it.

Eric Coble's new Broadway play consists of the negotiation between Alexandra (Estelle Parsons, spry at 86) and her son Chris (Stephen Spinella), an aging hippie in an unfortunate ponytail and mustache who's trying to end the standoff. There's zero suspense as to whether our gray panther will blow up her prized piece of real estate because Coble and director Molly Smith are more interested in the bickering between mother and son. If only we felt the same.

Daniel Radcliffe is doing his darndest to put Harry Potter way, way behind him. On Broadway alone, he's played a mentally disturbed young man who strips naked and blinds horses ('Equus') and an ambitious schemer singing and dancing his way to the top of the corporate ladder ('How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying'). Now the star is contorting himself into a pretzel in 'The Cripple of Inishmaan,' a role he tops off with a thick Irish brogue.

You can't fault the likable cast, led by Santino Fontana ('Cinderella') as the young Hart, while Tony Shalhoub plays him as a middle-aged man reflecting back on his adventures. But splitting the part creates unnecessary distractions, especially since Shalhoub also plays Hart's father and his co-writer. He's highly amusing as the kooky, nitpicking Kaufman, but this doesn't take us far. And the invaluable Andrea Martin is underused despite handling three (small) roles, including Hart's eccentric, stage-crazed Aunt Kate.

There may be no more strikingly different debuts than the ones James Franco and Chris O'Dowd are making in 'Of Mice and Men.' As George, the wandering ranch hand in John Steinbeck's hard-luck 1930s California, Franco is all surface, never giving us any insight into what drives him - he's a very handsome blank.

On the one hand, we have Audra McDonald, poised and elegant - a classically trained soprano and five-time Tony winner. On the other, there's the raspy-voiced Billie Holiday, who lifted herself from the gutter to achieve fame as a jazz singer, only to crash out on drink and drugs. Talk about casting against type. And yet as soon as McDonald opens her mouth in Lanie Robertson's 'Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill,' it's Holiday we hear.

On the one hand, we have Audra McDonald, poised and elegant - a classically trained soprano and five-time Tony winner. On the other, there's the raspy-voiced Billie Holiday, who lifted herself from the gutter to achieve fame as a jazz singer, only to crash out on drink and drugs. Talk about casting against type. And yet as soon as McDonald opens her mouth in Lanie Robertson's 'Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill,' it's Holiday we hear.

Until now, his off-Broadway 'Thom Pain (based on nothing)' and 'The Open House,' among others, have shown him to be a wildly divisive writer: Some love his deadpan riffs on language; just as many find him glib and empty. Yet Sunday night, the Massachusetts native made his Broadway debut with 'The Realistic Joneses,' a dark comedy that's fairly accessible - for Eno (we're not talking Neil Simon here) - but won't settle the debate. The show starts off strong before running in circles, leaving you wondering what the point was, exactly.

'A Raisin in the Sun' endures for good reason. Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 play - the first by a black woman on Broadway - features several meaty roles and enough dramatic momentum to keep audiences on the edge of their seats. No wonder stars are drawn to this classic, even when they aren't necessarily right for it. Ten years ago, Sean Combs (a?k?a Puff Daddy) picked 'Raisin' for his Broadway debut.