Elysa Gardner

For Carrie, played in the new Broadway revival (*** out of four) by a sparkling Cicely Tyson, Bountiful has become almost as mythic - a place she wants to revisit before receiving her greater reward. Standing in her way are her now middle-aged child, Ludie, and his self-serving wife, Jessie Mae, played by Cuba Gooding Jr. and Vanessa Williams. Ludie, struggling financially, frets about Carrie, while Jessie Mae frets about her mother-in-law's pension checks, which have been helping her sustain a modest but indulgent lifestyle.

Still, for anyone who's curious about its subject -- believers and non-believers alike --Testament offers an intriguing, and deeply compassionate, account.

In general, though, this minimalist Macbeth is more technically impressive than it is emotionally potent.

Alas, a few glimpses of unfettered emotion cannot sustain a two-hour-plus parade of shrill melodrama. But if the latter is more your thing anyway, you're in luck.

It's a shame that it took 30 years to bring this briskly entertaining, deeply affecting play to Broadway; but at least Orphans has arrived in good hands.

...appearances can be deceiving in Richard Greenberg's endearing new play...By the time Act Two unfolds -- 20 years later, in the same apartment -- we have learned that these folks are all vulnerable to bad choices, the whims of fortune and the simple passing of time. That is Parties' bittersweet lesson; and in this Manhattan Theatre Club production, it is reinforced with warmth and wit by a seasoned cast nimbly directed by Lynne Meadow and led by Jessica Hecht, Judith Light and Jeremy Shamos as, respectively, Julie, Faye and Jeff, the most prominent and vivid characters...Hecht's artfully quirky performance makes it clear that Julie is both sharper and sadder than she lets on, while Light mines the gutsy fortitude behind Faye's whining.

In Knife, Tinseltown and its studio system at that time are presented as particularly egregious representatives of the dark forces of commerce to which such strivers can fall prey. Now in revival (* * 1/2 out of four) at the Roundabout Theatre Company's American Airlines Theatre, where it opened Tuesday, the play explores the dilemma of Charlie Castle, a promising stage actor-turned dissatisfied movie star married to a woman, Marion, who still loves him but hates what their life has become.

No living stage actor can make an audience laugh more adroitly than Nathan Lane. His wry line shadings, priceless expressions and expertly timed pauses have produced some of Broadway's funniest moments in recent decades. So it's happy news that Douglas Carter Beane's The Nance ( * * * out of four), which opened Monday at the Lyceum Theatre, offers Lane the juiciest role that he has had since 2001's The Producers. Here he's cast as Chauncey Miles, a burlesque performer who deals in naughty gags and racy double entendre and whose wit proves just as sharp, if more dry, offstage.

It's when the music stops that things get awkward. Gordy's book is thwarted not so much by his egotism - which is at least honest, and mitigated somewhat by self-effacing jokes - as his banality. Played by the excellent Brandon Victor Dixon, Gordy reflects on his struggles and triumphs, and dispenses advice, with a ham-handed earnestness that can suggest a speech to business students or self-help book more than a human being expressing himself.

The U.K.-based Matilda the Musical (***½ out of four stars), which opened Thursday at the Shubert Theatre, is the smartest musical to arrive on Broadway in years - and its creators never let you forget that. There's a distinctly British self-consciousness to acclaimed playwright Dennis Kelly and comedian/musician Tim Minchin's adaptation of Roald Dahl's beloved children's novel, a critical and commercial smash in London.

The musical highlights are the more boisterous numbers, where Lauper imbues textures lifted from the Motown and disco eras with a sizzling theatricality that's bound to put a little more spring in your step and cheer in your heart. Even if you're just wearing flats.

The actor whose name sits above the marquee proves equally adroit. McAlary, whose columns could be as unsparing on alleged crime victims as they were on rogue cops, made his share of professional and personal missteps; and Hanks shows us his capacity for arrogance and recklessness. But the actor also makes McAlary's human fallibility part of his appeal, bringing to the role a crustier version of the unmannered charm that made Hanks one of Hollywood's most likable leading men. That's a key asset here, as something like it surely helped McAlary form the regular-guy bonds that fed his biggest scoops.

Indeed, it's seldom the case that an original musical can list its score among its biggest assets; but co-composers Anastasio, a founding member of the genre-bending rock band Phish, and Green have crafted some infectious and even moving numbers. Veering from funk grooves to country twang, from gospel-kissed production numbers to catchy power ballads, the songs can border on the banal, but they rarely bore.

Don't be deceived by the dazzling zaniness of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. In Christopher Durang's hugely entertaining new play, which opened Thursday at Broadway's Golden Theatre, there's a perilously fine line between comedy and tragedy.

The new production of Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella (* * * 1/2 out of four) that opened Sunday at the Broadway Theatre finds Osnes less surprisingly cast, but just as beguiling. The musical, appearing on the Great White Way for the first time, began its life as a 1957 TV movie starring Julie Andrews -- leaving the current star with a pretty big pair of glass slippers to fill.

Richards is treated, in other words, much like a sitcom character. Her notable achievements are alluded to -- revitalizing the local economy, reforming the prison system, championing civil and reproductive rights -- but in ways that are both simplistic and pedantic. There's also something slightly patronizing about all the 'y'all's and 'yegods' with which Taylor -- a Yankee, as she admits in her author's notes -- litters her speech.

Johansson's Maggie is no vamp. What makes her so distinct from View's Catherine -- aside from her accent (Southern, as opposed to Brooklyn) and hair color (strawberry blonde rather than brunette) -- is a certain premature hardness. Pacing the stage, her voice hoarse with frustration, the actress makes us keenly aware of how desperate this beautiful creature is as she appeals to the one man she needs, and possibly loves: her husband, Brick. Seduction is not the first thing on her mind; survival is.

Juliana's seeming deterioration and her struggle to come to terms with it raise intriguing questions about our emotional and intellectual autonomy; and director Joe Mantello, who initially helmed the play off-Broadway last year, guides his fine cast with sensitivity and wit. Metcalf, who earned an Obie Award in that earlier production, gives a performance as impressive for its elegance as it is for its fearlessness. Even in Juliana's most lost, desperate moments, we're aware of her native mental agility and her fierce pride, which make her painful journey all the more poignant.

It's not every day that you get to see such top-notch performers play hardball onstage, and their flashes of electricity sustain this imperfect Glengarry.

Numrich's riveting performance as Joe Bonaparte -- a violinist who sells his sensitive, artistic soul for a glamorous and lucrative boxing career -- is only one feature that makes this Lincoln Center Theater staging of Clifford Odets' 1937 play a must-see. Director Barlett Sher, who has helmed superb productions of American classics ranging from South Pacific to Joe Turner's Come And Gone, has once again compiled a first-rate cast and captured the excitement and emotional resonance that make such works timeless.

Anarchist, which opened Sunday at the Golden Theatre, never explicitly tells us where Cathy is coming from as she makes her case to the one other person on stage: a prison official named Ann, played by Debra Winger, who will decide whether Cathy has earned her freedom. But for an intense, provocative 70 minutes, Mamet, who also directed the production, and LuPone keep us guessing.

But would A Christmas Story: The Musical (* * * out of four) live up to the memories and expectations of those who had loved the movie -- and fans of Jean Shepherd, the writer and radio personality whose semi-autobiographical accounts of small-town life inspired it? The answer, based on audience reaction at a recent preview at Broadway's Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, where the musical opened Monday, is a resounding yes.

But Scandalous — which features a fine cast led by stage veteran Carolee Carmello and vigorously directed by David Armstrong — has many lighter, brighter moments, as well as something rarer in contemporary musicals: the courage of its sincerity. Gifford and co-composers David Pomeranz and David Friedman have crafted a two-hour-plus journey that neither wallows in its self-importance nor looks down its nose at the quaint folks it chronicles.

For all the under-served talent in Broadway's The Performers (* *½ out of four), the production boasts one indisputable stroke of casting genius. In David West Read's new play, which opened Wednesday at the Longacre Theatre, Henry Winkler appears as Chuck Wood, an aging porn star given to crowing about his, um, sizable credentials. Thus the actor who, as Fonzie on the '70s TV smash Happy Days, defined effortless cool for a generation of pre-adolescents turns up as a has-been stud trying way too hard to sustain his youthful glory.'

In the end, it's up to the leading lady to ensure that we care about Catherine, rather than seeing her as a distressed damsel in a quaint melodrama. And Chastain gives her a forbearance and dignity that blossoms even after her frail glow seems in danger of being extinguished. It's a nuanced, compassionate performance that bodes well for the actress' future, on stage and off.