Frank Scheck

Mantello’s staging is largely traditional and respectful, but it gives the play a more dreamlike, cinematic feel than usual. More than any previous Salesman I’ve seen, this rendition truly seems to be taking place in Willy’s fragmented mind, with Chloe Lamford’s set design suggesting a massive, dilapidated garage (the numerous pillars, though, seem unnecessary). Besides a few pieces of furniture here and there, the main scenic element is the full-size car that Willy drives on in the opening scene and drives off for his final fateful excursion.

Gina Gionfriddo’s 2008 class-conscious satire receives a pitch-perfect revival in the new Broadway production directed by Trip Cullman for Second Stage Theater. With its expert cast firing on all cylinders, the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Becky Shaw sends laughter rocketing throughout the audience with its scathing portrayal of social mores being blown to smithereens.

Director Rupert Goold (Tammy Faye, Patriots, Ink) strains to infuse the proceedings with theatricality via such devices as having policeman stride down the theater’s aisles aiming guns at the stage. The high point, as you might expect, is the iconic scene in which Sonny exits the bank and screams “Attica! Attica!” at the crowd. In this case, the audience serves as the onlookers, even shouting back at Bernthal as if they were at a Mamma Mia! Sing-along.

The play’s depiction of Capote doesn’t dig particularly deep, not offering much to those unfamiliar with the author’s literary output other than a colorful portrait of an eccentric figure in tragic decline. But it remains an engaging theatrical experience thanks to the vivid writing, much of it taken directly from Capote himself, and for the opportunity it provides for its performer. Ferguson makes the most of it, delivering a wonderfully entertaining portrayal that benefits greatly from the close proximity of the audience numbering less than a hundred. Restlessly wandering around the large room and often addressing people directly, the actor makes you feel as if you’re a treasured houseguest, even if he does take care to remove a supposedly valuable knickknack that might prove too tempting.

But the quibbles hardly matter considering Lithgow’s towering performance, which blends warmth and ugliness in fascinating fashion. The veteran actor, now 80 years old, has never been better, providing such a compelling central figure that, despite the fine performances by the rest of the ensemble, Giant sometimes has the feel of a one-person play.

By the end of the funny and moving evening, you’ll probably be thinking of your own ideas to add to the list of things for which life is worth living. And right near the top should be Every Brilliant Thing.

It’s all a bit much, honestly, with the playwright not fully successful in getting all of her fantastical, Boris & Natasha-style plot elements across. But thanks in large part to the inventive direction by Knud Adams (English), the witty, farcical play proves consistently amusing even while making serious points about such things as 80’s-era Cold War politics and divisions within the Black community.

What We Did Before Our Moth Days would probably benefit from some cutting of its overlong running time. And it’s hard to imagine it having the same effectiveness if performed by lesser actors or presented in a less intimate theater. The play certainly doesn’t have the thematic heft of such Shawn classics as The Designated Mourner or Aunt Dan and Lemon. But even minor Shawn is of major interest.

The Reservoir suffers from both its excessive jokiness and overfamiliarity, redeemed mainly by Shelley Butler’s clever staging and the performances of its ensemble. Galvin expertly handles both the comedic and tragic aspects of his character and Armbruster and Saldivar do fine work in numerous roles. But it’s the four old pros onstage who truly shine, with Aaron stealing the show as the sardonic Beverly who’s younger than her years. Unfortunately, those veteran performers are not playing characters so much as archetypes in a play that purports to deal with serious issues but never gets beneath the surface.

It’s a shame, because Kauffman has provided a first-rate staging that easily handles the play’s stylistic diversions, and Shawkat, so amusing in such sitcoms as Arrested Development and Search Party, makes us acutely aware of her character’s emotional pain while mining laughs in the process. It’s not enough to prevent the evening from succumbing to its ambitions. By the time You Get Older ends, you’ll feel older.

That’s thankfully not the case with The Unknown, receiving its world premiere at Off-Broadway’s Studio Seaview. Starring Sean Hayes, this endlessly tricky solo drama by David Cale is less a confessional monologue than a scarily gothic tale of shifting identities. It’s the rare one-person play that you can imagine as a fully fleshed-out film, perhaps directed by Brian De Palma.

You can feel playwright Alexander Zeldin’s struggling with his new play “inspired by” by Sophocles’ Antigone. Yes, The Other Place borrows an important plot element from that ancient Greek tragedy, namely a conflict revolving around the conflict over where to place someone’s remains. And just to keep us on our toes, it throws in another significant narrative device from Sophocles, one that won’t be revealed here. Ultimately, however, The Other Place feels like yet another dysfunctional family drama, albeit one blown up to semi-mystical proportions. None of it feels particularly convincing, but thanks to the superb performances and the playwright’s riveting staging you’re mesmerized for every one of its concise 80 minutes.

Scott Pask’s minimal set design serves the abstract narrative well, while Stacey Derosier’s lighting and Brian Hickey’s sound design and music are integral to the proceedings. Blackout Songs proves a bit repetitive at times and probably would benefit from some paring of its 95-minute running time. But there’s no denying that it packs a powerful punch.

Ultimately the play, directed by Sarah Frankcom, proves more serviceable than profound, but it works effectively in the unique format. First, for no apparent reason, you’re asked to take off your shoes (the venue had the same requirement for their recent immersive production Viola’s Room, making you think that someone there has a foot fetish). Then you take a chair in a large, carpeted space adorned with a huge white orb on the ceiling, and are outfitted with the headset that fits snugly on your noggin. Wearing glasses with it on would prove virtually impossible, but not to worry; corrective lenses can be inserted. It’s like a trip to the optometrist!

It’s frustrating trying to get a handle on the new play by Erica Schmidt at the Minetta Lane Theatre. And there’s good reason for that: the playwright doesn’t seem to a handle on it herself. The work deals with serious themes, almost more than it can handle, while attempting to be the sort of broad comedy that Charles Busch might come up with. Not much of it makes sense, either narratively or thematically, but it’s a lot of fun along the way thanks to the clever writing and terrific performances.

When Bug was first seen Off-Broadway in 2004, it seemed prescient in its portrayal of mental illness and conspiracy theories. Now — after the world has gone collectively crazy with wacky notions about COVID, pedophile rings, vaccines, and 5G, among countless other things — Tracy Letts’ play practically feels quaint. Receiving its Broadway premiere in a Manhattan Theatre Club production in association with Steppenwolf Theatre Company, it nonetheless remains a grippingly unnerving thriller that feels like a waking nightmare.

More problematically, Williams doesn’t bring the necessary intensity to the role of a young, hard-edged prostitute who falls in love with Mat Burke (Tom Sturridge), a shipwrecked Irish stoker who literally emerges from the sea. In her opening scene, when she walks into a waterfront saloon and utters the immortal lines “Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side…and don’t be stingy, baby!” she might as well be a teenager ordering an ice cream soda. Although she’s done fine work onstage in Cabaret and Blackbird (she received a Tony Award nomination for the latter), her performance here feels tenuous, lacking the magnetism that would draw us into her character.

It also seems sharper, more resonant, and more deeply poignant in the current Broadway revival once again directed by Anne Kaufman. Partly this is due to its first-rate cast including June Squibb, miraculously still treading the boards at age 96. And on a personal note, perhaps it’s also due to my having experienced personal losses in the last decade that made the play hit home in a more profound way.

Squibb is the marquee draw, proving once again that she’s become a national treasure (check out her wonderful performance in the recent film Eleanor the Great). She doesn’t miss a beat onstage, displaying the engaging feistiness of her screen persona but also conveying the pain of someone painfully aware of her physical and mental decline. She’s funny as well, delivering her lines with well-honed comic timing. And her sotto voce rendition of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” is worth the ticket price itself.

There are plenty of quibbles to be made about Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York). It drags at times, and its two-and-a-quarter hour running time could easily be cut to an intermissonless 90 or 100 minutes. The plotting occasionally proves murky and less than convincing, and it’s more effective in its comic than emotional beats. But no matter. This is a show so charming, so adorable, that you can easily overlook its flaws. A little bit like falling in love.

It’s still fun to watch. How could it not be, with Hanks and O’Hara onstage? But the convoluted storyline — reminiscent of such time-travel stories as the film Somewhere in Time and the classic Star Trek episode The City on the Edge of Forever — never fully comes to life.

Ickes’ staging mainly proves powerful throughout, from the digital clock in the background that counts down the time, not only to the election results but also the revelation of the truth that shatters the characters’ lives (unity of time, don’t you know), to such visual devices as having a team of workmen gradually stripping the office of its furniture, mirroring the losses they endure.

Unfortunately, we have to stick with what we’ve been given, which is an evening of illusions large and small as performed by Lake, whose chief claim to fame seems to be having been a finalist on America’s Got Talent (the longer television competition shows go on, the more we’re going to see their alumni on our stages).

It all plays like a darkly comedic thriller, showing us how the diplomatic sausage is made that ultimately affects our very existence on the planet. Although there are occasional longueurs and scenes that feel more convoluted than necessary, the production proves so energetic and fast-paced that they don’t matter. This is the sort of evening in which one of the most exciting scenes features nothing more than two characters shouting adjectives at each other in a sort of linguistic duel to the death.

As if to convey the smallness of the characters’ world, Scott Pask’s set design consists of nothing more than the oversized couch and a gray circular rug, even when the scene shifts to the bar in which Ethan and James meet. At first it feels constraining. But when a drama features characters this vividly drawn, sometimes that’s all the scenery you need.