Frank Scheck — Theater Critic

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.

The endlessly raunchy Let’s Love! revels in its own outrageousness, feeling like an evening of Playboy magazine cartoons come to life. It’s funny as hell, but you’ll feel the need to take a shower afterwards.

There are some plays which foster such a degree of intimacy that you feel like you’re eavesdropping on private interactions rather than watching a performance. Such is the case with Preston Max Allen’s drama receiving its world premiere at MCC Theater. Depicting the interactions between a young mother, her precocious 9-year-old child, and the child’s grandmother, Caroline is the sort of small-scale family drama that packs a big emotional punch.

Punch dramatizes the circumstances surrounding the fateful moment when a drunk and stoned 19-year-old Dunne, itching for a fight, accidentally killed a man with one punch. The play delivers a message of forgiveness that we desperately need right now.

Ultimately, it’s the intimacy of the environment that makes Masquerade such a special experience. You’re just a few feet away from the performers as they sing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s gorgeous score, and it’s safe to say you haven’t lived until you’ve had a performer of the caliber of Hugh Panaro singing “Music of the Night” to you directly, just inches from your face. It’s enough to make anyone a Phan.

The actors manage to hold their own, although their lack of seasoned stage chops is made more evident by the excellent supporting turns from theatrical veterans Brandon J. Dirden, mesmerizing as a Southern-accented Pozzo, and Michael Patrick Thornton, arresting as a wheelchair-bound Lucky. Reeves has always projected a certain spacey, ethereal quality in his persona which works well for his Estragon, while the hangdog Winter effectively conveys an air of pathos as Vladimir. But they don’t come close to truly conveying the characters’ existential despair, nor their vaudevillian-style clowning. To compensate, Lloyd has them frequently sliding up and down the sloping walls of the set, like children at a playground, to garner cheap laughs.

There’s still work to be done, especially in terms of tightening and focusing, on the show which clearly has aspirations beyond off-Broadway. And if Cardasis and Ijames can reduce the material of some of its feel-good cliches, Saturday Church just might get there.

The three performers mesh together beautifully, with Harris providing just the right haughty snobbishness, Cannavale making comic exasperation into an art form, and Corden so lovable and vulnerable you can almost forget how nasty he can be to waiters in real life. Ellis keeps the proceedings moving like a Swiss watch, the precision of his staging well matched by David Rockwell chic set, Linda Cho’s casually elegant costumes, Jen Schriever’s modernistic lighting design, and Kid Harpoon’s subtle music score.

The large ensemble handle their versatile chores expertly, and generally look fabulous. And Newton anchors the proceedings with his obviously deeply felt performance in which he makes clear McQueen’s inner demons. “Money isn’t important,” the fashion designer insists early in the play. “All I want to do is fix ugliness.” House of McQueen makes clear, however imperfectly, how he couldn’t fix himself.

Late in the show, Ross wanders out into the audience, cracking hilariously insulting jokes to good-natured audience members who eat it all up. It reminded us why he made it to Broadway in the first place. We came to see his inner Don Rickles, not to hear the sort of maudlin confessional of which far too many bestselling memoirs are made.

McGovern delivers a capable performance, laced with dark humor, with Gardner flirting provocatively with her interviewer and reflecting ruefully on the failed relationships in her life… But she’s never quite convincing as the legendary beauty, and the writing… fails to provide much depth or illumination.

Dramatically, the show feels comparatively undernourished as we’re introduced to soldiers Johnny (Drew Becker), Thomas (Justin Matthew Sargent), Andy (Daniel Yearwood) and Mike (Deon’te Goodman, who also plays several other roles). The characters, who speak via monologues and readings from letters, are defined in the thinnest of terms.

Unfortunately, the show isn’t just one act but rather two, its second half completely squandering its theatrical momentum with a descent into narrative hokiness. Despite a terrific performance by Betsy Wolfe in the title role, the awkwardly titled Joy: A New True Musical needs some serious mopping up.

The play, originally presented at the 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, skewers and satirizes the ideas that Roger is parroting, and the manner in which he absorbed them, with copious amounts of humor. Most cannily, Skinner makes Roger sympathetic, even likable, rather than obviously loathsome. The casting of Krasinski is a masterstroke, with the actor’s inherent charm and warm appeal fascinatingly contrasting with the frequently loathsome ideas his character is expressing. Addressing us in the same folky, self-deprecating manner as he did playing Jim Halpert in The Office, the actor instantly has the audience on his side, providing an uncomfortable tension to the proceedings.

Neither the play’s characterizations nor dialogue achieve the complexity of Margulies’ best works, and it all feels a little too neat in its set-up. But despite its schematic elements, Lunar Eclipse proves poignantly moving nonetheless thanks to its dramatic restraint and Kate Whoriskey’s pitch-perfect direction. Birney and Emery, who have long graced our stages, deliver impeccable work, never hitting a wrong emotional note and making us fully empathize with their characters — especially in a heartbreaking coda that depicts them at a very early stage in their relationship, getting together in the same field to witness a blood moon. Their superb work is abetted by the wonderful design elements including Grace McLean’s affecting music, Walt Spangler’s evocative set design, and Amith Chandrashaker’s lighting that gorgeously conveys every stage of that lunar eclipse.

That blunt messaging proves endemic throughout the 90-minute show, resulting in a serious bummer of an evening. Which is why, when Cole and Sammy Davis Jr. (a tremendous Daniel J. Watts) engage in a fabulous tap-dancing duet, choreographed by Jared Grimes, on “Me and My Shadow,” the joy of their terpsichorean skills provides a badly needed lift and becomes the highlight of the show. (It doesn’t help that the Davis character, who acts as a sort of Greek chorus, is so dynamic compared to the glum Cole that you wish you were watching an entire show about him instead.)

The ensuing affair, complete with liaisons in cheap hotel rooms and the inside of Jon’s car, proves predictable in its complications, feeling very much like any number of dramas revolving around imbalanced sexual relationships. It’s only as the play progresses that it becomes something more original and interesting, with the power dynamics and eventually even the perspective shifting. That the playwright is a woman telling the tale from a man’s point of view provides a clue as to what makes Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes so distinctive, if not particularly weighty.

It’s the staging and the star’s performance that truly elevate the evening, however. Alex Timbers’ limber, imaginative direction uses the space fantastically, with a large stage at one end of the theater providing enough room for a terrific big band, another smaller one at the opposite side for more intimate interludes, and cabaret tables in the middle. Groff works the room like nobody’s business, going from one end to the other, wandering into the aisles, and, at one point, standing atop one of the small tables which magically starts spinning. It’s no wonder that he apologizes in advance for the profusion of his sweat and saliva that frequently soaks audience members in the best seats, bringing an all too literal meaning to “Splish Splash.”

Providing just around two hours of silly joy, Pirates! The Penzance Musical would make Gilbert and Sullivan proud. They might object to some of the changes, but they would surely approve of the pleasure it’s providing to modern-day audiences.