Frank Scheck

Shit. Meet. Fan. (the title is really fun) proves entertaining thanks to many witty lines and the skillful comic performances of its ensemble, several of whom have honed their chops on hit television sitcoms. All of them do excellent work, with Messing practically stealing the show with her uproarious line readings, facial expressions and body language. And it all looks terrific, thanks not only to the highly attractive performers but also Clint Ramos’ elegant bi-level set design that will induce apartment envy.

Despite its title, Swept Away is not a musicalization of the classic Lina Wertmuller film (or its abysmal Madonna-starring American remake). Rather, the show featuring the songs of the popular band The Avett Brothers is a dark, fable-like tale, inspired by a real event, about the fateful aftermath of a shipwreck. It’s strong stuff, and hardly the sort of musical for tourists simply looking for a fun time. But this superbly staged and acted production exerts a powerful, hypnotic force that demands attention and respect.

Unfortunately, the play’s vaguely sci-fi aspects feel woefully underdeveloped, mainly serving as a flimsy springboard for the generic interpersonal dynamics among the trio, including the hint of an attraction between Cassie and Bryan and a revelation about a tragedy in Bryan’s recent past. Despite the occasionally trenchant dialogue and welcome doses of humor, neither the characterizations nor situations are developed sufficiently to hold our interest. Running a mere 90 minutes, Walden lacks the seismic punch to gets its points across quickly and would have benefited from a greater fleshing out.

They say that a writer should write what they know. But in Delia Ephron’s case the advice may be a bit too on-the-nose. Left on Tenth, her new Broadway play based on her best-selling memoir, relates such life-changing events as the death of her first husband, her improbable late-in-life romance, and her battle with a rare form of cancer that almost killed her. By the end of the evening, you’ll have come to very much like Delia Ephron. The play, not so much.

All of that said, the evening is certainly not boring. You can’t take your eyes off Scherzinger, miscast as she is, even if her performance at times makes kabuki theater look subtle. She plays nearly every scene like Swanson’s climactic “I’m ready for my close-up” moment in the film, and though the overall effect ultimately proves exhausting (for both performer and audience) she’s hypnotic from first moment to last. And she sings the hell out of the two showstoppers “With One Look” and “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” even with their tempos slowed down to a dirge.

The poster for the new show by Australian comedian/monologist Hannah Gadsby features the performer without their trademark geeky spectacles. Yet the glasses are back on when Gadsby appears onstage at the Abrons Art Center. If you want to know the reason why, you’ll just have to see Woof!, which represents the performer’s loosest, funniest outing yet.

Star power is not to be underestimated. Not only can it bring in audiences who may not normally attend new Broadway plays, it can also infuse a problematic work with a gravitas it might not normally possess. Such is the case with Lincoln Center Theater’s production of the new drama by Ayad Akhtar (Disgraced, The Invisible Hand) that touches on such themes as artificial intelligence, plagiarism, and writerly inspiration without really coming to grips with any of them. But it doesn’t matter, thanks to the presence of Robert Downey Jr. in the title role. Downey, who recently won an Oscar for the film Oppenheimer and is here making his stage debut, brings such charisma and magnetism to McNeal that it’s easy to overlook the play’s flaws.

Despite the fine efforts of the performers and solid production values including music by an overqualified David Yazbek, The Roommate, running 100 minutes without an intermission, always feels predictable despite its procession of narrative surprises designed for easy laughs. But that’s no reason not to take advantage of the unique opportunity to watch Farrow and LuPone play off each other with the expert comic timing of seasoned vaudevillians.

You can skip the gym the day you take in the new show from Emursive, the enterprising theater company behind the long-running (more than twelve years) immersive show Sleep No More. For their newest production, they’ve pulled out the stops, providing an experience that, if it can’t quite be described as theater, is certainly…something. Bigger, more lavish and clearly more ambitious than Sleep No More, Life and Trust is also something of an endurance contest, lasting three hours and taking place on six floors of a financial district skyscraper. By the time you’ve finished attempting to follow its thirty characters involved in 250 overlapping scenes, you’ll have more than put in your steps.

For all the effective stagecraft on display, however, Job (even the title, which many people will assume refers to the Old Testament book, is deliberately confusing) mainly smacks of gimmickry. It’s a psychological thriller that relies too heavily on cheap thrills.

Under the straightforward direction of Diane Paulus, the two actresses deliver sterling performances, with the veteran Taylor milking every bit of humor from N’s sardonic asides and Villafañe capturing A’s fervent idealism. If N/A ultimately doesn’t have the thematic depth or resonance to make it a truly great play, it provides a vivid reminder that the art of politics can actually consist of more than mere name calling.

One of the problems with the play, which never seems to find a consistent tone or narrative coherence. Periodically throughout the lighthearted interactions among the characters, Marina experiences memories of past traumas, conveyed by the sound of numerous loud explosions that might induce PTSD in audience members as well. There are also flashbacks to her wartime experiences, including a sad encounter with a refugee (also played by Halston.) More confusingly, some scenes are repeated, as if Marina is suffering from déjà vu, and others feature characters talking about her as if she wasn’t there, to which she reacts with understandable annoyance. Later on, yet another character briefly appears: Fed (a dashing Matthew Saldivar), Marina’s ex-husband and fellow war correspondent who now wants her back.

Kenny Leon’s bare-bones staging fails to deliver much in the way of vibrant theatricality, making the intimate play feel somewhat lost in the Todd Haimes Theatre. There’s not much visual stimulation either, with set designer Arnulfo Maldonado providing little more than backdrops depicting a field of corn and an urban landscape, the latter accompanied by a fire escape. Dede Ayite’s costumes and Allen Lee Hughes’ warm lighting design can’t be faulted, however.

Directed by Ashley Brooke Monroe in a manner that expertly navigates the play’s tightrope-walking balancing act between raucous laughs and poignant emotion, All of Me makes you laugh uproariously one moment and gives you a lump in your throat the next.

Under the direction of Tina Landau, Keenan-Bolger and Parsons are predictably fine in their roles, even if they’re not being stretched much. But it’s Lange who commands the evening, displaying the sort of star power and stage command that make her a Broadway diva. Just the sight of her in various outfits, including ‘60s-era hippie denim, is a pleasure, and it’s worth the price of admission to see her launch into disco dancing (the audience, predictably, goes wild). She’s even given a lengthy silent, solo interlude in which she listens to music, has a drink, smokes, and attempts to eat a frozen meal that’s made no less unpalatable by generous doses of hot sauce. Other than conveying the character’s loneliness in her older years, the scene doesn’t have much reason for being. But as brilliantly played by Lange, it’s an acting lesson that every budding thespian should study.

Anne Kaufman, repeating her staging from the play’s earlier NYC incarnation at New York Theatre Workshop, has delivered a beautifully calibrated production that expertly mines its subtleties. Featuring little blatant theatricality other than a stunning scene change (courtesy of Lael Jellinek), it features superb performances from its five-woman ensemble, all but the lead actress playing dual roles. McAdams, like so many film or television performers new to the stage, has difficulty with her vocal projection, making some lines unintelligible. But she’s such a warm, winning presence that your heart instantly goes out to her character who, somehow in the face of her anguish, achieves something akin to a state of grace.

But throughout the play’s lengthy running time, Morgan delivers the sort of brilliantly observed characterizations at which he excels. In Stuhlbarg’s wildly entertaining, outsized performance, Berezovsky emerges a man who deeply loves both his country and his extravagant lifestyle, complete with nubile young girlfriends and Caribbean fishing vacations. He becomes deeply outraged by his protégé’s betrayal, not only on personal terms but also because he sees that Putin is taking his country back to the past.

As for the show itself (I know, it almost seems like an afterthought), it has been given an undeniably powerful if somewhat imperfect staging. Among its chief strengths are its lead performances, or at least most of them, with Eddie Redmayne repeating his Olivier Award-winning performance (at least through early September) as the leering Emcee. He’s not quite as menacing as Alan Cumming in the Mendes production, at times seeming fragile and almost adorable. But the actor is certainly mesmerizing, using his angular physicality and androgynous looks to tremendous effect and employing his natural charisma to such a degree that you can’t take your eyes off him. During many dramatic scenes involving the other characters he silently lurks at the edge of the stage, doing nothing but making it seem like everything.

Watching the new Broadway musical The Outsiders, it’s hard to shake the feeling that you’ve seen it all before. It’s not just because of the source material, including both S.E. Hinton’s classic YA novel and Francis Coppola’s 1983 film adaptation featuring a slew of young Hollywood hunks. It’s also because the show inevitably recalls West Side Story in its tale of warring youth gangs and a star-crossed romance (not to mention, of course, Romeo and Juliet) and, in its exuberantly choreographed dances featuring athletic young performers, Newsies. This musical adaptation, featuring a book by Adam Rapp and Justin Levine and a score by Levin and Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance (better known as the band Jamestown Revival) proves a perfectly respectable effort with many laudable elements. What it mostly seems to lack is a reason for being.

There’s a lot to take in at the new musical based on Sara Gruen’s best-selling novel (which has already inspired a 2011 film). The show features a melodramatic storyline set amidst a Depression-era traveling circus, puppetry, and numerous circus acts including aerial work, juggling, acrobatics, knife throwing, and even a clown routine. It would be nice to report that all of these elements have blended together to create a magical musical theater experience, but Water for Elephants feels more clunky than transporting. There are many things about it to enjoy, but it falls far short of being the greatest show on earth.

In this rendition of the play, when Stockmann vainly attempts to warn the citizens of the water’s danger at the town meeting they attack him by throwing bucketloads of ice cubes on him. In the next scene, it’s left to poor Jeremy Strong to painstakingly assemble the cubes into a neat pile. The actor’s cleaning up serves as a metaphor for a production so messy and ill-conceived it makes you wonder how the play has endured for nearly 150 years.

Lloyd only emphasizes the play’s weaknesses with his sterile production that makes you feel like you’re observing lab rats from a distance. The actors’ voices are loudly amplified, making even their most intimate dialogue sound ring announcements at a boxing match. The sound and lighting effects, including portions of the stage floor lighting up strategically, are so emphatic that you expect a white-suited John Travolta to strut onto the stage and dance. You get the feeling that if the director had his way, he’d be wiring up audience members with sensors to gauge their reactions.

Corruption doesn’t succeed as fully as Oslo because it’s a more complex, elongated story featuring so many characters that nearly every cast member, with the exceptions of Stephens and Burrows, play multiple roles. It’s sometimes hard to keep track of who’s who without a scorecard, and those not paying very close attention may find it difficult to keep up. (It would have been helpful if a guide to the figures involved had been included in the program). But even if you only have a cursory knowledge of the real-life events, the play proves gripping thanks to the playwright’s ability to craft sharp dialogue that proves both informative and propulsive.

There have been many dance theater pieces inspired by pop artists, but few carry the sweeping emotional heft of Illinoise. Justin Peck’s dance production based on Sufjan’s Stevens’ critically acclaimed 2005 album is now receiving its New York City premiere at the Park Avenue Armory after buzzy runs at the Fisher Center at Bard and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. If the rapturous audience response for this limited engagement is any indication, this won’t be its last stop.

It’s not often that you leave a play wanting more. But that’s exactly the case with the new romantic dramedy by John Patrick Shanley receiving its world premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club. Depicting the rocky courtship of two damaged souls grasping for what they perceive may be a final chance at love, Brooklyn Laundry proves as frustrating as it is charming. But Shanley — who’s proven his expertise at off-kilter rom-coms with such past efforts as Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Outside Mullingar, and the screenplay for Moonstruck — delivers the memorable characterizations and witty dialogue we’ve come to expect, and the romantic chemistry of leads David Zayas and Cecily Strong is off the charts.