Greg Evans

But whatever its faults and near-misses, Ragtime has always been, like its ’90s contemporaries Titanic and Parade, an opportunity for rediscovery. DeBessonet takes the challenge and wins, rescuing a near-classic from the excesses of the 1990s to prove, once and for all, that Ragtime, imperfect as it may be, deserves a place among the most significant musical theater achievements of that decade.

Still, Punch doesn’t lack power, and that in large part is due to a fine cast. Playing on a mostly bare stage over which an arched bridge bares witness to all, Harrison (Daisy Jones and the Six, A Complete Unknown) convincingly morphs from dangerous, out-of-control terror to hollowed-out shell and, finally, a man who only gradually begins to take responsibility for himself. It’s a tremendously affecting performance.

As for the acting, there’s little doubt that Winter is the most natural (and more experienced) stage actor of the two, more versatile and, when necessary, capable to drawing real pathos from this grim, gorgeous work of art. You believe his every changing mood. Reeves, as they say, is Reeves, an exceedingly charming actor who projects more than he acts but always seems to have full control of an audiences’ attention (and affection). Yes, even when he seems to be trying too hard to be stentorian or angry or carrying out a bit of slapstick tantrum, he has us rooting for him.

Director Scott Ellis seems to know when to let his talented cast enjoy themselves, and if the pacing in the first half-hour or so feels a bit sluggish, well, that’s mostly on the playwright. The play’s conceits – about modern art, about interpersonal resentments, about something that might nowadays be called toxic masculinity – just don’t seem as novel as they might once have. As Art‘s three buddies set up their impending conflict, we know exactly where they’re heading. This production eventually rewards our patience, even if we sometimes wish for quicker brushstrokes.

The ninth-longest running Broadway show of all time, Mamma Mia! ran for 14 years at the Winter Garden following its opening shortly after the Towers fell. This touring production’s stop at the Garden has all the makings of a homecoming, and it’s a strenuously joyous one.

As grim as all this sounds – and the lighting design by Donald Holder and sound design by Beth Lake never let us forget Izzy’s captivity – Smart draws us in with an amazing grace and good humor that in real life would make for fine best friend material. No, she never dismisses the pain that underscores her existence, and when good things happen – she makes a friend in the trailer park, who encourages her to come along to an adult literature class at the local college, and to get a library card in secret that serves as a passport for imagination – we know the risk, but knowing doesn’t prepare us for the shocking “whack” that Smart verbalizes when the cruel husband learns at least one of her secrets.

But most impressive is what Durand and the entire production achieve in insisting on dignity for even the briefest and most unremarkable of lives. As absurd as true life, as macabre as a freak show, as blunt as a bullet to the gut, Dead Outlaw also manages to afford Elmer McCurdy something better than dignity, it offers remembrance. Yes, he’s dead. But so’s your mama, and so’s Abe Lincoln, and so’s Balzac, and so’s Anne Frank, and, inevitably, so are you. Say the names.

Unfortunately, there are too few other moments in Real Woman Have Curves that soar like that, that deliver the joy and delight of shaking off the many worries and fears that burden these eight women 24/7. Based on the same-named play and subsequent HBO movie, the musical set in 1987 focuses on the eight friends and coworkers who sew dresses in a small, hidden warehouse space, with all but one of the women – young Ana – undocumented. The Reagan era amnesty program, with its length-of-time requirements and insistence on records clean of even a driving ticket, seems to offer scant promise.

Early in the show, as the band vamps on “Beyond The Sea,” Gross, working the audience, says slyly, “I first heard this next song the way we all first heard this next song – twirling in our mother’s heels in Pennsylvania Amish country, listening to our father’s records…I never would’ve guessed I’d have anything in common with him, the playboy crooner and me in Mom’s pumps, but turns out I do. He loved – [gestures back and forth between himself and the audience] – this. It was the only relationship he was any good at. Honestly? Same.”

Borrowing “We’re All From Someplace Else” from Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore for the finale, Pirates! ends its tale with a generous plea for tolerance – swashbucklers are people too, after all – and having built up enough good well over the previous couple of hours the underlying earnestness at show’s end seems absolutely deserved.

With Guettel’s often sublime score and lyrics that get at the terror, cynicism and, most of all, undying hope against hope well captured in Landau’s book, Floyd Collins might haunt some of those who see it now just as surely as it haunted so many back in ’96... Still, the score, and the production itself, can, and does, drag at times, particularly near the end, when, maybe with a bit of guilt, some audience members might wish a fast-forward to fate. Not to compare our endurance test to that of poor ol’ Floyd, but still, tighter tale-telling, less musical repetition and more intimate staging could send the estimable Floyd Collins soaring.

A play of uncommon nuance, shifting allegiances, and the wisest, most compassionate depiction of teens since the wonderful Kimberly Akimbo, John Proctor Is The Villain – first workshopped in 2018 – feels absolutely of the moment, as relevant today as Netflix’s brilliant Adolescence (though Proctor has no shortage of laughs).

Perhaps most perplexing about Smash, though, is its weirdly cynical, ungenerous take on the Bombshell herself. For a musical, and a musical within a musical, that gives lip service to her cultural value, Smash: The Musical treats Monroe as a perpetual punchline. Ivy-as-Marilyn is an inconsiderate, amphetamine guzzling faux-intellectual whose devotion to the acting craft is presented as a vainglorious affectation. This Marilyn is without even a smidge of the sweetness and vulnerability that features in even the most cliched takes on the icon. Hurder does her best with what she’s given, but we leave Smash: The Musical baffled as to what all the fuss was about.

the problem with The Last Five Years, even with White’s sensitive direction, splendid orchestrations that lean heavy on piano, percussion, guitar and some gorgeous cello, and an impressionistic New York streetscape set, is the play itself, too confusing to offer clarity when clarity is needed – is Cathy a good actress or just a pipe-dreamer? Is Jamie a narcissist or just a writer who wants to write? Given that the musical is written by Jamie, er, Jason Robert Brown who, like his onstage stand-in had just had his commercial breakthrough – Brown’s Parade on Broadway to Jamie’s bestselling novel – when their actress wives allegedly began their cycles of depression and failure – The Last Five Years can’t help but feel a little skewed toward the dudes.

Good Night, and Good Luck certainly doesn’t lack point of view or conviction, but neither of those things can do much with an overly familiar story, a lack of subtlety and an odd tone of understatement that extends to everything from the writing to Clooney’s performance.

Director Marber clearly has a solid understanding of Mamet’s intentions, never favoring one character over the other or shining one in a more sympathetic light. Marber knows that if anything can be said about Glengarry Glen Ross‘ take on toxicity it’s that it comes in all shapes and sizes, whether it’s the good-buddy approach adopted by Culkin, the sympathetic shark embodied by Odenkirk, McKean’s befuddled butter-wouldn’t-melt take or the brutally honest red-faced manipulations of Burr’s character.

Equal parts acting masterclass, tech wizardry, illusion and clockwork stage management, all costumed and set designed with the wit and color schemes of the most vivid Cindy Sherman photographs, Dorian Gray marks audacious Broadway debuts by both Snook and director-adaptor Kip Williams.

Unfortunately, the modernizing premise – aside from the de rigueur costumes and odd laptop, more pretense than premise – seriously impacts the emotional punch of the ending. We might assume that in ages past, Othello’s murder of Desdemona was presented as something cockeyed noble, misguided through Iago’s duplicity, a mean trick played not so much on the woman but on the gullible man (the full title of the play is The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, not The Tragedy Of Desdemona, His Horrifically Murdered Wife). By setting the action In The Near Future, any hint at sympathy for Othello – especially after we’ve just witnessed Osborne perform Desdemona’s heart-wrenching, useless pleas for her life (“Kill me tomorrow!”). Washington’s tear-jerking post-mortem apologies are likely to fall on deaf audience ears, Othello’s suicide a decidedly un-noble good riddance.

Pulling it all together is Rashad, who directs her excellent cast with insight and nuance, no false moves from beginning to end. The play doesn’t pretend to answer all the lofty questions it raises – how could it? Finding purpose is an elusive and difficult endeavor, and Jacobs-Jenkins has fashioned a play that, more than anything, embraces the search.

Absolutely nothing gets lost in the translation of Sanaz Toossi’s English as the Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a group of Iranians longing for the West finally makes its Broadway debut, two years after its Off Broadway bow garnered critical raves and regional stagings won over audiences with its unfailing wit, grace and compassion.

Then I actually saw All In, and count me among the Rich converts. Directed by the ever nimble Alex Timbers and performed by a rotating cast of four actors – I was lucky to get the truly excellent John Mulaney, Fred Armisen, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Richard Kind – the 90-minute All In is a perfect holiday snickerdoodle, a light and tasty snack no less funny for its brevity and lack of splashy production values.

And finally there is the inevitable “Rose’s Turn,” that very definition of the showstopping 11 o’clock number in which Rose’s pent-up ambitions and decades of resentments come roaring to the fore. There’s often a temptation to add one eruption too many – Tyne Daly famously slapped the floor – and McDonald doesn’t sidestep the urge. She plays down the soprano trills successfully enough, but in their place she chews more scenery than might be necessary. There’s no denying her power, here and throughout this revival. Her Rose is her Rose (just as – let’s not forget – her Billie Holiday was her Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill) – and who are we to do anything but treasure its fragrances?

Quick, think of something really humorous about vaccinations. No? Me neither, but playwright Jonathan Spector has done us all a favor and molded one of the most divisive, inane, grotesque and newly, resurgent issues of the day and polished it into a shiny, insightful and damn funny little gem so that all of us can ogle and ponder and reconsider just how in the name of Jonas Salk did we get here.

A Second Stage Theater production steered like a fast-moving sleigh by director Trip Cullman, Cult Of Love boasts an excellent cast (headed by Zachary Quinto, Mare Winningham, David Rasche and, in an impressive Broadway debut, Star Wars: The Acolyte‘s Rebecca Henderson) that pulls off a familiar scenario with unexpected freshness.

A perfect rejoinder to the ubiquitous Broadway Sucks These Days gripe about the too-many movie-to-stage adaptations has arrived at long last, and it’s a simple three-word response: Death Becomes Her. A virtually perfect big-budget, broad-appeal musical comedy that improves in every way over the 1992 film, director-choreographer Christopher Gattelli’s wildly entertaining vehicle for two of our best singer-actor-comedians on any stage today renders the movie-as-source snipe worthless.