Houman Barekat

If this “Evita” sometimes has the feel of an extended trailer, that’s because its primary artistic goal is not to tell the story of Eva Perón, or even to say anything profound about authoritarianism, but to celebrate, as loudly as possible, the cultural phenomenon that is “Evita,” the musical. It is an exercise in meta-kitsch, and, on those terms, it succeeds.

Icke is one of Britain’s most highly regarded young directors, and though he has successfully rewritten a number of canonical works, “Manhunt” is his first wholly original script. While the play deals admirably with difficult subject matter, it is a flawed work.

The writers have tried to make a virtue of the show’s shortcomings, riffing on the musical’s conceptual flimsiness at various points. This might be cute in another context, but when you’re playing a hallowed venue like the Garrick, people expect a bit more polish. Just before the curtain comes down, Nancy and Oliver wonder aloud if their plot lines weren’t perhaps a bit hackneyed and whether they should have made their characters more aware of this. It’s a clever little metafictional loop, but it doesn’t solve the problem. If anything, it feels a bit like an apology.

How can something so bonkers come across as so drab? The best family entertainment appeals not only to children’s imaginative whimsy but also to their intellect. But “Starlight Express” has no recognizable point of connection with any aspect of real human existence. That needn’t stand in the way of commercial success. There is, of course, a large audience for maximalist kitsch, as the enduring popularity of the Eurovision Song Contest attests. There is also the question of the target audience. In the interests of journalistic rigor, I took a 6-year-old with me to the show. It’s fair to say he was transfixed and delighted by the special effects — and on these terms at least, the show can be said to be a triumph — although subsequent interrogations revealed he was a little muddled about the story. But “Starlight Express” is more theme park than theater. It’s Legoland for the stage.

In a London auditorium, a work of art is being desecrated. “Opening Night,” John Cassavetes’s understatedly stylish 1977 movie about an actress struggling with midlife ennui, has been reimagined as a musical by the Belgian director Ivo van Hove, and the result is a travesty.

The denouement, when it comes, provides only a strange and messy sort of closure. There is no through-line here, no moral lesson as such; just the chaotic, meaningless interplay of life force, personalities and contingency. Sometimes, that’s plenty.

Directed by Stephen Daldry (“Billy Elliot: The Musical”; “The Crown”) and written by Kate Trefry and Jack Thorne in collaboration with the TV show’s creators, the Duffer brothers, the show runs at the Phoenix Theater, in London, through Aug. 25, 2024. It’s a gaudy, vertiginous fairground ride of a play, exactly what you’d expect from a show co-produced by Netflix: Cheap thrills, expensively made.

A charming and spirited musical adaptation of Dahl’s much-loved book — written by Lucy Kirkwood and directed by Lyndsey Turner — opened this month at the National Theater, in London, running through Jan. 27, 2024. It’s a deftly rendered production, a high-quality piece of family entertainment that skilfully blends the playful and the macabre, and does justice to the author’s distinct comic style.