Jesse Oxfeld

But that's the accomplishment of Wonderland, written by Gregory Boyd and Jack Murphy, with music by Frank Wildhorn and lyrics by Mr. Murphy, and frenzied direction by Mr. Boyd. Its story is so overwrought and incomprehensible, its good cheer so forcibly relentless, its songs so overbelted and overmiked, that it blends into something entirely soporific.

It's too bad the story is so sadly simplistic, because Ms. Elliott's and Mr. Morris' stagecraft is so sublime. This play is full of literally breathtaking moments of theatrical inventiveness and stunning visuals—Joey and his fellow horses; a cavalry charge on the front; even the small, witty touch of an overeager goose on Albert's farm, a puppet on a bicycle wheel pushed by an actor. But, for all that, War Horse is based on a children's story, and it remains no more emotionally complex. Not long into the second act, the tedium of the predictable story begins to weigh more heavily than the thrill of the visual creativity. That's when you realize you're watching the cloying tale of a boy with an unnatural love for a half-thoroughbred.

The Motherf**ker With the Hat is something you don't see on Broadway much: a tough and fresh portrait of working-class life in modern, multicultural New York.

John Larroquette, well cast in his own Broadway debut, gives it his smarmy all as J.B. Biggley, the World Wide Widgets president whom Finch successfully games. Derek McLane has designed a towering and very early-'60s modular set, all pastels and grays on a latticework of hexagons, like a singing three-martini lunch at whatever they're now calling Lever House restaurant. Catherine Zuber's costumes match: grays and pastels in mod slim suits and pillbox hats. And director and choreographer Rob Ashford has assembled a sprawling chorus and given them some gorgeous production numbers full of detailed, twitchy, athletic dances.

What's playing at the Palace is a high-volume, high-energy, never-let-up disco-drag spectacular with a pulsing soundtrack full of Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor and Madonna. Its (not particularly complex) source material has been dumbed down into a simple jukebox musical—and it's perhaps the best jukebox musical I've seen.

But be warned: The theater is kept at near-arctic temperatures, apparently to keep Mr. Reubens from sweating through his iconic gray suit and white face makeup. A trip down memory lane is nice, but it can also begin to drag, especially when you’ve got your collar turned up, your hands buried in your pockets, and you can no longer feel your toes.

Elf's tone can shift wildly, from naïve kids' humor to knowingly grown-up material. Many of the jokes don't land, whether dated ('Who's Billy Crystal? He sounds magical!') or just awkward, like Santa's line when he rushes in late for Act II ('Sorry, sorry, just made a quick trip to the cocoa cart, if you know what I mean,' which is either scatological or nonsensical but either way not funny). Everything seems flat, except a few production numbers and the show's one redeeming feature: Its star, Sebastian Arcelus, who manages to be the only one onstage having the consistently high-energy good time a show like this would seem to require. It's a Christmas miracle.

Ms. Rabe's portrayal is mesmerizing. The young actress is of course beautiful, poised and confident, but there's more. She displays an inner intelligence and certainty even at moments when the play allows Portia to be more frivolous, and she forcefully holds her own on the stage, even opposite Mr. Pacino, when Portia, disguised as a young jurist, faces off with Shylock and outwits him, depriving the moneylender his pound of flesh.

Mr. Yazbek's Spanish-inflected music is upbeat and catchy, and his smart lyrics are sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. The costumes (by Catherine Zuber) are awesomely bright and zany (her leopard-print Spy-vs.-Spy ensemble for Ms. LuPone's entrance deserves its own Tony), and the sets (by Michael Yeargan) are similarly spectacular.

Mr. Quinn is funniest when he's finding unexpected connections. Economists missed the impending collapse, he suggests, because they hold their annual conference in Davos, Switzerland: 'It's Plato's cave theory, which was basically if you live in a cave and all you see are shadows outside, you think that shadows are what's real. So if they hold the economic summit in Switzerland, you walk out of the hotel, 'Hey, things look pretty good. I'll see you next year.''

But the real star of the show is the director and choreographer Susan Stroman, who here creates some of her best work. There are exaggerated, athletic shuck-n-jive movements for the minstrel numbers, an upbeat tap dance around an electric chair and a brilliant pas de deux between a boy and a projected shadow as he recalls a lynching. It's the classic Kander and Ebb twist: horrible things, presented spectacularly.

It's a fine TV special, but it's not very riveting theater. And on TV it would have had what it conspicuously lacks here: narration by that deep, gravelly NFL Films voice.

In Mr. Esjornson's staging, the final scene—Daisy revealed, alone in a wheelchair—is stunning; it brings a tear to even a hardened theater critic's eye. Throughout, indeed, one's heart is warmed. But there's also nothing in the play that's tough or unexpected or genuinely thrilling. But that's what Miss Daisy likes: a smooth, easy ride.

Indeed, Rain might well be the brilliantly empty apotheosis of the jukebox musical: the songs it knows the audience wants to hear, unencumbered by a script that may or may not work. Without its plot, Good Vibrations would have been a pleasant night of cute kids in bathing suits singing Beach Boys hits. Ring of Fire, one of the small handful of shows I've fled at intermission, would have been just a Johnny Cash revue. This drama-free exercise is not, then, a play. And it's debatable whether it's really worth spending $121.50 for an orchestra seat to what by all rights you should be seeing in a bar.

And that points to another stumbling block: No matter how well acted—and this play is very well acted—it's not so much fun to spend two hours with an unbearable bore.

The sets and costumes, by Santo Loquasto and Laura Bauer, make the visual jokes of the show work brilliantly. We see the actors in the dressing room, in an empty theater and in mid-production, watching from behind as they play to an imagined audience along the upstage wall. The actors work their way through doughboy uniforms for a World War I scene, Elizabethan costume for a discussion of fencing technique, Napoleonic dress for when their climb upon the barricades, and on and on.

In Pitmen, the characters, as written by Lee Hall (who knows of what he mines, having also written Billy Elliot), are mostly just mouthpieces, and Mr. Hall's writing is simplistic, often hokey.

But the leads seem miscast. Ms. Jones—the doubting nun of Doubt, the (usually) steadfast and admirable President Allison Taylor of 24—is so commanding in her role, and Ms. Hawkins so mousily virtuous, that Shaw's intended relationship between the two characters seems almost inverted. Mrs. Warren should represent the stifling past for British women; Vivie should represent the rationalized future. Instead, Vivie seems a scold and Mrs. Warren the charismatic, modern realist.

Supporting actors double as a small band, providing jaunty tunes that express the characters' repressed emotions. (The cast—mostly unchanged since St. Ann's—is multitalented and very hardworking.) Crashing waves—a metaphor for surging emotion and unattainable freedom—are projected on the upstage wall. There's ingenious 39 Steps-style stagecraft—dummies for children; an actress with a long stick moving a windblown newspaper across the stage; the full cast bobbing rapidly in unison to suggest an express train rumbling past. Characters jump in and out of the movie itself, a live Purple Rose of Cairo. This Brief Encounter is vibrantly theatrical and totally absorbing.

Enron, the hit London import that opened last night at the Broadhurst Theatre, is a surprising and remarkable creation: It’s a two-and-a-half-hour lecture on business history, and it’s utterly thrilling. Credit for this feat of alchemy goes primarily to second-time playwright Lucy Prebble, and her director, Rupert Goold, artistic director of London’s Headlong Theatre, which commissioned Enron. Together, they take the seemingly dry subject matter and, with a clever, tightly constructed script and dark, menacing, inventive staging, produce a vibrant, deeply theatrical experience.

Viola Davis is sensational as Rose, the devoted and betrayed wife. Wilson’s lyrical script offers any number of stirring monologues, and Ms. Davis delivers hers—especially when she learns of Troy’s betrayal—with a vivid, bracing rawness. She more than holds her own against Mr. Washington, both in their tender scenes and in their explosive ones. It’s no small feat, and she does it without too much shouting.

Sean Hayes is surprisingly charming and ingratiating as Baxter, and Katie Finneran steals the show for the scene and a half she’s in, bringing a much-needed comic jolt as the floozy Baxter picks up in a dive on Christmas Eve. But Kristin Chenoweth—who earned not just entrance applause but also entrance shrieks on the night I attended—seems miscast as Baxter’s love interest, Miss Kubelik: It’s impossible to imagine that such a no-nonsense dynamo would ever fall for Baxter’s conniving boss, much less try to kill herself when he jilts her.

Indeed, it’s cleverly withholding: We get just enough information to feel like we’re learning something about Mr. Sondheim without actually learning anything about him. We’re shown his studio and told he writes on yellow pads with soft pencils, but we don’t learn anything substantive about his writing process. We’re told he had a terrible relationship with his mother, but we don’t really learn how that affected him. We’re told he was confused about his sexuality at 35 and had his first serious relationship at 60, but he doesn’t mention anything—even the gender—of the person he met at 60. It’s a live-action A&E Biography, and it’s a dull one. But, hey, you can’t complain about the soundtrack.

American Idiot—the rock opera version of Green Day’s 2004 pop-punk album, which opened at the St. James Theatre yesterday—is an energetic and entertaining 95 minutes. It’s fun. But it’s also, amid all the booming rock, a little dull. You’re diverted, but you’re not moved. There are archetypes and themes, but there aren’t really characters or a plot. American Idiot is a concert; it’s not a play.

But what Harvey Fierstein’s Tony-winning book lacks in structure, it more than makes up for in humor and warmth. Jerry Herman’s score, also a Tony winner, contains several stirring anthems: “I Am What I Am,” “The Best of Times,” the lovely “Look Over There.” And director Terry Johnson’s production, which transforms the big Longacre into a très intime night at the titular club, is simply gorgeous, beautifully designed (by Tim Shortall), costumed (by Matthew Wright) and, especially, choreographed (by Lynne Page).