Joe Dziemianowicz

A few things are missing from 'Million Dollar Quartet,' a jukebox musical that'd fit right in on the Vegas Strip: a buffet dinner, slot machines and, more importantly, a story.

Besides the recycling, writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice ('Jersey Boys') mangle the Addamses by having Wednesday tell her family to 'act normal' for the Beinekes. To the Addamses, macabre is normal. Though they've come up with eye-popping scenery, directors/designers Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch ('Shockheaded Peter') miss that essential fact. Ditto Jerry Zaks, a Broadway vet hired to consult after a Chicago tryout. Composer-lyricist Andrew Lippa ('The Wild Party') has come up with a batch of traditional songs, with no memorable breakouts. A couple of numbers are amusing, most are generic and one, 'Full Disclosure,' seems better suited to 'Legally Blonde.' The top-flight cast works hard to sell the material. Hair greased and accent set on bizarre, Lane is a riot and carries the production with his signature silliness.

Dramatic actor Anthony LaPaglia proves himself a deft comic as skirt-chaser Tito and Jan Maxwell is living laughing gas as his hissing, howling hellcat of a wife, Maria. She outdoes this season's earlier standout female comic turn - also hers, in 'The Royal Family.' The evening's great surprise: Justin Bartha, known for adorable sidekick roles in 'National Treasure' and 'The Hangover.' He's fall-down funny and owns the show as mild-mannered-turned-manly Max.

Call it a portrait of the artist as a middle-aged egomaniac, bully, depressive and hypocrite, one who brags about killing Cubism but frets Pop Art technicians will undo him... The conversation sometimes tilts so close to lecture that you silently wonder, 'Is there a docent in the house?' But Rothko was an artist of ideas - and his thoughts, along with his neuroses, blood and sweat, were integral to his artistic process.

For a play that begins with a young man lying in a coma with a head injury after a traffic accident, there's certainly no shortage of laughs in the opening moments of 'Next Fall.' Or, for that matter, throughout its subsequent two hours, when things turn even graver for the patient. Which begs the question: Can a serious drama be seriously funny? In the case of this gay love story, it can, due to Geoffrey Nauffts' sitcom leanings. It can be seriously didactic, too.

Walken's performance is amazing, the stuff Tony Awards are made of. Using his silky voice and haunting eyes, he's spectacularly spooky and funny as Carmichael, a lone-fisted oddball searching for his hand, which, so he says, was severed by hooligans. As if to add insult to injury, the thugs waved goodbye to him with his own purloined paw. That sickly hilarious image is trademark McDonagh, an Irish writer whose credits include the plays 'The Pillowman' and 'The Lieutenant of Inishmore,' and the film 'In Bruges.' 'Spokane,' like those works, has twists and turns and a sense that something awful is around the next bend. It plays out for 90 minutes in a roach hotel rendered to cracked-plaster perfection by Scott Pask, who also did the shrewd costumes.

Though the show is mostly well sung, the small orchestra sounds thin. The scenery recalls department store windows - nothing romantic in that. Sluggish pacing makes it feel like 'A Lotta Night Music' and performances are too modern for a tale of romantic entanglements in late-19th century Scandinavia.

'Fela!' is one of the most original and exciting shows to come around in a long while. It deserves its berth on Broadway — and that exclamation point.

Nice to know a new musical can actually surprise you. Though it starts on a familar note and sparks deja vu at other points, 'Memphis' eventually finds its own voice and beat, and wins you over with its sheer enthusiasm and exuberant performances.

Some blue-pencil editing would streamline the 2?1/2-hour show: Inferior material could go, like 'Ah, But Underneath' from a London version of 'Follies,' even if Williams sings it in her undies. Re-enactments from musicals are off-target, too. Led by Wopat, the in-your-face number 'The Gun Song' from 'Assassins' backfires. Even the venerable Cook, draped in a black shawl, can't make the odd vocal swoops of 'I Read,' from 'Passion,' click out of context. 'Opening Doors,' from 'Merrily We Roll Along,' is long-winded, and doing 'Franklin Shepard, Inc.,' from the same show, is just overkill. Among the best moments are Williams' glossy pop voice fusing with Cook's warm soprano on the hits 'Losing My Mind' and 'Not a Day Goes By.' Of the supporting players, Euan Morton makes 'Beautiful,' from 'Sunday in the Park With George,' just that, while Norm Lewis delivers a rousing 'Being Alive,' from 'Company.'

As the unmoored mother, Ripley gives a towering performance that leaves you tongue-tied for superlatives. In 'I Miss the Mountains,' she explores the show's probing question: What's worse - being pill-free and unpredictable or being drugged and numb? 'Next to Normal' covers a challenging subject, no question. That it's hopeful and uplifting, not depressing, is more than a triumph - it's next to wondrous.

The unapologetically silly show opened Tuesday night at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, slightly revised from its fall Off-Broadway run but with the same don't-take-it-serious, winking attitude that made it so easy to like.

As an anti-establishment revue, this creation of Gerome Ragni and James Rado (book and lyrics) and Galt MacDermot (music) has been declawed by time and cultural tides - it's as edgy as 'Cats.' But as a smile-inducing celebration of life and freedom, it's highly communicable. Witness the rush of people eager to join the cast and the band onstage after the finale, 'Let the Sun Shine In.' Then again, 'Hair' was - and is - about moving and grooving to the beat and the la-la-la-los.

Reza, the Tony-winning French author of “Art,” has skewered middle-class hypocrisy before. She’s also writing here about pentup rage seething beneath daily lives, particularly in a big city like New York. The confrontation unleashes hostilities as ever-shifting alliances form between and among the couples. It’s sort of a “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” meets “Survivor.” Once rum starts flowing, it gets louder, uglier and funnier.

Forget the Sharks' and Jets' bad boys. It's the girls who rule in this uneven new Broadway production of 'West Side Story,' which manages only intermittently to take us 'somewhere' special... Yes, Spanish is woven into dialogue and songs, including 'A Boy Like That' ('Un Hombre Asi'). But because Spanish starts and stops within a scene, the concept feels arbitrary, less organic than even Ricky Ricardo's picante fits on 'I Love Lucy.'

Hall's script is vivid and smart and gets excellent support from the songs. He wrote lyrics, Elton John, the music. No single tune is bound to be a pop recording hit. Still, the fine score covers an array of styles - folk tunes, anthems, novelty numbers - and emotions that beautifully move the story along. It's worth noting that the show's soundscape is crystal-clear. Daldry's staging shows an eye for intelligent detail throughout, especially in the knockout 'Solidarity' sequence. It brilliantly weaves plot, music and dance together as a classroom of pint-sized ballerinas in tutus (the cutest mob of moppets since 'Annie') merge with angry miners and cops.

What makes this impeccably acted and designed production so extraordinary is Bartlett Sher's meticulous and dramatic direction. The physical production is created on a grand scale. The stage of the Vivian Beaumont boasts not only a breathtaking Pacific panorama, but at times a huge spinning flatbed truck, a flashy war-room, even a World War II fighter plane. Against that Cinemascopic grandeur, performances are on a human scale. The show is filled with fantastic and familiar songs that are presented here like musical conversation, making them sound fresh and exciting. Characters are played with such intimacy you practically hear hearts flutter as people fall in love.

Despite its shortcomings, director Thomas Kail's production, which has changed slightly from last year's Off-Broadway run, has its pleasures. What it lacks in story and believability it makes up for in a vibrant rap- and salsa-flavored score, spirited dances and great-looking design. And the cast is sweeter than dollops of dulce de leche.

Nobody does magical entertainment like Disney - except Cameron Mackintosh. The two have teamed up for the musical 'Mary Poppins,' which opened last night on Broadway and won't be going anywhere for a long time. It is a roof-raising, toe-tapping, high-flying extravaganza.