Joe Dziemianowicz — Theater Critic

This dramatization of George Orwell's 1949 dystopian classic serves as a reminder. For all its moving set pieces, along with a busy, ear-blasting soundscape, frequent blackouts, blinding lights and live video, it's strangely unmoving and low-impact. The action meanders and jumps in time, so some familiarity with the story is a must. On the plus side, authors and directors Robert Icke and Duncan MacMillan deserve credit for letting Orwell's cautionary story about a world of fake news and government control speak for itself.

As each character gets their big scene, their name is projected in enormous letters. Each character adds to the conversation about serious subjects - marriage, men and women, freedom, rights, equality. The issues aren't new but presented in intriguing ways. Still, something nags: Since you can't backdate a divorce do Nora's current efforts even matter? That doesn't come up in this production, which plays Nora's situation very much as comedy. Metcalf, a seasoned stage vet who's known for the sitcom 'Roseanne,' can clown with the best of them. Just saying the word 'no,' Metcalf's face is an avalanche of motion.

Songs by Oberacker and Taylor are workmanlike and pleasant, but tend to be monochromatic. Songs that the group sings and ones that drive the plot are pretty indistinguishable, so musically it's a blur. The physical production can be one as well. Andy Blankenbuehler, the Tony-winning 'Hamilton' choreographer, handles dances and direction. There's stylized movement, ghosts of fallen military men following the vets and lots of athletic hoofing. The production is vigorous to the point of sometimes being distracting. Blankenbuehler's large cast steps up. Cott is appealing and gives his all. Osnes sings like a dream - even when the material isn't one. Tony winner Beth Leavel takes on the tiny role of Julia's mom, June, who dispenses quips and advice. 'Listen,' June sings, 'what matters when things happen is what happens after.' That's as deep as 'Bandstand' gets.

Broadway's crazy good revival of 'Six Degrees of Separation' is proof of theater's enduring impact. Even if you've never seen John Guare's smart, juicy and still-potent 1990 comedy - or the film version - you probably know the meaning of the title. You've likely used it in conversation. Guare didn't invent the notion of six degrees, but his play, based on true events, popularized it and made it shorthand for how everybody's connected. Or, on the other hand, kept at a distance - by just six other people.

A young woman with no memory tries to find out who she is in the new Broadway musical 'Anastasia.' The show, despite being filled with some very good songs and performances, suffers from its own identity crisis. It's got a split personality and is torn between whether it's serious drama or frothy musical comedy. One wishes that the creative team - the same one behind 'Ragtime' - of Terrence McNally (book), Stephen Flaherty (music) and Lynn Ahrens (lyrics) had found a way to make it cohesive and more balanced.

'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' is a middle-of-the-road musical with a pale score, a flavorless book and a dearth of eye candy that could have at least made it a spectacle...Heading a large, game and polished cast, Christian Borle, a Tony winner for 'Something Rotten!' and 'Peter and the Starcatcher,' has panache as Wonka. He plays the chocolate maker as snarky, not all that sinister. As Charlie, young Ryan Foust was terrific in the performance I saw; he shares the role with two others.

They don't make 'em like they used to - and that goes double for Broadway's dazzling revival of 'Hello, Dolly!' thanks to the show itself and its above-the-title supernova, Bette Midler. Frankly, there ought to be another exclamation point.

Under Daniel Sullivan's sure-handed direction, the show satisfies no matter who's playing Regina - more or less. The production's good-looking - costumes, lighting and the set, which underscores this prickly family. Notice there's no comfy couch that invites getting close, just chairs and a chaise. Supporting actors more than ably step up, including Richard Thomas as Regina's ill husband, Michael McKean and Darren Goldstein as her greedy brothers, Francesca Carpanini as her dutiful daughter, and Michael Benz as her creepy nephew.

There was a time when a smooch shared by two women on stage could be deemed smutty enough to shutter the production. Yes, that happened. 'Indecent,' the heart-stirring and haunting play created in tandem by author Paula Vogel and director Rebecca Taichman offers a dramatic reminder of that - and of the power of art...Vogel...and Taichman - each in an impressive Broadway debut - tell the story in vibrantly theatrical fashion. The ace ensemble breathes life into more than three dozen characters...Be prepared for precipitation to fall from your own eyes.

If a groundhog sees its shadow, there'll be six more weeks of winter. If you see 'Groundhog Day,' there'll be 2 hours and 45 minutes of kinetic and sometimes witty but ultimately wearying antics. Fortunately, there's a silver lining: musical-comedy dreamboat Andy Karl, who puts his own irresistible stamp on the arrogant TV weatherman played in the 1993 film by Bill Murray. Karl is hunky, hilarious and huggable as nasty newsman Phil Connors, who gets trapped in a time loop in Punxsutawney, Pa. Karl banged up his knee on stage last week. He was set to perform on Monday for the show's opening at the August Wilson Theatre.

Peacemaking isn't tranquil business. 'Oslo' reminds theatergoers of that as it imagines the secret and highly charged talks that led to a break in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict nearly 25 years ago. Smart, touching and spiked with spy-novel tension and wry humor, the drama at Lincoln Center is the latest work by J.T. Rogers. Two of his earlier plays dramatized struggles in Rwanda and Afghanistan. Now he trains a keen eye on the Middle East - and Scandinavia, where the 1993 Oslo Accord came together.

The most flattering number imagines a meeting between the makeup mavens, which gives LuPone and Ebersole the chance to be face-to-face and claw-to-claw. They wonder: Has their work freed women or shackled them? It's a great starting point, but it's actually the last scene - more evidence that not even a thick coat of cosmetics could cover how thin this show is.

Kline's nimble hands deserve their own applause from theatergoers at the St. James. He employs them like semaphore flags, punctuating moments. Like when he turns one of his mitts into a muzzle to quiet a gabby young conquest (Tedra Millan). At times you'd like to hush the talky play, which Coward wrote in 1939. It wasn't performed until 1942, due to the onset of World War II. Set over a couple days in Garry's London home, the action tends to go in circles as he prepares to go on tour in Africa. He ends up juggling seductions and interruptions and moaning about craving solitude. As if. He lives for an audience.

The Broadway musical adaptation at the Walter Kerr Theatre is simply pleasant - at least when it isn't plodding. As for the City of Light - virtually all signs of Frenchness are gone in director Pam MacKinnon's staging. Why even bother with an accent in the title?

A comedy that comes up short with laughs and overstays its welcome - now that's murder.

Broadway plays don't get much more topical than 'Sweat,' a portrait of lost American dreamers adrift in an economic wasteland. At Studio 54, the play grabs you with its ripped-from-the-headlines social and political resonance. It also loses its grip due to predictability and a miscalibrated staging...It is not a pretty picture. But it is as straight-up and real as it gets. Too bad performances frequently don't ring true in director Kate Whoriskey's staging. Too often actors don't look and sound like people talking, but performers emoting. It becomes distracting and pulls you out of the story.

'Miss Saigon' is back, heartache and helicopter included, at the Broadway Theatre, where the musical began a Tony-winning ten-year run in 1991. This bracing new production from London reminds that whirlybirds can't whip up emotions. Only good actors can do that. The revival of the musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil ('Les Miserables') has plenty of them.

Terry Kinney guides an atmospheric, period-rich production. Acting is uneven. Ruffalo gives a lived-in, believable performance as the indecisive and unsatisfied cop. But it's a mystery why being a career cop was a fate worse than death. Hecht is persuasive as an acrid, long-suffering spouse who's unafraid to speak her mind. But Shalhoub's mannered performance jars and gums up the works. Judging by his deliberate cadence, he can't quite shake the character he recently played in the musical 'The Band's Visit.'

It's a story that sings...The score consists nearly entirely of group numbers. Music is flavored by Celtic folk, gentle rock, foot-stomping rhythms and perhaps a whisper of Gordon Lightfoot. While rousing and rich in harmony, the music suffers from sameness and a sound mix that obscures lyrics. Director Christopher Ashley guides the excellent cast and energizing staging. The show glides along, a nonstop one hour and 40 minute trip. It's a singing reminder that when things are at their worst, people can be at their best.

Revisionist reboots of modern classics can open your eyes - or make them glaze over. Broadway's stark, stripped-back new take on 'The Glass Menagerie' starring Sally Field lands, alas, in the latter category. Tennessee Williams' 1945 masterwork has never emerged smaller, flatter or less poignant. Or soggier, thanks to a downpour inside the home where the story unfolds. Yes, that happens.

In its 2015 Off-Broadway run, the comedy by Joshua Harmon ('Bad Jews') struck me as 'hilarious, heart-tugging and annoying.' On Broadway at the Booth Theatre, same goes. Hilarity comes from spry, occasionally crude one-liners showcased to the max by the fine cast as well as Trip Cullman's deft direction. Heart-tugging moments arise between Jordan and his age-addled grandmother (Barbara Barrie).

Jake Gyllenhaal's got it, by George! A handsome, nimble singing voice to go with his solid acting chops, that is. It's all on exhibition in Broadway's wonderful revival of 'Sunday in the Park with George' at the newly renovated Hudson Theatre. This Pulitzer-winning musical by composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim and book writer James Lapine premiered 33 years ago. Its power to stir the heart and head with its radiant score and unfading story about the art of making art - and love - is as strong as ever.

It's been 23 years since she originated the role of Hollywood has-been Norma Desmond on Broadway in Andrew Lloyd Webber's sumptuous, if uneven, musical version of Billy Wilder's classic film. Norma's got the same turban, same neuroses and the same pipe dreams only La La Land can inspire. Close, meanwhile, goes heavy on the fragility, vulnerability and dark humor for the part played on film by Gloria Swanson. If a few vocals are strained, Close commands the stage in this concert production from the English National Opera.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson directs the atmospheric production and fine-tuned ensemble, which includes Harvy Blanks and Ray Anthony Thomas as neighborhood guys.

Par for the course in Chekhov, this Sydney Theatre Company production written by Blanchett's husband Andrew Upton and directed by John Crowley ('Brooklyn') is filled with lost souls, regrets, an uncertain future and pistols. The action, set in Russia in the mid-1990s, signalled with maxi dresses, mom jeans and apt pop tunes like 'What Is Love?', begins with preparations for a birthday bash. Anna (Blanchett), a widow and landowner on the verge of ruin, is turning the big 4-0. She's less interested in blowing out birthday candles than blowing up her life - as in, with dynamite.