Joey Sims

Mother Russia is a tonal mess, but a savvy work in many respects. If Yee’s writing isn’t quite witty enough to sell some of her wilder ideas, she nonetheless lands at a stirring conclusion that hits uncomfortably close to home.

Even as his characters destroy their world and themselves, Letts never loses sight of the strange comfort in a good conspiracy theory. (Many of the real-life examples Peter manically cites are, in fact, entirely true.) One unifying theory making sense of all the pain is, for these damaged souls, so much more comforting. Even if it means setting it all on fire.

Saddled with an unmemorable score by Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin) and a confused book by Lindsey Ferrentino (Amy and the Orphans), Versailles glides by as bland bio-musical for much of its excessive runtime, the show’s perspective on Siegel meandering confusedly between misplaced sympathy and perverse fascination.

A more experienced director than Zak might have identified areas to trim or condense (even at 80 minutes, Twinsies feels stretched out). But the work of his crackerjack creative team is faultless, from Beowulf Borritt’s purposely flimsy set pieces to Krystal Balleza and Will Vicari’s ludicrous wigs. And a supremely talented cast keeps things moving swiftly enough, most especially our delightful lead twins, Daniels and Aneesa Folds, who both deliver star-making turns.

The production saga in its final section, perhaps more a problem of material than staging—as Jamie and Cathy’s doomed love hurtles towards its last gasps, Brown has made his point and runs out of things to say. White similarly runs out of ideas, and her sharp-edges give way to an unwelcome note of sentimentality. All the same, White has crafted an intriguing and intellectually ambitious revival, one that embraces the brutal emotional honesty of Brown’s source material.

Certainly this Dorian Gray is an astonishing technical achievement. A powerhouse Sarah Snook, fresh off HBO’s mega-hit Succession, plays all the parts in the 2-hour, intermission-less spin on Wilde’s novel, a horror-infused fantasy of eternal beauty’s curse. Snook achieves that feat by performing opposite many pre-recorded versions of herself, projected on a multitude of screens that glide above and around the stage. Snook herself is also trailed by a hard-working camera crew, her own transformative work sharing the same screens with her pre-filmed selves.

The joy of the piece lies in discovering Larson’s most bizarre and ambitious works-in-progress. Project packs its middle section with surreal, unapologetically political tunes about sexism, wealth-hoarding and white male privilege. This portion of the show is demanding, no doubt. And certainly some of Larson’s lyrics are heavy-handed—you can probably guess the takeaway of ‘White Male World’ and ‘The Truth Is A Lie’ before hearing them. But when the tunes are such absolute bangers, so what?

To breathe theatrical life into this wild clan—and Shepard’s scorching dialogue—demands a degree of intensity that Scott Elliot’s production just can’t provide.

At the Armory, those same stories felt monumental — a revolt of mighty compassion against a cruel, suffocating world. And now, as Ilinoise settles in on Broadway, Peck has found a harmony between those two modes, hitting on a beautiful alchemy of personal warmth and epic scale.

What was the guiding light for Schreck and Neugebauer in tackling Vanya? Based on what’s now on stage at the Beaumont, it’s difficult to say. This revival is competent, rarely boring and often funny, but there is no sense of a larger vision. This staging just kind of sits there, without any clear reason to exist.

To distract from this baffling tale, director Gordon Greenberg’s high-energy production throws a ton of pure adrenaline at the audience. At times, it works. An exuberantly silly bubble-wrap based dance number is a delight, and Tucker’s terrifying a cappella group “The Undertones'' delivers an impressive rendition of “Give Me The Keys.” (Tucker cues up that number with the opener, “5…6…Sweater vest!”). When it truly pops off, Lorin Latarro’s lunatic choreography is actually some of the sharpest on Broadway this season.

For three glorious hours, Stereophonic drops its audience into a unique agony: the pursuit of artistic perfection. David Adjimi’s astounding new work, itself near-perfect, captures the wondrous highs and excruciating lows of the creative process with a hilarious, painstaking precision. You’ll want to live in this play forever.

The most fatal issue, though, is the show’s central focus on Tamara’s dueling loves: stiff husband Tadeusz and free-wheeling Rafaela. This dilemma takes up most of the narrative real estate, but proves deathly dull. Despite the heavenly-voiced Samonsky’s best efforts, Tadeusz is a wet blanket whose constant moaning sucks the energy out of every scene. And while Iman could never be anything but riveting on stage, Rafaela is thinly-sketched and never takes on compelling internal life.

Yet while Harmon does nod towards a more universal meaning to “never again,” when Patrick notes at the play’s conclusion that he is “rooting for all the wanderers of the world,” Prayer does not ultimately have room to carry the horrors in Gaza alongside more specifically Jewish concerns. You might argue that’s not what this play is about — but how can we leave it outside? It is hard not to feel discomfort in abstractly pondering “Could it happen here?” when we see, right now, what is happening there. The heart of Prayer lies in, above all else, the search for safety, for peace, and for comfort. Prayer bitterly reminds us that all of this has happened before, and most likely will again. In that sense, its timing remains sadly perfect.

Lewis himself is so enjoyably goofy that his delightful presence helps cover for a lot of these hiccups. Sure, he and Sayer give basically the same performance in every Mischief show. But there is something comfortably familiar about the pair’s endless bickering and inevitable making up. One does feel in safe hands. Where the pair truly excel is in their interplay with the audience. By establishing upfront that the Mangler is a dolt, Mangler unlocks a particularly unhinged mania in its audience interaction. My crowd was heckling the Mangler one moment, then confessing dark secrets to him the next. Lewis controls these interactions expertly, and knows exactly where to tease out a bit and when to move on.

For all these issues, the last section of Harmony still packs a punch. The focus turns back to the older Rabbi, as he reckons with crushing guilt and the burden of memory. A devastating 11 o’clock number, “Threnody,” starts as Rabbi’s personal lament but grows into an elegy for all that was lost – every life, every story, all the hope and beauty snuffed out by unimaginable hatred. Zien embodies, in this number, a pain beyond description, and it is wrenching. How could it not be? Yet the searching depth of this finale cannot make up for a broadly unfulfilling work.

It is also one of few moments when this revival of Ossie Davis’ razor-sharp satire Purlie Victorious (A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch) fully comes to life. Back on Broadway for the first time since its historic 1961 premiere, Davis’ play has lost little of its bite. But under an ill-suited Kenny Leon’s direction, it has received an unevenly paced and tonally confused production that never finds the same delightful boldness as Young’s performance.

'Marley was dead,' booms the commanding voice of stage icon Jefferson Mays, here taking on Scrooge, the narrator and every role besides. (Mays wrote the nearly one-man adaptation alongside Arden and Susan Lyons.) He skulks out of total blackness, barely visible at first, seeming an apparition from the beyond in Ben Stanton's masterful lighting. The stage will barely brighten through all the standard Christmas Carol table setting-'Bah Humbug,' etc. Mays' Scrooge drifts through these introductory scenes like a ghost himself, all but dead to the world already. Jefferson Mays can be, to put it mildly, a bit of a ham. But here, Mays brings a soft touch to a mammoth assignment. Shifting between multiple characters within the same scene, from ghost to narrator to Tiny Tim, he slides gracefully between personas with little more than a head tilt or the slightest of vocal modulations. There are a few grander moments as well, of course, but for the most part Mays keeps it grounded. His Fezziwig is an especially endearing creation, and his narrator's open-heartedness is often moving in its own right.

Of course these themes are all interconnected, but they are also abstract. There isn't much attempt to tie them all together narratively. Instead Birbiglia will throw out a huge question around mortality, then quickly pivot to an anecdote or a silly bit. When the bits are this funny, it's hard to complain too much. An extended routine around chlorine in YMCA pools builds beautifully to a gag about the mob using them to dispose of bodies; Birbiglia's continued insistence that no-one in the world possibly exercises five days a week gets funnier each time. But when we circle back around to Birbiglia announcing that he beat his diabetes, it's jarringly out of nowhere, like we just skipped a whole chapter of the story.

Beyond its intriguing mess of motivations, Majok's quiet, deeply moving play also probes at a deeper question: Who is truly being cared for? Majok is the rare brand of playwright who can take such a broad, potentially soppy theme and probe it with wit and subtlety. Aided here by Jo Bonney's elegant direction and an excellent cast, Majok's 2018 Pulitzer Prize winner is mostly sublime on Broadway, save for a few missteps.

In striping Woods down to its bare essentials, the very brilliant DeBessonet has crafted a near-perfect revival that breathes intoxicating new life into a masterpiece we barely realized needed new life at all. It is a remarkable evening, as effortlessly comforting as it is staggeringly heartbreaking. Honestly, the production is so good that it's oddly hard to review. That's largely because there is no concept to analyze, no take to unpack. DeBessonet just does the show, as matter-of-factly as you've ever seen it done. No frills; no fuss: all heart.

In crafting a work so joyously and painfully honest, playwright, composer and lyricist Michael R. Jackson walks a fine line. A Strange Loop is a carefully structured piece, lean and quick-paced. Yet it is also a manic mess, a frenzied collage that stays true to its central premise of hurtling through the chaotic depths of one man's rage, trauma, and self-hatred. That is Jackson's most awe-inspiring accomplishment with A Strange Loop, which is certainly the best new musical on Broadway this season: he has created a finely honed piece of theater while always remaining true to his own distinct voice.

If Blain-Cruz's vision falters in the play's third act-which certainly is its weakest, though still transcendent in moments-that is because Wilder shifts focus to Mr. Antrobus and Henry (Julian Robertson), far less rewarding characters on the page. This production simply finds more of interest in the play's women. So while Blain-Cruz has wrangled many of the play's impossible contradictions, she has no particular take on the father-son argument which dominates act three (a baffling scene, in which the actors again drop in and out of character), and the production does slow as a result. No matter. The overall achievement of this staging is still titanic, both for its wrangling with an impossible play and its pushing forward of a theater defined by traditions. One can feel the struggle of a creative team (all making LCT debuts, except Blain-Cruz) boldly willing the dried-up gears of an aging apparatus to move in new, exciting ways. Like Wilder's play, the ultimate achievement is messy, imperfect, and seminal.