Johnny Oleksinki — Theater Critic

Newcomer Brody Grant, with a record-deal-ready voice and a grounded teenage vulnerability, makes a sublime debut in the role. He’s the sort of bookworm heartthrob you’re more likely to find on Netflix nowadays than Broadway. But the shrewdness of director Danya Taymor’s production starts with how brilliantly cast it is, from top to bottom. By the end of the opening song, called “Tulsa ’67,” we have somehow already met and grown inexplicably fond of every single Greaser.

The quaking revival of Pete Townshend’s seminal rock opera, which opened Thursday night at the Nederlander Theater after nearly three decades away, really is an espresso martini of a show after a chamomile-tea season of musicals. Everything about this exhilarating production shakes you awake and leaves you buzzed: Knockout singing, superbly inventive stagecraft and a star-making performance from 24-year-old Ali Louis Bourzgui as the Pinball Wizard that’s the most exciting New York stage debut in years. I hope the Nederlander’s carpets are regularly vacuumed. Because for two hours and 15 minutes, my jaw became all too well acquainted with the floor.

But Gold, whose Broadway “Macbeth” starring Daniel Craig was a bells-and-whistles disaster, nearly bungles it by serving the audience free shots of Linie Aquavit between the first and second halves from a hopping bar onstage. The otherwise riveted man next to me said, “This is so stupid.” Twice. I’m sure there is a high-minded rationale for the pop-up pub. Perhaps it’s there to confront us with our own hypocrisy, or lull us into a false sense of security before the untethered town meeting where Thomas is attacked. Whatever the reason, the silly trick flattens the tension the cast built and leaves it up to Strong to pick up the pieces. He ably does, thank goodness, and prevents his director from becoming the enemy of the play.

While the cast of “The Notebook” sings and dances up onstage at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, there is an even more dramatic performance going on in the seats. The sniffle chorus. Ingrid Michaelson’s musical, which opened Thursday night on Broadway is, of course, based on Nicholas Sparks’ weepy 1996 romance novel that was made into a popular movie starring a young Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. Like Pavlov’s pups, millennials habitually sob during that 2004 film, and the production has seized upon its teary reputation by selling branded tissue boxes. During the final 10 minutes, the noses are deafening.

Shanley wrote an immaculate work that can stand up to even so-so productions like the revival starring Amy Ryan and Liev Schreiber that opened Thursday at the Todd Haimes Theatre. The script is the marquee star. And although the head-to-head battles between Sister Aloysius (Ryan) and Father Flynn (Schreiber) don’t explode as powerfully here as they are capable of doing, the words are never less than riveting.

“Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” of course, was not a big-budget project and “Spamalot” needn’t be either. But if you can’t afford to be spectacular, like Mike Nichols’ original production was, then make the design clever and funny. Nope. This one settles for mere functionality. It’s yet another missed opportunity for the revival to be something at least a little different.

Zien’s wealth of experience is paired with exciting young talent. Five of the Harmonists are making their Broadway debuts, and all of them are tremendous singers. And, most poignantly, the show’s forceful rallying cry against anti-Semitism and for peaceful coexistence is relevant and movingly reverberates. How depressing it is to remember that the very same thing was being said last season about the musical “Parade” and Tom Stoppard’s play “Leopoldstadt.” The problem is that while “Harmony” is about a sextet of singers whose voices blend like milk and coffee, its elements do not similarly fuse into a cohesive and satisfying musical. The show, directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, has been tinkered with by Manilow and lyricist/book-writer Bruce Sussman for nearly 30 years, but on its largest stage yet it still doesn’t quite work.

The effect of their macho antics, however, is much the same as listening to your drunken friends argue about capitalism at 2 a.m. They keep on yapping and are not getting anywhere, so you zone out. Big-personality confrontations about who the real star of the movie is — and who’s the better actor — are neither rip-roaring nor very insightful. They start out amusingly petty, and quickly grow repetitive. The draw, though, is Ian Shaw. He is the son of Robert Shaw — the Shakespearean actor who played gruff shark hunter Quint and who died in 1978. Ian plays his dad in the show he co-wrote. So, not coincidentally, he’s the best part of the play directed by Guy Masterson.

Some will insist that the show is meant for “Back to the Future” super fans only. Well, speaking as one of those super fans who has watched the film trilogy countless times to the point of “Pledge of Allegiance”-like recitation, the musical left me cold and uninvolved. It made me want to go back… to the movie!

You miss the old farces. There isn’t much of the hiding-in-closets fun that has long been the meat of similar comedies such as “Boeing-Boeing” and Coward’s “Present Laughter.” That’s why the amped-up energy is so jarring — for the most part, these characters simply stand together and yell. That tried-and-true farce structure — low-key witty first act, madcap second, wrapup third — is abandoned by Rustin in favor of high-energy antics from start to finish, much like Broadway’s 2021 play “POTUS” that similarly ran out of gas halfway through. Steingold, as the loopy Dierdre, runs away with “The Cottage.”

Still, even if “Here Lies Love” doesn’t reach the emotional highs of “Evita” (one reason it can’t is that, unlike Eva Peron, Marcos is alive and well and with a son, Bongbong, who’s the current president of the Philippines), it’s a ravishing sensory experience unlike any other. You'll walk out at the end with no changed opinion of Imelda Marcos, but instead with your eyes opened about the endless possibilities for Broadway theaters.

The dreadful show, which opened Thursday night at the Marquis Theatre, takes the pop songs of Britney Spears and plops them willy-nilly in a feminist Cinders in which the main character realizes there’s more to life than falling in love with a prince. Good for you, Cindy, but wouldn’t it be nice if you were both a freethinking, independent woman and your musical’s story made a lick of sense? It’s bibbidi-bobbidi-brainless. Instead of crafting compelling characters or a gripping plot, book writer Jon Hartmere has combined dance floor tunes from the aughts and half-baked, teacher’s-pet ideas into shapeless mush. “Once Upon” is rarely fun, but always cloying and impossible to follow.

However, director Joe Mantello’s production of “Grey House” only offers a few audio-based jump-scares and a vaguely spooky atmosphere. The tension is swallowed whole even by a house as intimate as the Lyceum, and shudders from the audience are rare. Once we’ve become accustomed to the occasional burst of unexpected noise, the play settles for being merely unsettling.

These artists’ respective “Chicago,” “Hamilton” and “The Producers” have given a lot to the city that their latest, lesser creation is named after. SEE ALSO Director Martin Scorsese's 1977 flop 'New York, New York' is now a new Broadway musical. Forgotten Scorsese film flop gets a second chance — on Broadway. But none of the ingenuity, originality and edge that made those musicals era-defining hits comes through in “New York, New York.” Instead, there is start-to-finish derivativeness in the guise of good old-fashioned nostalgia. It’s tired, sappy and deathly dull.

A pair of extraordinary elements make the new spectacle show “Life of Pi” seaworthy: stunning projections, and a better-than-necessary lead performance from the sensational Hiran Abeysekera. Working in tandem during the second act, when teenage Pi is adrift in the ocean with only dangerous zoo animals to keep him company, those fantastical images and Abeysekera’s boisterous energy create moment after moment of theatrical magic. They are sequences of pure action and ingenuity in director Max Webster’s production that do not rely on dialogue or plot to thrill us, only sheer emotion and awe. Not unlike an “Avatar” film. However, not all of “Pi,” which opened Thursday night on Broadway, packs that same stirring visual punch. The play — adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti from Yann Martel’s novel, previously turned into Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning film — starts off as a fairly straightforward, wonkily written drama that takes a while to kick in

The new musical 'Head Over Heels,' which opened Thursday on Broadway, takes the songs of '80s American girl group the Go-Go's, plops them in a British story from the 16th century and adds a bunch of modern, self-referential jokes. It's an idea that's so crazy, it just might work! It doesn't. This indulgent show is wackier than it is fun, and elicits more 'huh?' than 'ha'. Worse, it treats the catchy pop music like a side of spinach.