Jonathan Mandell

Much of “Chinese Republicans” provides a deepening and ultimately poignant portrait of four distinct characters, made all the more palpable by a first-rate cast. At the same time, through subplots or brief scenes or just a throwaway line here or there, the play touches lightly on a bracingly wide range of topical issues – the corrupting nature of corporate culture, anti-Asian violence, the costs of assimilation, female camaraderie and competition, sexism and sexual harassment in the workplace, abortion, immigration anxiety.

Directed fluidly by Shelley Butler with a minimal design, the production relies on ensemble acting; both Heidi Armbruster and Matthew Saldívar portraying multiple characters (among others, she’s Josh’s mother and a rabbi; he’s Josh’s co-worker and a neurologist), and the four grandparents moonlight as the crowd in scenes of a support group and others. But “The Reservoir” is inescapably the Noah Galvin show, and he makes the most of it. Galvin (best-known for Dear Evan Hansen and the short-lived TV series “The Real McNeal”) has fine comic timing, charm, and physical grace. But he is most impressive for the moments that his face registers, briefly but persuasively, Josh’s pain and sorrow.

But the frame of the play is the train ride, and the longer it went on, the more it felt to me like a children’s adventure story, albeit one not suitable for children. (The production is recommended for age 13+.) This is largely, I think, because the dialogue is neither as natural nor as precise as the physical movement, and because each of the children is a type.

The awkwardness between father and adult daughter is a sound insight, but did we need quite so much banal chatter? These scenes might have been more effective had Shawkat portrayed Mae more expressively; as less of a cipher.

It’s confusing at first, one of the few explicit clues that “The Dinosaurs” is not just what it at first seems, which is an ordinary meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I’ve been to plays about support groups before that I thought were low-key (such as Someone Spectacular in 2024); “The Dinosaurs” is full of moments that seem positively banal. But the banality engenders a feeling of authenticity, and the authenticity at its best – rendered by some of the finest stage actresses working in New York – helps us at least pause and consider the significance of moments that we might otherwise have ignored.

It’s a somewhat baffling choice that the trial takes up only about twenty minutes of a play that runs two hours (including intermission.) The playwright, who is also a professor of philosophy, fills the rest of the play with biographical scenes, philosophical and political debates, some dozen songs and poems from the period, and lots of scenes of post-trial Hans in prison and concentration camps, during which he shows up for visits by his mother exhibiting the latest injuries from his various tortures (These were early iterations of the camps, but did they really allow family visits?) All of this material outside of the trial might have worked better if it were presented with more subtlety and subtext. For all the playwright’s effort at indicating Hans’ “inner life” (as he informs us in a program note), Lackey’s writing is too often on the level of a school play, all spelled out and on the surface.

Would “The Unknown” interest Jude Law? Only, it seems to me, if he’s willing to perform it on stage. This is a trickster’s play, in a production with almost no set, but Cha See’s oblique lighting and Caroline Eng’s sound enhancing the tension and the teasing; scarier, or at least creepier, because it is live.

It is not inaccurate to call “The Other Place” taut and tense, a showcase for D’Arcy’s embodiment of stress and Menzie’s eventual explosive expression of guilt, aided by the insistence of Yannis Philippakis’ electronic score and the persistence Josh Anio Grigg’s sound design (which includes endless startling pings from cell phone messages.). But Zeldin’s skill as a director in dramatizing the everyday is on display in the performances of the other cast members, especially Lee Braithwaite as the stepson Leni, who even in his smallest and seemingly most random of movement reveal his place in the hierarchy of the family.

Written and directed by Ngozi Anyanwu, “The Monsters,” a two-hander opening tonight at New York City Center in a production by Manhattan Theater Club, tracks the off-and-on, up-and-down evolution of a relationship that manages to be both unsentimental and sweet.

Luckily, the four splendid cast members help us overlook the playwright’s calculations by bringing these characters to life, even Brandon Flynn as Jonah. Or should I say him especially. Flynn is the only one of the four whom I remember seeing on stage before, and his performance both as Marlon Brando in Kowalski and the kidnapped child at the center of “Kid Victory,” were memorable.

In 47 minutes, “An Ark” spans the arc (ark?) of human life, from birth to death, with a lyrical script by acclaimed British playwright Simon Stephens (Tony-winner for “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” and recent Off-Broadway adaptor of “Vanya.” ) Neither Simons’ lyricism nor producer Todd Eckert’s pioneering mixed reality will work for everybody. The experiment might not wholly satisfy anybody, but it’s too intriguing and artful for me to dismiss.

It is hard to deny the creaky aura that hangs over “Anna Christie,” which is probably still best known for the play’s adaptation as silent screen star Greta Garbo’s first “talking picture” (“Garbo Talks” was the now legendary marketing slogan) – and that movie was released a full decade after the stage debut. But director Thomas Kail smartly leans into the expressionism from that same era in his production of “Anna Christie,” opening today at St. Ann’s Warehouse; the results are a bracingly muscular stagecraft that helps create electrifying moments. If the acting is uneven, sometimes even indecipherable because of the characters heavy Swedish and Irish accents, the actors are always watchable.

What’s most uncanny for me about “Marjorie Prime,” though, is that the new production, especially the ending, struck me as having been revised, not necessarily for the better. Yet it turns out that the script is exactly the same (I still have the old one; I went back and checked it.) The director and most of the design team are the same as well. The show is being billed as a look at “memory, loss and AI” — I didn’t realize it would be a look at my memory too. There is still much in the play that I find clever and thought-provoking. The starry four-member cast keeps us engaged. Harrison is nothing if not prescient in the world he imagined, but perhaps some of the novelty has worn off, because the characterizations seem less sharp and the vibe more “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” unsettling than I remember feeling before.

But then I thought: It’s symbolic of the unsettled lives of these two young characters. And it shows a bit of resourcefulness: Sometimes the piles of luggage seem to suggest a Manhattan avenue lined with skyscrapers, sometimes a hill in Central Park in a snowy Central Park. And I suppose one might consider the whole production — those trunks, only two actors, the five-piece band visible on stage — to be so different in many ways (not including top ticket price) from the more usual big-budget would-be blockbusters on Broadway that it’s almost refreshing.

I would feel churlish offering a lengthy catalogue of all the ways the play falls short as a work of contemporary theater; it seems largely beside the point. The production offers the rare thrill not only of watching this beloved movie star in person, but of seeing something of his that feels almost homespun.

Under the direction of Darko Tresnjak (best-known for helming A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder) “Archduke” is getting a distinctly professional production – precise design, game cast — for a play that was first produced in 2017 in Los Angeles as a commission of Center Theater Group, and didn’t need to be revived. Joseph has written better plays before and since.

“The Queen of Versailles” nevertheless largely comes off as the Broadway equivalent of a Reality TV show. The societal insights are either too brief, not deep or not new, and indeed the effort can feel too calculated, even disingenuous. (It doesn’t help that Jackie Siegel herself is an investor in the show.)

The quartet of theater artists who put together “Kyoto” – writers Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, directors Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin — also worked together on The Jungle, an extraordinary immersive re-creation of a real-life refugee camp; Daldry and Martin also co-directed “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” No, there are no levitating people or disappearing ships, not even melting ice caps, and “Kyoto” is nowhere near as immersive as “The Jungle.’ But . there is a touch of audience immersion: We are all given a delegate or media badges to wear around our necks, and several theatergoers are enlisted to sit around the conference table as if important delegates. And the overall staging and the ensemble acting do turn this history lesson into an often engaging work of theater.

Scott Pask’s scenic design might seem a little…spare…for Broadway. It’s just the couch. Sure it’s shiny, maybe showroom-worthy; it even unfolds. Still, it’s a couch. But that couch becomes the back of the bar where Ethan meets James, and the locus of the makeshift family that James, Sarah and Ethan develop, and the site of some sadder moments in the lives of these people. At some points, it seems to represent the barrier between the characters; at other times, the family’s legacy. The couch started to symbolize their universe. Only in a production directed by Joe Mantello of a play written by Samuel D. Hunter could a couch feel so cosmic.'

Much of the strength of the production, which has moved intact from its Off-Broadway run earlier this year, resides in the ensemble acting, theater regulars portraying everyday women with grace and good humor.

As at Encores, the three principal cast members carry us through the swirl and the sprawl, with their credible, impassioned performances and their golden voices; it helps that each is given some of composer Stephen Flaherty’s most distinctive songs, reflecting their character’s individual personality and culture. One can question whether “Ragtime” will be considered one of the great American musicals and still feel grateful to have been able to witness Joshua Henry, the Baritenor of Broadway, deliver a shattering “Make them hear you.”

“Oh Happy Day!” may sound like church: The plot retells the Biblical story of Noah’s Ark; a divinely-dressed trio called the Divines belt out original gospel songs; we hear theological discussions and sermon-like exhortations. But playwright and actor Jordan E. Cooper peoples his play with a struggling family in present-day Mississippi who are full of angry resentments and bitter memories. And Cooper, whose play “Ain’t No Mo’” on Broadway three years ago presented a collection of barbed satirical sketches, here largely puts drama and trauma center stage.

There are some (though not enough) moments of genuine reflection in “The Least Problematic Woman in the World.” The show was called “Faghag” when it originated last year at (where else?) the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, but the new title is a bette fit, since Mulvaney mostly works hard to charm and amuse and entertain us. Much of it lands. It helps that she’s willing to make fun of herself, such as the final song of self-acceptance. It is supposed to be a stirring anthem with a refrain that the audience is asked to sing along with repeatedly. But it is almost impossible to sing, even when the words are projected on the screen with an old-fashioned sing-along dot riding along the top:

Since “Punch” is based on Jacob’s memoir and thus his perspective, it is somewhat hamstrung from giving equal weight to all three characters. I would have preferred a more streamlined play with a greater focus on the three of them. But at one point, Joan explains that they took James off life support because three of the five vital organs required for human life had shut down. Later, Jacob asks what are the five vital organs. And Joan points to each part of her body (with Jacob copying her) as she explains: “a working brain that thinks our thought. Liver that protects us from poisons, bad things. A kidney to clean us up. Lungs, to help us breathe. And a heart, that beats.” If the play isn’t perfect, there is enough in “Punch” to make it feel vital.

What I am most uncertain about in this particular production is the existence of Lloyd’s guiding intelligence. Is he deliberately dismissing the uncertainty and ambiguity embedded in the script? Or did the fashionable British director simply go with what he knows — the cool, ostentatiously minimalist aesthetic that he last demonstrated on Broadway in “Sunset Blvd,” with the same costume and scenic designer Soutra Gilmour? Again, the actors are dressed all in black, and again their live presence is upstaged by the set (although this time it’s the tunnel that dwarfs them rather than video projections.) The tree, which is usually central in the play (Didi and Gogo talk about hanging themselves from it) is now off-stage, as if its visual presence would interfere with the sleek lines of the design. There are also no props – when Didi offers Gogo a carrot or a turnip, it’s mimed.