Jonathan Mandell — Theater Critic

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.

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.

“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.

“Weather Girl” has a plot of sorts, although it’s not especially detailed or what you could call linear; I’d be surprised if the Netflix series sticks to it (assuming a Netflix series actually materializes.) In a program note, Watkin explains that he wrote the play to address the question: “Why do we wreck the places we love?” He explicitly means California, and implicitly Planet Earth. In answer, he packs his play with numerous ways we are all complicit. To give one example: During the date with the tech bro, he tells her he’s “part of a startup that’s building six hundred ‘smart homes’ nearby, and I say what about the water crisis, where will they get their water, and he says I dunno someone’ll figure it out” (Is this why she crashes his car? If so, the dots aren’t directly connected.) It’s not the plot nor the points that exert the biggest pull for “Weather Girl.” It’s how Julia McDermott’s performance holds all the elements together, even as everything is flying apart.

As Ulysses works through the tensions and pressures towards the perhaps-inevitable conciliatory hugs and celebratory voguing, the scenes and songs that depict Ulysses’ developing relationship with Raymond feel the most credible and the most endearing. That may be because they seem to come closest to what those kids who walk through the church’s red door each week may actually be like, or at least what they most realistically hope for.

“The Brothers Size” is a kind of dance, in some ways literally (the performers moving around that white circle to the sound of the drums) but also metaphorically – a swirl of envy and resentment and deep love that engages all three characters in different, fascinating and (of course) oblique ways.

These efforts pay off in visual splendor. Yet, in part because of the great inherent promise of its subject, “House of McQueen” feels mostly like a missed opportunity.

There are so many reasons to be excited by director Saheem Ali’s production of Shakespeare’s comically convoluted tale of mistaken identity and addled affection. It was inspired to cast Lupita Nyong’o and her brother Junior Nyong’o as the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are split apart during a shipwreck and make their separate ways through Illyria.

I couldn’t embrace everything about this show. But I couldn’t remain neutral either. For one thing, antisemites will hate it. He starts a lengthy routine by explaining that he earned a black belt in karate and developed comic retorts after being bullied in school, including by someone who called him a dirty Jew; this leads to his listing the many inventions by Jews (Prozac…Theory of Relativity…Pickles), and concludes by his inviting the audience to sing along with a jingle

I couldn’t embrace everything about this show. But I couldn’t remain neutral either. For one thing, antisemites will hate it. He starts a lengthy routine by explaining that he earned a black belt in karate and developed comic retorts after being bullied in school, including by someone who called him a dirty Jew; this leads to his listing the many inventions by Jews (Prozac…Theory of Relativity…Pickles), and concludes by his inviting the audience to sing along with a jingle

Book writer Catherine Johnson deserves credit for trying to make the mother-daughter relationship resonate, although she is more often lauded for having worked in twenty-two ABBA songs into the story in sometimes clever ways, without changing almost any of the lyrics. But the lyrics don’t always fit snugly with the narrative; and some of the melodies – all of which were already oldies when the musical debuted – aren’t really evergreens. A reimagined “Mamma Mia” could have benefitted from dropping some of the songs, and making the show shorter.

Book writer Catherine Johnson deserves credit for trying to make the mother-daughter relationship resonate, although she is more often lauded for having worked in twenty-two ABBA songs into the story in sometimes clever ways, without changing almost any of the lyrics. But the lyrics don’t always fit snugly with the narrative; and some of the melodies – all of which were already oldies when the musical debuted – aren’t really evergreens. A reimagined “Mamma Mia” could have benefitted from dropping some of the songs, and making the show shorter.