Jonathan Mandell — Theater Critic

I suppose if you knew nothing about Steven Spielberg or “Jaws” or the blockbuster’s three stars — Robert Shaw , Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss – you might still be able to appreciate “The Shark Is Broken” as a kind of Beckett-light pop play about three characters who spend most of their time waiting for something to happen. But it’s the reflected cinematic glory in this modest stage comedy that surely explains why, four years after its month-long run at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, it has opened tonight on Broadway. The production is not an embarrassment. All three actors give uncanny impersonations that sometimes shade into nuanced portraits. The design team does an impressive job with a subtly animated, ever-changing backdrop for the fishing boat of rolling sea and cloud-streaked sky.

“Back to the Future,” opening tonight on Broadway, is a nearly scene-by-scene re-creation of the 1985 movie on which it’s based. This is in some ways a lost opportunity to reimagine a story that’s as tied to a specific era as the sports car it showcases, the DeLorean, which stopped production in 1983. So it’s perhaps a tad ironic that it’s the DeLorean that redeems this musical, far more than the serviceable score or familiar choreography or competent cast. The car serves as the main vehicle for the often thrilling stage design and special effects.

Charming, likeable, humorously self-effacing, Edelman is meticulous in detailing the oddness and incongruity of his encounter, and mining the comedy of it. But he is also continuing an age-old Jewish tradition –employing humor as a shield, but also as a weapon, against the massive irrational hatred.

If “Once Upon a One More Time,” opening at Broadway’s Marriott Marquis Theater tonight, is clearly not strikingly original, the story does have a few distinctive touches, and the production Broadway-level pleasures. The design is flashy, and the choreography is thrilling. The talented cast is game, featuring such reliably delightful Broadway veterans as Justin Guarini as a two-timing Prince Charming and Jennifer Simard as the scheming Stepmother, as well as the impressively weight-bearing Broadway debut of Briga Heelan as Cinderella. But the show is probably best appreciated by taking the advice offered in a different context in the musical by a character called the Narrator: “Don’t overthink it.”

As the play progresses, we come to feel the weight of their lives and regrets, and understand the intricacy of their connections with one another. At the same time, however, there are some baffling choices for the production that undermine our ability to engage with the play. When Death takes over each character, the voices are not the actors’ natural instrument, but speech that is electronically amplified and distorted, with an echo effect, rendering these monologues occasionally indecipherable, and always annoying. (Wouldn’t the change of lighting have been sufficient to clue us in?)

Beowulf Boritt’s spectacular sets, enhanced by a first-rate design team, add up to a three-dimensional travelogue of New York City, from Times Square, Central Park and Grand Central Terminal to the neighborhood stoop and fire escapes full of kibitzers. Director Susan Stroman choreographs one energetic dance after another, most memorably along a steel beam in mid-air. But, even when the cast isn’t literally dancing, she suggests the bustle, hustle and swirl of New York humanity with little wordless vignettes and in other clever ways, working in tandem with the breathtaking scenery: There is a mob rubout, a street painter who outrages his subject with a portrait that looks more Basquiat than da Vinci, and in the scene in Central Park, doormen who have just been clearing the snow from their walkways, lift their shovels together to form the railing along the park’s Bow Bridge, upon which a couple smooches.

When Sean Hayes as the concert pianist and celebrated wit Oscar Levant sits down at the piano to play “Rhapsody in Blue,” I thought at first that it was a recording and he was simulating the recital. But no, Hayes was himself a concert pianist before he was an actor, and his beautiful live rendition of Gershwin’s beloved jazz piano concerto is without question the highlight of “Good Night, Oscar,” which is opening tonight at Broadway’s Belasco Theater. Unfortunately, there were few other highlights for me in this workmanlike production written by Doug Wright, directed by Lisa Peterson and starring Hayes that attempts a portrait of Oscar Levant.

Tessa presses charges anyway in “Prima Facie,” a solo play opening tonight on Broadway. The best explanation for her decision is that the playwright, Suzie Miller, who was once a human rights lawyer in Australia, wants to show us that no woman – even an experienced trial lawyer – can get justice when it comes to sexual assault. (It’s no coincidence that Miller gives her heroine the same last name as Eve Ensler, the feminist playwright of “The Vagina Monologues.”) But if “Prima Facie” (a legal term meaning “on the face of it”) is a polemical play, what unfolds on the stage of the Golden Theater is an effectively directed, sleekly designed production that is, above all, a golden vehicle for the actress Jodie Comer.

“The Thanksgiving Play” has the laughs, but I don’t get the sense of the characters as dedicated educators, and it doesn’t lead us to any special understanding.

“Fat Ham” is now opening on Broadway after its two-month run last summer at the Public Theater. It hasn’t changed much, but it’s better. It has the same design and stagecraft, but bigger and more elaborate to fit the larger Broadway stage; it presents the same actors, except their performances are crisper and more confident. It is essentially the same production, but I enjoyed it more on second viewing. That’s because I focused more on scenes like the one with the smiley balloon. Sure, “Fat Ham” won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and the play is inspired by “Hamlet,” loosely adopting the plot and even using some verbatim soliloquys from Shakespeare’s tragedy. But I could forget about the expectations that were raised (and dashed) by these prestige signifiers the first time around, and now relish the silly, sexy and surreal moments that director Saheem Ali make pop in James Ijames’s raunchy, freewheeling comedy. Even the serious concerns, peeking out from beneath the playfulness, have more impact.

Only one of Peanut’s three jokes in that particular line works for me (about the China), and I’d say that’s more or less the average for the whole show: About one-third of the jokes land — and most (like Peanut’s) come out of nowhere, having nothing to do with the story or its characters. But that’s a whole lot of jokes! Indeed, the barrage of jokes dominates “Shucked.” They hit the spot more often than the score by successful country music songwriters Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, which I found memorable precisely once, in the rousing showstopper “Independently Owned,” by Alex Newell, who portrays Lulu, the town’s maker of moonshine. The jokes as a whole are far more engaging than the plot, which is a thin concoction with hints of “The Music Man,” “Urinetown,” and “L’il Abner.”

The puppets are only part of the breathtaking effects in “Life of Pi.” We’re plunged into a world that’s at times hellish, at times heavenly, by a masterful team of designers – Tim Lutkin’s lighting, Carolyn Downing’s sound, Andrzej Goulding’s video and animation, Tim Hatley’s sets and costumes — Andrew T Mackay’s music, and, crucially, by the two dozen cast members, who are fully integrated into not just the action but also the scenery.

“Bob Fosse’s Dancin’” is a highly energetic if uneven two hour exploration of the Fosse style — sultry hip rolls, sure, but also athletic leaps. The show has no overall plot, and a stage set that looks designed for a rock concert tour — big, black industrial-looking scaffolding and a back wall that serves as a video screen, mostly for flashes of color. But there are dozens of sometimes dazzling dances performed by twenty-two gorgeously talented and hard-working cast members. They don’t just dance — there’s a poem here, a monologue there, occasional brief dialogue, some competent singing – but boy do they dance! Five of the performers are making their Broadway debuts, but most are veterans of Broadway ensembles, several for twenty years or more, who for the first time are seeing their names in lights, literally — projected in huge letters behind them one by one as each takes their bows at the end.

But “The Wanderers” is far more playful than profound, an exercise in clever storytelling that involves not one, but two big plot twists - one gradually revealed; the other, seismic - and features that glamorous movie star character. As in her 2017 play “The Last Match,” which was presented at the same theater, Roundabout’s Laura Pels, and which also focused on two couples in challenging relationships (rival tennis players and their spouses), Ziegler comes up with some novel stagecraft that doesn’t completely work, but feels largely satisfying nonetheless. And in “The Wanderers,” she collaborates with the well-cast performers and director Barry Edelstein in creating five absorbing characters.

But did the playwright need to make the characters spell out their differences so explicitly? Is that the way these two visual artists would actually speak to one another? Why do so many of the supposed aperçus about art in this play sound canned, at best the kind of practiced lines that art stars say to journalists to sound outrageous? These are the sort of questions that arise here and there during “The Collaboration,” which has a script that can feel surprisingly clunky, in both moments of exposition and in the overall plot, which is largely predictable, even as the actors somehow redeem it.

It’s a funny exchange, but also a sly clue. What Pops is saying about “they” is also true of all seven characters in “Between Riverside and Crazy,” especially Pops himself. They are not as they initially seem. As subtle in its craft as it is blunt in its language — and performed by a first-rate cast — the play is likely to make you delight in all the New Yorkers on stage in the first act…and then force you to question your initial judgement in the second.

“Some Like It Hot” is glitzy, excessive, frenetic and funny, with hyperactive choreography, a game, talented cast, and a jazzy score with multiple 11 o’clock numbers. Much of this reminded me of the current Broadway revival of “The Music Man,” in that it amps up the entertainment in hopes of blasting us into submission. Whether you leave feeling entertained or overwhelmed probably depends on how eager you are for a fun time.

If I were a producer of this play in a 1,000-seat Broadway theater charging a top ticket price of $200+, I too would surely want to focus as much attention as possible on Audra McDonald, who is an undeniable crowd-pleaser and gives her all, as usual. McDonald is an actress whose emotions emerge from her depths to play out so powerfully and transparently on the surface that we can’t help but share in them. I couldn’t help wondering though: Would a separate, numbed-out Suzanne have been more effective?

“Ain’t No Mo’,” an over-the-top satire that aims to tickle, shock and draw blood, imagines an America in which all Black people are being flown to Africa. But it’s not a direct flight. There are stops at a Black church, an abortion clinic, a TV studio, a mansion, a prison, and finally, at African American Airlines, Gate 1619 (the date of the first Black slaves in the New World.) The gate agent is named Peaches; she is wearing a red pantsuit uniform and flowing pink tresses, and is portrayed by Jordan E. Cooper, who at 27 is making his Broadway debut as both actor and playwright.

I know many people worked hard to put “A Beautiful Noise” — not least a large beautiful ensemble. I’m not immune to the tunefulness of many of the songs. I’ll admit that after the show ended, I could not stop humming one of the melodies in my head. But the show also sparked a memory that I had forgotten. Immediately after the COVID-19 lockdown began, there was a rash of coronavirus parody videos, with amateur musicians performing famous pop songs with newly created pandemic related lyrics. Neil Diamond was the only famous professional musicians I know of, who did a video spoofing his own song. This was the Neil Diamond, a witty, low-key, generous old man, whom I would have loved to see more of on stage – and whom I glimpsed in Mark Jacoby’s sequin-less performance, the highlight of “A Beautiful Noise” for me, if nobody else.

I loved “KPOP” when I saw it five years ago Off Broadway, but the “KPOP” on Broadway is not the same show as the one in 2017, even though it has the same title, the same book writer and songwriters (and many of the same songs), the same director and choreographer, even the same storylines. It’s still exciting, sometimes thrilling — but it’s a packaged entertainment rather than an adventure in theater.

Having seen the performer's facial expressions in close-up (like the close-ups in most of the photographs and videos on this page, but not on the stage of the Nederlander), I couldn't help wondering whether a 1,200-seat Broadway theater was the ideal venue to showcase this performer's talents. The dim lighting and occasional total darkness had a different effect when so many of the audience (not all of them in the far-away seats) were already straining to follow what has happening on stage. This is why the design is so important. And it is sometimes surprising; at climactic moments, awesome. Indeed, the sets and especially the lighting threatened at times to swallow up Jefferson Mays. Like many a scene partner, the design seemed on occasion to try to upstage the star.

The Bard takes a back seat to the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears in '& Juliet,' a jukebox musical that is being billed as a sequel to Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet,' imagining Juliet's life if she hadn't killed herself when Romeo did. The plot winds up more busy and berserk than that description, and, in any case, the show is primarily a vehicle for the hits of Max Martin.

'The Old Man and the Pool,' opening tonight at the Vivian Beaumont, recalls the title of Hemingway's novella, 'The Old Man and the Sea,' and can be likewise interpreted as being about the struggle against death, except it's funny. An engaging standup comedian even (especially?) when riffing on uncomfortable subjects like illness and aging and ugly genitalia, Birbiglia, in his fifth comic monologue (the second one on Broadway) has put together a show that's not his best, but it's his latest, and that is likely enough for his fans.

Yet, the musical might have benefited from paring the various subplots. The problem for me is not primarily the odd pairing of zany comedy with trauma and tragedy (and criminality.) But add up all these moments and they threaten to overwhelm or at least distract from the heart of 'Kimberly Akimbo' - Kimberly and Seth.