Linda Winer

Is it possible for anymore to wring a droplet of juice out of a musical comedy about a wedding?...If we really must go down that aisle again -- and the people behind 'It Shoulda Been You' clearly felt they must -- it helps a lot to have the comic ace David Hyde Pierce behind the scenes in his Broadway directing debut. Equally essential is a cast of real pros -- including Tyne Daly and Harriet Harris as the mothers-in-law -- to sell the ancient sitcom angst as if nobody had ever dreamed up such alleged hilarity before. Improbably, if the audience at a recent preview is an indication, this conscientiously good-humored 100-minute show may well be a demographic crowd-pleaser. The overqualified cast convinces us that everyone onstage is having a terrific time, which goes a long way toward muffling the incredulity that such a throwback has found its way back to Broadway.

From the first moments of 'An American Paris,' two things are clear about this new Gershwin musical. First, it is far more than just another Broadway remake of a Hollywood movie. And the ballet world's choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, in his theater-directing debut, has made something special. Just how extraordinary is unspooled all evening with exuberant, sweeping innovation, dark historical understanding and a big, smart heart. This is the most thrilling dance-driven musical since Twyla Tharp's wordless 'Movin' Out' in 2002. But 'American in Paris,' loosely inspired by the beloved 1951 movie, is also a genuine book musical starring ballet dancers -- Robert Fairchild from New York City Ballet and Leanne Cope from The Royal Ballet -- who can also act and sing.

Based on Hilary Mantel's two prizewinning books, this prestige event of the Broadway season offers straightforward storytelling, finely wrought performances and yards upon yards of magnificent 16th century costumes...An admirable acting Olympiad is led by Ben Miles' smooth and shrewd portrayal of Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith's son who rose to consigliere of the Tudor court. For all the marathon's heft, however, this is not a perception-altering import...Despite the feral titles, the plays offer more steady elegance than wild passion. Miles, seldom off the stage, shows us a Cromwell who is ruthless, but not bloodthirsty. Mocked for his working-class background, he admirably grows slicker and more powerful without stooping to villainous cliche...It is hard not to wish for something deeper from all those hours onstage.

Starring the talented Vanessa Hudgens of 'High School Musical' in her confident Broadway debut, the show, efficiently directed by Eric Schaeffer, has been sanitized, flattened and sentimentalized from stylish sophistication to what feels like a cornfed love story with beautifully ornamented Belle Epoque staircases (by Derek McLane) and gorgeous period costumes (by that wizard, Catherine Zuber)...In making Gaston so close to Gigi's age, however, Heidi Thomas' adaptation robs even a frisson of inappropriate tension from the courtship. Nor does it help to have cast Corey Cott, a drab, boyish actor with a good voice but little charisma, as the playboy whose exploits are legend to all of Paris...While [Hudgens] has the flair of a stage natural and soars through her few ballet sequences in Joshua Bergasse's busy and pedestrian choreography, her voice has the steely, engaging quality of a Disney heroine singing through helium.

Last spring Off-Broadway, 'Hand to God' was a wicked little church satire about a small-town Texas teen whose sock puppet is possessed by the devil. Improbably pumped up for Broadway, with a lot more yelling and joke-pounding, the offbeat reverence shrinks in charm and impact. Robert Askins' gory yet sweet-natured spoof feels more like a drawn-out sketch, and the gleeful dirty-talk gets childish when hammered by good actors encouraged to shriek. Despite the bible ripping and the 'have-a-blessed-day' pieties, however, 'Hand to God' is as much about religion as 'Avenue Q' is about Sesame Street. Both are just diving boards to bounce dangerous thoughts into safe water.

This is still a witty, vibrant, wonderful play, directed with layers of wisdom and an embraceable aversion to cartoon by Pam MacKinnon. Twenty-seven years after its opening, the time-traveling, way-we-were play about the '60s, '70s and '80s stands boldly up to hindsight and diminishment by far too many pop-sociology TV shows...Moss, best known through the consciousness evolution of Peggy Olson in 'Mad Men,' holds center stage as Heidi...Jason Biggs is entirely believable, and totally infuriating, as Scoop, the boyfriend whose infantile need to grade everything is perfect for the editor of a lifestyle magazine. Bryce Pinkham endearingly balances the sardonic with the tragic as her best friend, the gay doctor.'

Ellis actually has him pump iron with the tiny actress as a barbell. And, over and over, Carlyle turns the four train porters into a marvelous tap-happy quartet that recreates the sound -- and the almost preposterous pleasure -- of the long-lost cross-country carriage trade. Lovely, all lovely.

What could have been an acting stunt is instead a rich, deep portrait of a woman who, somehow, is deeply revealed without giving much of her mysterious self away. Mirren, her legs demurely crossed at the ankle and hands folded, expresses layers of depth with just a tilt of her head. Neither a Shakespearean tragedy nor a fairy-tale fantasy, the poignant power of this royal story comes from its extraordinary ordinariness.

It has been a long time since Broadway had a comedy so flush with Jewish-mother jokes and giddy about finding synonyms for breasts. Many decades have passed since the sound of an offstage toilet flushing was intended as a sure source of hilarity...If anyone could get away with such a throwback, it is Larry David...But, really, the draw is David himself, full of trademark grandiosity and self-loathing, that oddly charming mix of excruciating self-consciousness and diffident selfishness...Still, don't expect a hip, retro, wry spin on the old-time formula. This is a comedy which, despite the occasional amusing twist, could have been written by someone who hasn't seen a play since the early days of Neil Simon...then there is David, an endearing, querulous beanpole, leaning back on his skinny hips and doing what fans have come to see him do, only with bigger arm gestures. Everyone around me seemed to be having a wonderful time. Wish I were there.

'Honeymoon in Vegas,' based on the 1992 film, is an unexpectedly delightful, thoroughly conventional movie spinoff that isn't hard-selling anything more than a good time created by experts. Tony Danza, no joke, is a pro...And director Gary Griffin ('The Color Purple') has an inventive idea for every location-hopping improbable moment without losing the show's easygoing likability. And then there is the supper-club jazzy/old-time Broadway score by Jason Robert Brown...Here he writes new songs that seem as if they ought to be old-time brassy standards, except for the nonstop-clever, up-to-the-minute lyrics for outrageous farce and sweet ballads...Rob McClure ('Chaplin') is virtuosically understated as Jack, a nice Brooklyn guy who loves Betsy, a nice schoolteacher, embodied by Brynn O'Malley with down-to-earth slinkiness...Despite all these original spins on a familiar brand, the show has not been selling during previews. Perhaps it will now.

One danger in describing 'Constellations' -- and there are more than a few -- is that Nick Payne's time-traveling, two-character, 70-minute invention will sound like a technical gimmick. Another peril would be to let his way of repeating short scenes with different emphases suggest just an acting exercise. Or worse, upon learning that the action takes place in 'The Multiverse' of the 'Past, Present and Future' and that a character is a quantum cosmologist, one could be excused for dreading a physics lesson. In fact, with actors less compelling and unpretentiously appealing as Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson, it's likely that this deeply moving and unpredictable romance would never have made it to Broadway at all. But here they are, making their dazzling Broadway debuts as characters who, despite the brevity of the evening, make us feel as if we have been through countless possible ups and downs in a very real, intimate relationship.

But [Cooper] has long been determined, even oddly obsessed with John Merrick, the hideously deformed man who rose from freak-show monster to high-society pet in Victorian London. And we say good for him and his smashing, heart-ripping portrayal. And good enough for Bernard Pomerance's 1977 philosophical adventure story, which, as always, is better on the theatrical adventure than on its fuzzy philosophy. Cooper, arguably the most beautiful creature to play ugly in the multi-award- winning drama, fully justifies the hyped-up anticipation in his first Broadway turn since getting lost in Julia Roberts' shadow eight years ago in 'Three Days of Rain.'

...although the play still dazzles with wit, gorgeous writing and the lurking terror of mortality, we miss the accumulating shock he gave to the characters' lives of cozy self-satisfaction. Director Pam MacKinnon...spells things out here instead of letting Albee toy with us through suggestion and suspense...Albee...challenges actors with tyrannical syntactic demands -- mouthfuls of polysyllabic, unforgiving, grown-up paragraphs that require virtuosos to make them sound like speech. Lithgow is droll and manor-born as the retired Tobias, though we never believe he is as ineffectual as Agnes claims. Oddly, Close, who has three best-actress Tonys, seemed daunted at a recent preview by Agnes' exhilarating but Olympian monologues. Stumbling over the words is a special problem for a silver fox who fancies herself the fulcrum of the family's equilibrium...instead of upsetting the balance of self-satisfied old money, the scene screams ostentation. Nothing, alas, is delicate.

The musical about the real-life conjoined Hilton sisters, which crashed and burned in its 1997 premiere, has risen in a revision so radical and deeply satisfying that arguments could be made for calling it new...And with composer Henry Krieger ('Dreamgirls') and author Bill Russell, Condon created a big, old-fashioned, shamelessly entertaining musical that tells its human story while embracing, without forcing, issues beyond the showbiz saga of the sisters' sensational and sad freak show/vaudeville/Hollywood lives...Emily Padgett and Erin Davie are beautifully matched as the twins...While their predecessors in the roles were soaring pop belters, these women blend and contrast with sophisticated delicacy...the staging is so smart that we hardly notice such schlocky remaining lyrics as 'You should be cherished like the first bird of springtime.' The sisters may sing 'goodbye to the side show,' but Broadway is saying hello.

There is something poignant and daring about Hugh Jackman as he triumphantly challenges both his action-movie and flamboyant-Broadway fan bases in 'The River.' The three-character drama is emotionally exposed and intensely inconclusive -- a poetic, lusty puzzle that rivets one moment, exasperates another, and is destined to keep theatergoers arguing about its meaning all the way home, if not all season.

Admittedly, despite the marquee allure of Ewan McGregor and Maggie Gyllenhaal in their impressively comfortable Broadway debuts, this is less of a luscious showpiece than was the 1984 New York premiere with Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close, and has less dazzling heat than the 2000 one with Stephen Dillane and Jennifer Ehle. But everyone...is appealing and smart. And this romantic serio-comedy -- Stoppard's most accessible work -- remains a dizzying Chinese box of unpredictable devises that express devastating compassion for that most basic yet elusive human emotion. The problem, and I'm afraid there is one, comes from the look of director Sam Gold's production, which works against immediacy by spreading the action on a set so wide and cool it invites the big theater to swallow up the intimacy. To their credit, these fine actors resist an impulse to push to fill the space.

Now finally, 'Disgraced' has opened on Broadway, directed again by Senior but with less compressed tension and with four of the five characters recast. The play remains a smart and provocative work of unusual daring, one that should be seen by anyone who cares about serious theater and the knotted tangles of tribal beliefs that lurk under civilized layers of educated, liberal professionals. But the magic is missing at the center and that magic was Aasif Mandvi...Dhillon's Amir is more dashing and tightly wired, but without the charisma and likability that first must humanize a man who challenges us in monstrous ways. This Amir doesn't shock us enough when the politics of race and gender explode the tolerance of two upscale Manhattan couples...Nothing is sacred -- the Quran, the Old Testament, terrorism, art history, cultural tourism, ancient prejudices and blazing ambivalence -- as Akhtar rubs unexpected raw spots with enormous intelligence and humor. Too bad Broadway doesn't get to feel all the burn.

If sincerity and noble intentions were enough to make a good musical, 'The Last Ship' would be a smash. If haunting folk-tinged melodies and choruses of rousing determination could float this boat, Sting's heartfelt debut musical would justify the years he devoted to the $14 million epic about a depressed English shipbuilding town very much like the one where he grew up.

...this just is a breezy, peppy, pleasantly libidinous valentine to New York-New York that respects Leonard Bernstein's jazzy brainy score with a lush 28-piece orchestra. The cast, except for Jackie Hoffman overdoing four comic cameos, doesn't hit the sly jokes by Betty Comden and Adolph Green too hard. And the big ensemble, led by the amiable if slightly bland Tony Yazbeck as sailor Gabey, makes the huge Lyric Theatre (Spider-Man's former home) feel almost homey...Joshua Bergasse, choreographer of NBC's 'Smash' in his Broadway debut, defines characters persuasively in classic, jazz and comic movement and, though the two big ballet scenes don't build into more than serviceable pastiche, the dancers are attractive and strong...'On the Town' never was one of the great musicals or an urgently needed revival, but it needs a throat-catching sense of the world outside to make it more than diverting.

If the entire dream cast of Terrence McNally's backstage revenge play had less than split-millisecond timing, the merciless inside-showbiz observations about the theater and theaterfolk might wound deeper than they amuse. Instead, McNally's major update and overhaul of his 1985 work is likely to remind the gleefully unrepentant among us of Alice Roosevelt Longworth's quote that, more or less, said, 'If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me....Lane revels in the ego and insecurity of the actor with the TV series who turned down a part written for him by his playwright-buddy, underplayed with deft earnestness and panic by Broderick, the comedy's straight man. Channing is delicious as an aging star with drug issues and a parolee's ankle bracelet. Mullally has a dumb-smart way with malaprops as the eager fledgling producer. Grint -- all spiked red hair and raccoon eyes -- is perfectly bratty as the British directing genius, while Abraham skulks creepily around as a vicious critic with an agenda...As long as they're not up there laughing at you, however, this is the rare Broadway comedy that's as smart as it is funny.

The results brilliantly capture the sensory overload in the journey of a sweet, compulsive, instinctive and unpredictably violent child as he investigates the murder of his neighbor's dog Wellington. What the adaptation does not do, at least until the very end, is transcend the spectacle to dig out the emotional life that coexists with Christopher's confusing perceptions.

It is easy to understand why playwrights, especially those fascinated by the layers of human relationships, are drawn to the work of Anton Chekhov...Except for the fine cast led by the formidably elegant Blythe Danner, however, there is little else that feels right enough about 'The Country House.' Margulies...is straining here to update Chekhov's 'The Seagull' to a summer house full of theater people at the Williamstown Theatre Festival...Of course, it is always a pleasure to watch Danner have her way with a big character, even such a familiar one as the shrewd, tempestuous, increasingly insecure theatrical diva...[but] the banter is hackneyed and, ultimately, the crises are pointless. Worse, these people are dull.

Most deliciously, there is the dancing daughter, played by Annaleigh Ashford -- almost entirely on her toes -- with a joyful combination of humor and virtuosity. Jane Greenwood's terrific costumes appreciate that people without money are not people without style. And there are pet snakes and a massive turntable set used perhaps once too often and, just in case too much is never enough, a basket of kittens to admire.

So there is a bit of undeniable wistfulness in the Broadway return of 'Love Letters,'...But this turns out to be anything but a middlebrow, star-driven gimmick of nostalgia marketing. At least that's true with the inaugural pairing of the phenomenal Mia Farrow and the touchingly solid Brian Dennehy in director Gregory Mosher's minimal, subtle production...Dennehy...has a poignant vulnerability as Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, the responsible one who loves writing and who never dared displease others to fulfill his own desires. But what a range of emotions Farrow portrays as she simply sits reading behind the desk...As Melissa Gardner, Farrow somehow transforms from bright, petulant, rich girl to restless woman and disturbed loner with little more than a squint or a bray or a flick of her long, fuzzy, golden hair. It is hard to believe she has not spent her life on the New York stage.

There are just three characters in 'This Is Our Youth' and three gifted, demographically hot-button actors onstage in this Broadway premiere of Kenneth Lonergan's 1996 slacker comedy. And yet, as the deceptively shaggy story unwinds in a single one-room crash pad, we don't just get to know these three privileged, directionless offspring of successful Upper West Side Jewish parents in 1982. Thanks to the playwright's meticulously hand-picked insights and Anna D. Shapiro's tight yet seemingly easygoing direction, we somehow feel we have spent a couple of amusing and ultimately painful hours with an entire world of offstage parents, drug dealers and friends of friends.