Marilyn Stasio

It’s hard to call this gushing fountain of clever talk a play. There’s no dramatic shape to it: No plot, no event, no conflict, no danger. But there are two richly drawn characters on stage with plenty to say for themselves.

For all its dizzying charms, the overstuffed show doesn't quite deliver on what really counts - the three Spirits of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future, as they conjure up visions to terrify Scrooge into changing his parsimonious ways. Here the individual spirits don't really come alive (ahem), and their visions feel rushed on and off the stage. I can't help wondering how Dickens the performer managed to breathe life into the characters created by Dickens the novelist. (They say he waved his arms a lot and became quite bombastic.) Mays does none of that corny stuff, but for all the theatrical magic he makes on his own, he really could use a bit more help.

As a writer, Byrne is no Brendan Behan, but the sincerity of his voice is a fine cover for whatever artlessness it disguises. And there are moments when he really hits his mark, as with the image of himself as a child, saying his prayers and trying to catch a glimpse of his guardian angel, 'standing by the bed to protect me from all the dangers of the night.' In such moments he sounds like his own guardian angel, protecting his boyish self from the darkness to come as a grown man.

Wilson clearly loves his characters and gives each one a big solo moment in the spotlight. Even the ghosts of the dead make themselves heard - chiefly Sutter, who manages to spook everyone by chasing bad-boy Willie Boy all the way north to Pittsburgh to plague him. Designers Beowulf Boritt (set), Japhy Weideman (lighting), and Scott Lehrer (sound) have given the dead man a good welcome, and he seems to get along with all the other haunts in the house.

But as this production from the Young Vic Theatre in London reminds us, Arthur Miller's 1949 drama packs a mighty punch. Pierce portrays Willy as a hero for both his time and ours - a complex human being with grave character flaws, but 'a good man' for all that. Under the careful direction of Miranda Cromwell, Pierce sensitively scrutinizes this deluded man's foolish worship of the American Dream, which he narrowly interprets as material success.

The set (Richard Hudson, with a shout-out to the props team), costumes (Brigitte Reiffenstuel) and especially the lighting design (Neil Austin) bathe the first scene in an aura of domestic harmony. It's 1899 and almost Christmas in Vienna. Everyone in the tastefully furnished Merz household appears to be approaching the 20th century with glad hearts. The family trade is prospering, the men are successful businessmen and academics, the women are smart and articulate and the children are well-behaved.

The show's trippy sensibility is strikingly displayed on Beowulf Boritt's spare, highly stylized cycloramic set and under Bradley King's luscious lighting, which turns the color blue into a juicy fruit so cool and sweet the eye can almost taste it. Mixing up the senses is very much a quality of this thoughtful and unusually literate musical, which book writer and director Lapine has apparently conceived as a head trip with brains.

The show's trippy sensibility is strikingly displayed on Beowulf Boritt's spare, highly stylized cycloramic set and under Bradley King's luscious lighting, which turns the color blue into a juicy fruit so cool and sweet the eye can almost taste it. Mixing up the senses is very much a quality of this thoughtful and unusually literate musical, which book writer and director Lapine has apparently conceived as a head trip with brains.

Nwandu's theatrical idiom - the heartsick poetry of profanity applied to the raging anger of deep existential pain - is its own kind of beautiful. There's something blood-boiling about the men's casual revelations of personal suffering, pointed cruelty and the underlying social injustice of systemic racism. This playwright's voice can be a joy to hear, and her language is often blistering.

Nwandu's theatrical idiom - the heartsick poetry of profanity applied to the raging anger of deep existential pain - is its own kind of beautiful. There's something blood-boiling about the men's casual revelations of personal suffering, pointed cruelty and the underlying social injustice of systemic racism. This playwright's voice can be a joy to hear, and her language is often blistering.

It's probably a lost cause trying to fit every chosen song into a plot-worthy moment in the show. It doesn't make dramatic sense that Elizabeth should be the soloist on 'Like a Rolling Stone' and 'Forever Young.' But Winningham puts so much heart into both songs that she can leave you trembling. And she, more than anyone else in the cast, seems to understand that Dylan's narrative lyrics, mainly written in the 1960s and 70s, express a sense of existential detachment, a yearning for human connection that reflect the uncertainties of 1930s America.

There's no doubt that the sensibility has shifted in this revival, but not enough to seem theatrically radical. Although we no longer seem to be in the 50s, the modern elements are mainly structural, like the gigantic scenic projections (designed by Luke Halls) on the back wall. At first they seem intrusive, more aggressive than enlightening because they're competing with, and often overwhelming, the stage action below. They become integral to the show only when they reveal things we can't see for ourselves, like the confidential exchanges between Maria and Anita in the back room of Doc's Drugstore, and the electrifying night run that Tony takes on the rain-slicked streets of Hell's Kitchen.

Right from the start, the audience feels under attack by the fierce hormonal energy of angsty adolescents and the unfocused anxiety of their parents. Unsurprisingly, 'All I Really Want' is right up there, close to the top of the show, with the entire company articulating their inexpressibly painful needs. The spastic movements devised by choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui provide a brilliantly crazed energy that smartly reflects their raging hormones and unfocused outrage. Even Emily Rebholz's rag-bag costumes contribute to the disjointed adolescent emotions that overflow the stage.

'Now, that's what I call a Broadway show!' That's what the stranger sitting next to me at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater yelled into my ear at the roof-raising finale of 'Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.' I'd say he nailed it. Call 'Tina' a jukebox musical or a bio-musical or anything you want to call it, but above all, this is one fine specimen in the best showbiz tradition of the Great Big Broadway Musical. The music is fantastic, the staging is deluxe, the central figure is a cultural icon and the lead performer, Adrienne Warren, is sensational.

Mary-Louise Parker will take your breath away with her deeply felt and sensitively drawn portrait of a tenured Yale professor who treasures great literature, but has made no room in her life for someone to share that love with. The other thesp in this two-hander is Will Hochman, endearing in the supportive role of a writing student who understands his odd-duck teacher and shares her values. Their intense Platonic relationship is all the more touching for being, of necessity, so brief and, in the end, so confoundingly dramatic.

'The Rose Tattoo' is what happens when a poet writes a comedy - something strange, but kind of lovely. The same might be said of director Trip Cullman's production: Strange, if not exactly lovely. Even Marisa Tomei, so physically delicate and expressively refined, seems an odd choice to play the lusty and passionate protagonist, Serafina Delle Rose. She, too, is kind of lovely - if lost.

Jeremy O. Harris' broad send-up of race and sex in America, 'Slave Play,' isn't outrageously funny. But it does have its funny moments - and it certainly is outrageous. In the very first scenes, we're confronted with three vignettes of seduction and copulation. For starters, a slave named Kaneisha (the abundantly talented Joaquina Kalukango) enthusiastically seduces Massa Jim (Paul Alexander Nolan), who prefers to be called Mista Jim, by throwing herself on the cabin floor and twerking.

Schenkkan brings onstage an army of people on all sides of the fray - so many characters, in fact, that you can't tell them apart without a guide. And while a skimpy program insert does offer a bit of help in identifying the individual players, most of them are on and off in a flash. In fact, there are few extended scenes to give any of the characters a chance to make a strong impression or, more important, to keep the play grounded.

The slender plot, such as it is, involves the usual crises following the death of a parent. Do we sell the house? What's to become of Dad and/or Mom? How can we salvage Dad's valuable unpublished work? Who's going to take all these books? These are some of the questions pondered by the couple's two grown children, loving Anne (Amanda Drew) and self-centered Elise (Lisa O'Hare). They are, of course, the eternal questions whenever a parent dies, and these two siblings are no better equipped to deal with them than any of the rest of us. But if we learn nothing about bearing up under grief from these hapless sisters, we can still treasure two superb performances from two great actors.

Director Jamie Lloyd's impeccable direction - now on Broadway, after a hot-ticket London run - strips Pinter's 1978 play to its bare bones: the excruciating examination of the slow death of a marriage. It's a daring approach, leaving the characters nowhere to hide. Certainly not in the language, which is so famously spare that even the pauses pulse with unspoken emotion and hidden meaning. And definitely not in the staging, which is the essence of minimalism.

But in the context of these monologues, a word like 'delight' must be taken with caution. There's pleasure to be had at the sound of pretty prose, and it's a joy to watch two fine actors perform in flawless character. But it might take a couple of stiff drinks to get the ashen taste of death out of your mouth.

If they didn't do 'Lady Marmalade,' I was going to storm the stage. Happily, director Alex Timbers and writer John Logan were savvy enough to open their Broadway adaptation of 'Moulin Rouge!' with that crowd-pleasing tune, written by Kenny Noland and Robert Crewe and immortalized by the great Patti LaBelle. But does that mean this stunning live version blots out all fond memories of Baz Luhrmann's 2001 movie starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor? No way.

In 1987, the play's sub-textual message was a no-brainer. Everyone knew then that playing at sex was playing with fire, and McNally had no reason to spell it out. But because there's no need-to-know subtext to a modern-day production like this one, there's always the danger that the story of Frankie and Johnny might seem shallow because nothing more than a love story is at stake. Nothing more, perhaps, than a love story, but my, how those lovers can love.

Robert Horn (book) and Tony-winner David Yazbek (score) have a high old time poking fun at theatrical rituals - the mortifying auditions, the grueling rehearsals, the agonizing openings, the backstage heartbreak - in this affectionate sendup of a Broadway musical (replacing the movie's soap opera setting) and its uniquely unlikely star. Director Scott Ellis leaves nothing and no one unscathed in staging this satire of a Broadway-bound musical called 'Juliet's Nurse.' From the gaudy Renaissance costumes (by William Ivey Long) to the over-the-top choreography (from Denis Jones), the creatives nail it.

There's no shortage of art and craft in this offbeat show; but there's also a limit to how much goofiness a comedy can support, and Mac may have gone over his limit. The jokes start to feel lame and the crude burlesque routines seem a bit cruel. Is this what happens to clowns when they overreach and do a pratfall? Maybe so. In which case, Mac might do a little bloodletting on his dramatic corpus.