Marilyn Stasio

Nicole Ari Parker, Blair Underwood and Daphne Rubin-Vega, the stars of Emily Mann's striking production of 'A Streetcar Named Desire,' offer no subtle psychological insights into Blanche, Stanley and Stella. But the physical beauty and sexual magnetism they bring to these iconic characters would surely delight Tennessee Williams -- along with auds who might appreciate some kicks with their culture. The only downside to the production coup of looking good (witness the handsome set, gorgeous lighting, nice costumes, and great sounds) is that much of this bold beauty is only skin deep.

Lacking an actual basketball game on an actual basketball court, Eric Simonson's 'Magic/Bird' has zip drama. But techno-savvy designers make terrific use of classic NBA footage, and the actors playing Magic and Bird are cute enough to carry it off. Basketball fans are the obvious target aud, but their dates should have a good time, too.

It's a bit of a mystery why Nichols chose to cast the lithe and slender Garfield in a role that seems to call for more brute strength than athletic grace. The thesp is far better suited to his upcoming movie role as the new Peter Parker in 'The Amazing Spider-Man,' and the physical incongruity is disconcerting enough to put him at a disadvantage initially. But by the end of the first act, the actor is holding his own, and when Biff finally spurns his father's false values and asserts his own ideals, Garfield claims the moment and scores big-time.

Fugard is a dazzling wordsmith, but he's given to writing at wearying length. So it's heavy going for much of the first act...[Miss Helen finds her voice] in a speech that Harris delivers with an incandescent flame in her eye. It's a long time coming, and for too much of the play thesp is constrained by Miss Helen's fragility. But when the moment comes, Harris lights her candles and sets the stage ablaze.

Teaching the young proves a treacherous business for both tutor and students in 'Seminar,' Theresa Rebeck's dark comedy about a literary lion and the young writers he eats for breakfast at his private seminars. Alan Rickman is heaven-sent as the sexy, sneering, snarling literary legend who condescends to tutor four aspiring novelists who have paid through the nose for the privilege of being abused. But these clever youngsters know how to play this intellectual contact sport, and even though everyone stops short of drawing blood, the civilized games they play are enormously entertaining.

'Venus in Fur,' David Ives' cheeky adaptation of Leopold Sacher-Masoch's erotic 1870 novel and originally mounted at the Classic Stage Company, improves a lot in this Broadway transfer. Chalk that up to helmer Walter Bobbie's savvy re-casting of one of the players in this two-hander: In his confident turn as a modern-day playwright-director keen on exploring the sado-masochistic sexual dynamic, Hugh Dancy gives hot co-star Nina Arianda someone substantial to play to. Play is still overwritten and pretentious, but it's a whole lot sexier with this well-matched pair taking turns at playing master and slave

Helmer Joe Mantello did a savvy job of recasting 'Other Desert Cities' for its Broadway transfer. When the show preemed at Lincoln Center earlier this year, it wasn't clear that Jon Robin Baitz's tightly wrapped family drama about a patrician clan of Old Guard California Republicans even had a leading character. That ensemble vibe survives in this production, but with the magnetic Rachel Griffiths ('Six Feet Under') now taking the lead in the part of the renegade daughter from New York, it's easier to overlook the artifices of the plot and surrender to the drama.

If the three one-act plays performed under the omnibus title 'Relatively Speaking' had been written by playwrights named Joe Smith, Jane Doe and Sid Jones, they'd probably still be making their way through the workshop pipeline at some not-for-profit (and not-too-daring) theater in the West Village. But since the scribes happen to be Woody Allen, Elaine May and Ethan Coen, these modestly amusing plays have landed on Broadway in an ungainly production helmed by (pause for one more big name) John Turturro.

Unlike those warts-and-all biodramas that humiliate the celebrated figures they profess to humanize, Katori Hall's imaginative two-hander 'The Mountaintop' does, indeed, burnish the legend of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Set in Memphis on the eve of his assassination, this soul-stirring drama finds King confiding his doubts, fears and morbid premonitions to a sassy motel maid -- a deceptively trite situation that Hall transforms into an emotionally powerful and theatrically stunning moment of truth. Factor in the double dose of charisma from certifiable stars Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, and this show has wings.

Frank Langella was born to play fabulous monsters like Richard Nixon, Count Dracula, and now, Gregor Antonescu, the international financier beset by ruinous scandal in Terence Rattigan's 1963 drama, 'Man and Boy.' Play is set during the Great Depression, but feels eerily contemporary in its cynical portrayal of industry barons who think nothing of robbing the innocent and endangering the economy with their reckless power games. Secondary roles are exceptionally well cast in Maria Aitken's well-oiled production, providing solid support for Langella's suave and superbly nuanced perf of a towering figure teetering on the edge of a moral precipice.

Opera queens can sniff all they want about Tyne Daly not having the right kind of chops to play Maria Callas in 'Master Class,' Terrence McNally's 1995 tribute to the flamboyant opera diva as she neared the end of her life. But while the dynamic Daly might not possess the air of self-dramatizing tristesse that hovered over Callas after her blazing career came to an end, Daly brings something better to the character -- a sense of vulnerable humanity that makes her courage to survive all the more admirable.

There's so much urgency in Kramer's play that it doesn't exactly qualify as a historical artifact. It also brings up a lot of issues, like gay marriage and the right to inherit, that remain relevant outside their original context. Mostly, though, the play still works because it has the power to move and disturb us. As the play's original producer, Joe Papp, put it: 'I love the ardor of this play, its howling, its terror and its kindness.'

David Cromer knows the secret to a good revival: Keep it faithful and don't comment from on high. Stiller is so personally appealing, so comically desperate, and so oblivious to the absurdity of his ambitions that he makes the character of Artie almost likeable...[Falco] finds comedy in the goofy hat and gaga grin that Bananas slaps on to greet visitors, and tragedy in her memories of the feeling person she once was. What floors us is Falco's ability to play both comedy and tragedy in the same breath.

So, what does it take to drain the humor from a classic Broadway comedy like 'Born Yesterday?' Garson Kanin's stinging 1946 satire on the unholy (and apparently eternal) business alliances struck by avaricious American entrepreneurs with corrupt Washington politicians can hardly be called dated. But something is decidedly off about the sensibility of helmer Doug Hughes's production, which stars Jim Belushi and Robert Sean Leonard and introduces Nina Arianda as the adorable bubblehead Billie Dawn. Bad enough the leads maintain a wary distance from one another and seem to distrust their own characters; they don't even seem to like the play.

Although it's hard to look anywhere else when Rylance is on stage, which is all the time, Mackenzie Crook manages to turn heads with his droll perf as Ginger, the faithful hanger-on who missed last night's bacchanal and may be too strung-out for today's festivities, the St. George's Day fete that is an annual rite of spring. Under Ian Rickson's smooth helming, other colorful visitors surface from the heavy human traffic at Rooster's camp, many of them from the original Royal Court production.

For a while, the generational and cultural clash between this self-destructive throwaway child and the big-hearted nun are genuinely engaging. But while Sister Jamison is a colorful character, she's too limited in dimension to make serious demands on Turner. The other two characters are even more insubstantial...Even against that big night sky, a star needs some incentive to shine.

The simple story, which, for all its ferocity, is not so much an anti-war play as a play about the false and brutal lessons that boys learn from their fathers (and the father figures who govern them), and must unlearn at their own peril. But the telling of this age-old tale is pure theatrical magic in this story-theater-like production staged for an all-American company by Marianne Elliott (an associate director of the National) and Tom Morris (a.d. of Bristol Old Vic) and given its heart by the magnificent horsemanship of Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones, creative masterminds of the Handspring Puppet Company.

Although Broadway proves too much of a stretch for Rock, if this multihyphenate talent is really serious about stage acting, there are some savvy thesps in this show who could show him the ropes. Bobby Cannavale and Elizabeth Rodriguez come out swinging -- and swearing a blistering blue streak -- as Jackie and Veronica, longtime lovers who are hooked on all kinds of evil substances and bad behaviors, but mostly on one another.

There's a lot of nostalgic content to this fast-moving and efficiently mounted (by Fisher Stevens) piece...less familiar is the tone of disappointment and regret that drags down the second act -- a second act that would be unnecessary if the show gets the trim it needs. Although the performer's fan base might be fascinated to get the gory details on his failed TV show (no mention is made of his short-lived Broadway appearance in 'American Buffalo'), much of this material feels like an extension of formal therapy sessions.

Unfortunately, there are no nuances to the character revelations that Miller makes to illustrate the shabby nature of Coach's civics lessons. The more they drink (and these grown men knock back their drinks with the reckless abandon of teenagers), the uglier their confessions of cruel deeds, immoral behavior, and acts of outright criminal dishonesty.

If 'Good People' isn't a hit for Manhattan Theater Club, there is no justice in the land. David Lindsay-Abaire pays his respects to his old South Boston neighborhood with this tough and tender play about the insurmountable class divide between those who make it out of this blue-collar Irish neighborhood and those who find themselves left behind. The scrappy characters have tremendous appeal, and the moral dilemma they grapple with -- is it strength of character or just a few lucky breaks that determines a person's fate? -- holds special significance in today's harsh economic climate.

Bedford may be the star of this vehicle, but he's shrewd enough to surround himself with sturdy backup, none cleverer at their jobs than Dana Ivey and Paxton Whitehead, a dynamite comic duo as the lovesick tutor Miss Prism and the obtuse vicar, the Reverend Canon Chasuble. As the arbiter of all matters of good taste, even the uncompromising Lady Bracknell would agree that, from top to bottom, this is one fine cast.

There are lessons to be learned from this revival of 'Driving Miss Daisy,' the 1987 play about the unorthodox friendship between a white Southern lady and her black chauffeur that won a Pulitzer Prize for Alfred Uhry (and an Oscar for Jessica Tandy when she and Morgan Freeman starred in the movie). Lesson No. 1 (duh) is that Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones could do this show buried up to their necks in a pit and still break your heart. Lesson No. 2 has to do with how radically the dynamics change when age-appropriate performers are cast in the roles. Still astonishing at 73, Redgrave has the age as well as the regal stature to play Daisy Werthan, the imperious and extremely vital Jewish matron who is 72 when the play opens in 1948 Atlanta. Holding herself tall and taking long, athletic strides, the statuesque thesp lets us know that this old lady has the physical stamina to support her sharp mind and independent spirit.

Can 'Lombardi' be the show to overcome Broadway's ingrained disdain for sports-themed plays? That depends on audience expectations of Eric Simonson's biodrama (based on a book by David Maraniss) about Hall of Fame football coach Vince Lombardi. Fans content just to spend a few hours in the company of this great guy should be mesmerized by Dan Lauria's spot-on impersonation of the famously hot-tempered Lombardi. More sports-minded auds, eager for insights on how this legendary coach famously guided the Green Bay Packers to five Super Bowl championships, might want to know why the show spends so little time on the gridiron. Lauria, the lovably grumpy sitcom dad on 'The Wonder Years,' brings that endearing quality to his scrappy portrait of Lombardi as the surrogate father who bullied, scolded, cheered and dragged the Packers out of the NFL cellar and on to glory. Working off his own bulldog physique and gap-toothed grin, Lauria achieves an eerie physical resemblance to Lombardi, who used his whole body to speak his mind.

Despite getting off on the wrong emotional foot, the production recovers once these hard-working thesps begin to throw themselves into their roles for the execrable shows in the company repertory. Mamet displays malicious glee in trotting out all the old chestnuts, from the World War I battlefield play ('Those dirty bastards, they stuck him on the wire and left him there for target practice!') and the Chekhovian social drama ('If we could leave this afternoon ... if we could just call, bring the carriage round, just leave this afternoon ...') to a definitive spoof of an English shipwreck drama, performed in thick lower-class accents ('Kid, we haven't got a chance in hell. But you shouldn't let it get you down, 'cause that's what life on the sea is about').