Marilyn Stasio

The company tendency for overproduction gives the show a stiffness that impedes Shaw's fluidly flowing thoughts on the ways that our culture allows (and disallows) women to sell themselves in the social marketplace. Exteriors look unnatural, interiors feel too formal, and there are entirely too many chairs around for characters who are too stimulated by their own racing thoughts to be sitting down so much.

Here it is, only the beginning of a new theater season, and Broadway already has a feel-good -- make that a feel-great -- hit in 'The Pitmen Painters.' Scribe Lee Hall draws on the same inspirational themes that served him so well in 'Billy Elliot the Musical' with this heartbreakingly funny play about a group of Northumberland coal miners who in 1934 sign up for a union-sponsored art appreciation course and become the darlings of the U.K. art set. Max Roberts' helming is flawless, and bully for Equity for preserving the extraordinary ensemble of character actors from the original British production.

Industry doomsayers were all wet about 'Enron.' This London bombshell is both a dazzling piece of entertainment and a gripping cautionary tale about the criminal chicanery that eviscerated the most respected corporate body in America. Still, it cost a bundle (a reputed $5 million) to haul this hi-tech show into town, and everyone's wondering if starstruck musical junkies will part with their coin for a straight play. What's clear is that the sensational stage effects deliver the same blood-pumping thrills of a musical, wrapped around a play, by Lucy Prebble, with more brains in its head than any tuner since 'Assassins.'

Anyone who takes acting seriously would walk a Broadway mile to see Linda Lavin play a distinguished but earthy author who is betrayed by the adoring protege who worms into her reclusive life. Pulitzer Prize-winning scribe Donald Margulies deftly if oh-so-laboriously lays out the groundwork for the final confrontation that allows Lavin to rip her guts out. Manhattan Theater Club a.d. Lynne Meadow, who previously directed Lavin in 'The Tale of the Allergist's Wife' and helms here, respects her star's firepower and has hired a classy tech-team to prove it. But lordy, lordy, what a boring play it is.

No, you don't need to frontload the production with a star to mount a successful revival of 'Fences.' August Wilson's 1987 drama, the Pulitzer Prize-winning centerpiece of his 10-play Century Cycle about the African-American experience, is a masterpiece, and this meticulously mounted production does it proud. That said, it definitely does not hurt to have a high-wattage superstar like Denzel Washington toplining the show in the role originally defined by James Earl Jones. Although quirkily cast as a gruff, middle-aged sanitation worker, Washington turns in a heartfelt performance as one of the true tragic heroes of modern American theater.

Audiences from Boca Raton to Baden Baden have been laughing themselves silly at 'Lend Me a Tenor' since 1986, when Ken Ludwig's opera buffa was first produced on the West End by Andrew Lloyd Webber. After its 1989 Broadway premiere, show's been done around the world and is a perennial favorite of regional and community theaters in the USA. Not to be denied their own fun, helmer Stanley Tucci and a contingent of Broadway and Hollywood stars toplined by Tony Shalhoub and Anthony LaPaglia are now lending their glamour to this warhorse, giving a new generation reason to roar.