Matt Windman — Theater Critic

If nothing else, “The Lost Boys” feels like a warning. Broadway cannot keep pouring enormous resources into oversized adaptations of middling films with generic pop scores and expect better results.

This “Rocky Horror” is not without flaws, but it hardly matters. The style carries you along, and the energy rarely falters. For nearly two hours, it delivers what it promises: a weird, exuberant, and thoroughly enjoyable night out. Participation optional, temptation unavoidable.

There is an irony here. On television, “Schmigadoon!” felt like a gateway, a playful introduction to Broadway traditions for a wide audience. On Broadway, that sense of discovery disappears. The references no longer surprise; they just sit there, piling up with diminishing returns.

“Fallen Angels” looks handsome and sounds promising on paper, but in execution, it proves curiously insubstantial, a revival with style to spare but little reason to exist.

The move to Broadway works against the show. What once felt scrappy and self-aware in a smaller setting now looks oddly exposed on a larger stage, its thin material fully laid bare. The trajectory recalls “Dames at Sea,” the affectionate parody of 1930s Busby Berkeley musicals that began at Caffè Cino in 1966 and later made its way to Broadway in 2015 — with similarly mixed results when scaled up beyond its intimate origins.

At the center is Lane, delivering one of the most electrifying performances of his career. He doesn’t play Willy as a quiet, worn-down man. He plays him as a live wire—sarcastic, pleading, combative, tender, often within a single line. What’s most striking is the musicality of his voice. This isn’t a musical, and yet it often feels like one when he speaks. Lane shapes Miller’s language as if he’s singing it, or delivering a Shakespearean soliloquy—each phrase carefully pitched, rising and falling with rhythm and intention. He pivots in an instant from buoyant, almost giddy enthusiasm to naked self-pity, then back again, without strain. The shifts are seamless and mesmerizing.

Under the direction of Rupert Goold, the production leans into broadness. Scenes that should crackle instead drift into exaggerated, sometimes sitcom-like exchanges, leaving the show caught awkwardly between hostage thriller and ensemble comedy. Even the impressive revolving set, which fluidly shifts between the bank interior and the surrounding street, begins to feel overworked, with repeated transitions that stall rather than build momentum.

Page’s adaptation keeps the action brisk, but it can’t fully tame the story. Even so, the constant escalation starts to feel less shocking than exhausting by the second half. Still, the staging remains consistently engaging. Berger makes smart use of the intimate theater, with actors appearing in the balcony and aisles to suggest a larger world.

At the center of it all is Lithgow, who delivers a commanding, carefully modulated performance. His Dahl is theatrical and domineering, by turns mischievous, bellicose, and quietly menacing — a man who delights in belittling those around him, needling them with pointed, often deliberately provocative questions. It is, in every sense, a gigantic performance — and a reminder of Lithgow’s ability to command a stage. The casting carries an added layer of irony: Lithgow is also set to play Dumbledore in HBO’s upcoming “Harry Potter” series, even as author J.K. Rowling remains a lightning rod for controversy.

“Every Brilliant Thing” confronts serious subject matter — depression, suicide attempts, and the complicated experience of loving someone who struggles with mental illness — yet it does so with determined optimism. Over the course of the evening, Radcliffe turns the Hudson Theatre into a kind of temporary community, inviting the audience to contribute their own reminders of life’s small pleasures. The result is a modest but affecting theatrical experience that finds unexpected power in the simple act of paying attention to what makes life worth living.

Slater gives a terrific performance — physically agile and emotionally transparent. He avoids mythologizing Marceau, instead presenting a young man straining to hold everything together. When his cousin fails to appear and responsibility settles fully on his shoulders, the flicker of panic is visible.

Seen on Broadway, with greater polish and physical distance, “Bug” lands differently. The problem isn’t that “Bug” no longer makes sense. It’s that this time, I never fully went with it. I understood what the play was doing. I respected the craft. I appreciated the performances. But I didn’t surrender to the descent. Where the play once swept me into its fever dream, I remained aware, analytical, outside the experience. The bugs never got under my skin.

The production ultimately feels less like a fresh interrogation of “Anna Christie” than a respectful showcase for Williams—who is married to Kail—and a museum piece. It honors the play’s legacy, but stops short of making a compelling case for its return.

‘Gruesome Playground Injuries’ is not an easy play; it’s nonlinear, messy, and intentionally unresolved. But that lends it power. The scenes accumulate like fragments of memory, adding up to something quietly devastating. When the play clicks, it does so with startling emotional clarity.

Director-choreographer Danny Mefford doesn’t attempt a radical reinterpretation, nor does he need to. The material is bulletproof. But he infuses the evening with a welcome sense of kinetic play, giving each scene and musical number a brisk, physical charge. “Magic Foot” remains a guaranteed showstopper, and the decision to run without an intermission—keeping the show at a tight 1 hour and 45 minutes—maintains the breathless pacing that makes the bee feel like a single, unbroken event.

The new Broadway revival once again attempts the impossible, under the direction of Michael Mayer and book writer Danny Strong. On paper, their involvement suggested a clear-eyed rethink: Mayer excels with emotional pop-rock material (“Spring Awakening,” “American Idiot”), while Strong has a reputation for structuring complex political narratives (“Dopesick,” “Empire”). In reality, the production feels caught between apologizing for the musical and re-enacting it—all while relying on its three stars to deliver the songs that keep the evening afloat.

In “Liberation,” Bess Wohl’s daring and deeply analytical new play, the act of exposure is both literal and intellectual. Wohl strips away nostalgia and ideology to examine how the 1970s women’s liberation movement reshaped lives, where it fell short, and what its legacy means today. She’s less interested in celebrating the past than in interrogating it—probing questions of identity, sacrifice, and progress with the precision of a social scientist and the empathy of a dramatist.

Nichelle Lewis’s Sarah is heartbreaking, and she sings “Your Daddy’s Son” with raw, aching vulnerability. Ben Levi Ross captures Younger Brother’s naivety and the fervent militancy with which he hurls himself into causes. Shaina Taub makes a sharper, funnier Emma Goldman this time around, with her vocals far stronger than last year. Overall, the cast imbues the piece with life and cohesion, embodying the full scope of America’s promise and pain.

What results is not unlike an expensive, exclusive party in a carnival funhouse. While the original “Phantom” was derided by its detractors as a cheesy theme park attraction, “Masquerade” truly is a glorified one.

The production seems intent on reaching new audiences and making the play feel more accessible to people who know “Bill & Ted” and “The Matrix” rather than Beckett. Some will be hooked, and others will surely find the repetition unbearable and slip out at intermission. “Godot” has always divided audiences. Reeves and Winter may not save the world this time, but their endless adventure in Beckett’s wasteland is a strange, curious, and surprisingly affecting experiment.

On paper, the new Broadway revival of Yasmina Reza’s “Art” sounds like a winner: three Tony Award winners — Neil Patrick Harris, Bobby Cannavale, and James Corden — trading barbs in a sleek comedy about male friendship and the value of modern art. The result is hardly terrible, but it is slight. The laughs are modest, the pacing drags, and the play never builds beyond its simple conceit.

For all its beauty and occasional flashes of humor, “The Brothers Size” remains more evocative than fully satisfying. At 90 minutes, it drags in places, its lyrical style and deliberate pacing sometimes testing patience. It works best as part of the larger “Brother/Sister” cycle, where its themes of loyalty, family, and survival resonate more deeply.

Sharper, sleeker, and eerily timely, the revival proves that what began as a cult curiosity has grown into one of the best stage musicals of the last decade. Eleven years ago, “Heathers” premiered at New World Stages and was met with skepticism and a short-lived run. But in the years that followed, it built a rabid cult following thanks to its original Off-Broadway cast album, a hugely successful West End production (which yielded its own cast recording), and a professionally filmed version of the London staging. Combined with the viral spread of its songs on social media, “Heathers” became a genuine phenomenon among younger audiences raised on TikTok and YouTube bootlegs.

A three-hour fan wiki brought to life, complete with origin stories, stilted dialogue, lame jokes, and sequences seemingly constructed only to set up the next visual effect.

The play doesn’t discard “The Crucible.” It wrestles with it—closely, critically, personally. The students point out how John Proctor remains emotionally distant and never fully acknowledges the harm he has caused to others. These aren’t acts of revisionism; they’re acts of engagement. And in that sense, “John Proctor is the Villain” becomes not just a critique of a text, but an embodiment of how literature should be read: actively, critically, and with full awareness of who gets to tell the story.