Peter Marks — Theater Critic

The antic unconventionality of director Baz Luhrmann's 2001 pop phenomenon 'Moulin Rouge!' has been transformed into an eye-and-ear-pleasing - and altogether conventional - Broadway musical. With a glorious set by Derek McLane, more than 70 pop songs, and dynamic lead performances from Karen Olivo and Aaron Tveit, the show is engineered for an evening of easily digested diversions.

So here comes another, focused yet again on Murdoch and the transformational effect he's had on how people consume the news in the modern age, on both sides of the Atlantic. 'Ink' it is called, an engrossing, richly detailed play that had its official opening Wednesday at Manhattan Theatre Club's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. It stars the magnetic Jonny Lee Miller as an editor converted rabidly to tabloid sensationalism and Bertie Carvel of 'Matilda'-the-musical fame as Murdoch, learning in the late '60s how to tack to the coordinates of readers' baser instincts.

This embraceably funny concoction goes by the title of 'Tootsie,' which also was the title of its eternally endearing 1982 film source, starring Dustin Hoffman as a temperamental actor so desperate for a part he disguises himself as a woman to get it. The mantle of Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels has been passed down on this occasion to the sublime Santino Fontana, who not only gets to strut his farcical stuff, but also sings, amazingly well, in two registers.

It's not an epic political tale that Hnath outlines in 'Hillary and Clinton,' which had its official opening Thursday at Broadway's Golden Theatre. Rather, in 80 muscular minutes, Hnath, author of the trenchant 'A Doll's House, Part 2' - another marriage play - is providing a mere snapshot. But in that fleeting picture, he embeds a persuasive case for the codependency that rules them both, one that allows their partnership to survive, even in the aftermath of embarrassing, even humiliating, disclosures.

Without a bona fide star role like Lilli, though, you might be hard-pressed to put up with some of the hoarier aspects of 'Kiss Me, Kate's' sexual politics, in Sam and Bella Spewack's book. But Lilli's backbone, bolstered through the nimble tweaking of play doctor Green, serves to keep the cringe factor at bay. There is that creamy O'Hara coloratura, too, to sing us all into happy submission and apply to this revival an apropos adjective: unmissable.

Without a bona fide star role like Lilli, though, you might be hard-pressed to put up with some of the hoarier aspects of 'Kiss Me, Kate's' sexual politics, in Sam and Bella Spewack's book. But Lilli's backbone, bolstered through the nimble tweaking of play doctor Green, serves to keep the cringe factor at bay. There is that creamy O'Hara coloratura, too, to sing us all into happy submission and apply to this revival an apropos adjective: unmissable.

I couldn't be less chill, not after sitting through the insipid 'Be More Chill' for the second time. I saw it last year off-Broadway, a perch on which it landed by virtue of the mad crush many young folk developed for a cast recording that streamed online long before a New York engagement was ever in the works. It is, in that sense, the first musical to click its way onto Broadway, where it had its official opening at the Lyceum Theatre on Sunday. And, boy, were my misgivings from my initial encounter confirmed. 'Be More Shrill' would be a better title for director Stephen Brackett's heinously overamplified and overacted production, built on the story of a nerd played by the intrepid Will Roland, who takes a magic pill to become popular with the high school 'in' crowd.

As a portrait of a vengeance-obsessed culture drowning in its own spilled blood, 'The Ferryman' is a searing social document. As a sprawling human drama, poised on the precipice of a violence that you know is waiting for its beguilingly drawn and assayed characters, it is a riveting work of art. It sprawls, too, in the most exhilarating sense of the term. Jez Butterworth's revenge tragedy, which marked its official opening Sunday night at Broadway's Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, teems with people and the events that divide and imperil them.

This elaborate two-part, 5½ -hour stage sequel to J.K Rowling's canonical series is like a witchy worship service for the countless consumers of every magical segue and subplot of the seven books and eight Harry Potter movies from which it draws inspiration. During the full day of performances I attended in the Lyric Theatre - refurbished as part of the production's reported $68 million, pre-opening budget - roars and applause broke out for the entrances not of star actors, but of familiar supporting characters like Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape and Dolores Umbridge. If that is any indication of a devotional intensity waiting to be tapped, this deft homage will be inducing swoons in Times Square for years to come.

And yes, for sure, 'Mean Girls' is a chronicle on the superficial side: Some lip service is paid to the evils of bullying, but the evening is pure sendup. That it's a showcase for so many gifted young comic actresses is no ­minor blessing; and the guys, like Kyle Selig, as the requisite dreamboat, and Cheech Manohar, as the geeky showboat, are strong assets, too. Visual panache is supplied by Gregg Barnes's drop-dead costumes and the graphics-driven backdrops by Finn Ross and Adam Young. Best of all, in a marketplace filled with mindless work about teens, here's one that doesn't insult their intelligence - or yours.

Winning over the uninitiated, though, may be a tougher task for the eagerly anticipated musical that had its official opening Thursday night at the St. James Theatre. What may prevent 'Frozen' from appealing to more sophisticated theater crowds is the unfulfilled promise of the plot. We're teased in this venture with the idea of an animated story wrought in three dimensions with more psychological subtlety than is the custom in Disney musicals. Because 'Frozen' attempts to traverse the tender and intimate terrain of trauma and loss of love. But it never achieves that necessary climax - paradoxical in a show of this title - when a spectator's heart is able to melt.

Yes, Jimmy Buffett, it's your own damn fault. Oh, I know, you had help in the commission of 'Escape to Margaritaville,' the lamely antiseptic musical that had its official Broadway opening Thursday night at the Marquis Theatre. But it's your songs that book writers Greg Garcia and Mike O'Malley have spun into this insufferably dumb show, about a beach bum guitarist who falls for an environmental scientist while his bartender buddy suffers flashbacks filled with tap-dancing life insurance agents. (Yup, you read that right.)

In the delightful 'John Lithgow: Stories by Heart,' an actor known for great intelligence and range devotes two hours on a Broadway stage to advancing that reputation. Enacting with consummate skill and physical grace a pair of short stories by Ring Lardner and P.G. Wodehouse, Lithgow accomplishes the mission in handy fashion.

In the delightful 'John Lithgow: Stories by Heart,' an actor known for great intelligence and range devotes two hours on a Broadway stage to advancing that reputation. Enacting with consummate skill and physical grace a pair of short stories by Ring Lardner and P.G. Wodehouse, Lithgow accomplishes the mission in handy fashion.

I can tell you this: Much impressive design and engineering work has gone into this $20 million production, which has been guided with an eye for childlike delight by Landau, in concert with Zinn, who designed the exuberant neon-colored sets and costumes, and Christopher Gattelli, who staged the dances - the tapping by the four-legged Squidward Q. Tentacles (Gavin Lee) and a school of sardines being a particular joy. And the athletic Slater, meantime, proves to be a totally winning SpongeBob, accomplishing the unusual trick of seeming to exist simultaneously in two dimensions and three. Blessedly, a decision was made not to outfit Slater like the cartoon character; the actor's uncanny physicalizing integrates both a distinct personality and a cartoon aesthetic.

Thurman makes her Broadway debut at the Hudson Theatre, and so does Willimon, the playwright who hit it big with 'House of Cards,' his juicy and now - thanks to the allegations against Kevin Spacey - canceled Netflix remake of the diabolical British series of the same title. Neither 'Parisian's' star nor writer experience their finest hour with 'The Parisian Woman,' which had its official opening Thursday night and which, despite its plot of multiple infidelities and embittering betrayals, feels as if it has had the life sucked out of it. Not only is the Washington of Willimon's imagination here a place of tawdry political prostitution, but it's also a pretty dull den of iniquity to boot

With one toe dipped uncertainly in sketch comedy and another in theater of the absurd, Steve Martin's 'Meteor Shower' comes across as oddly, even merrily, flat-footed. Big-time comedians Amy Schumer and Keegan-Michael Key make their Broadway debuts in this lightweight affair, one in which they and co-stars Laura Benanti and Jeremy Shamos do at least manage to give a convincing impression of having a swell old time.

Beautiful music, beautiful story, beautiful acting. To quote the Emcee in 'Cabaret': Even the orchestra is beautiful. In this case, it consists of eight actor-musicians, portraying the members of a ceremonial police band from Alexandria, Egypt, who have been invited to play a good will concert in Israel. Except they arrive in the wrong town, a desert backwater where the blasé residents can't be shaken easily out of their arid torpor. Not even by the sudden appearance in their midst of courtly, uniformed fellows from a neighboring if culturally distinct country, bearing clarinets and cellos and the enticing hints of the world beyond.

'Springsteen on Broadway' - now there's a Jersey Boy - had its official opening Thursday night, in a taut and beautifully turned-out evening as sincerely wrought as a poetry reading. For sure, Springsteen rocks out a bit and tells some funny stories on himself. But onstage for two hours minus the E Street Band, and with Patti Scialfa - born like her husband on the Jersey Shore - appearing with him for two of the show's 16 songs, Springsteen is determined to maintain a mostly elegiac tone on this occasion. He's a musician on a mission. And it's a quest for a New York audience to listen for the craft in an American voice ringing with simple truths.

The Manhattan Theatre Club production, for which Susan Stroman is listed as choreographer and co-director, feels as if it were slapped together for the entertainment portion of a benefit dinner. The task of reciting the wooden commentary between songs is shared by the entire cast, each of whom reminisces as if he or she were Prince, with each sporting the eyeglasses eternally perched on the director's forehead. It's an affectionate touch, but like so much that transpires on this lackluster occasion, only minorly evocative of the great man himself.

Offering up as a model his history as a provocateur, Moore implores us to get off our duffs and drive Trump nuts. 'We have to be a swarm of bees around his head,' he declares at one point. Besides showing us an app, 5calls.org, that can automatically dial your representatives in Congress for you, 'The Terms of My Surrender' doesn't have much of a game plan. That goes as much for its theatrical goals as its political ones.

Hnath ultimately allows us to believe that even an iconoclast as single-minded as Nora is capable of learning from what she has lost. In Metcalf, one of the great stage actresses of our time, he and Gold have found an ideal vessel for conveying Nora's capacity for growth and fearlessness. 'A Doll's House, Part 2? demonstrates just how imposing is that big doorway Nora walked through once upon a time, and the guts it takes to keep walking through it, again and again.

Hnath ultimately allows us to believe that even an iconoclast as single-minded as Nora is capable of learning from what she has lost. In Metcalf, one of the great stage actresses of our time, he and Gold have found an ideal vessel for conveying Nora's capacity for growth and fearlessness. 'A Doll's House, Part 2? demonstrates just how imposing is that big doorway Nora walked through once upon a time, and the guts it takes to keep walking through it, again and again.

It delivers on exactly what's craved by lovers of old-school musicals from the era when giants like Merman roamed the Earth: big, gleeful performances and the kind of production numbers intended to move you as much as move along the story. Midler has the lioness's share of the lift here, delivering buoyant renditions of 'Before the Parade Passes By' and 'So Long Dearie' and, of course, executing a downstage strut in red beaded gown and feather headdress for that champagne toast of a title song. She is given expert support, though, from David Hyde Pierce, who would seem oddly cast as that grizzled skinflint and object of Dolly's nuptial desire, Horace Vandergelder. Yet he turns in a completely fresh comic performance, seasoned with just enough lemon and vinegar, and amplified by a number added for him at the top of Act 2, 'Penny in My Pocket.'

It delivers on exactly what's craved by lovers of old-school musicals from the era when giants like Merman roamed the Earth: big, gleeful performances and the kind of production numbers intended to move you as much as move along the story. Midler has the lioness's share of the lift here, delivering buoyant renditions of 'Before the Parade Passes By' and 'So Long Dearie' and, of course, executing a downstage strut in red beaded gown and feather headdress for that champagne toast of a title song. She is given expert support, though, from David Hyde Pierce, who would seem oddly cast as that grizzled skinflint and object of Dolly's nuptial desire, Horace Vandergelder. Yet he turns in a completely fresh comic performance, seasoned with just enough lemon and vinegar, and amplified by a number added for him at the top of Act 2, 'Penny in My Pocket.'