Robert Feldberg — Theater Critic

'Lucky Guy,' which opened Monday night at the Broadhurst Theatre, is Tom Hanks' rookie Broadway appearance, but the film star makes acting on stage look easy. Effortlessly transferring his low-key charisma to the theater, Hanks is quick, funny and surprisingly tough as columnist Mike McAlary and, at the end, makes the character much more touching than you'd think possible.

You wish the second act were faster and funnier - but, taken as a whole, 'Cinderella' works, providing a solid and congenial framework for Rodgers and Hammerstein's wonderful songs.

You wish the second act were faster and funnier - but, taken as a whole, 'Cinderella' works, providing a solid and congenial framework for Rodgers and Hammerstein's wonderful songs.

If the first act belongs to Maggie, the second is the province of Big Daddy (Ciaran Hinds), Brick's vulgar, outsized father, who makes great noises in rejecting pretense and dishonesty. (Of his servile wife, Big Mama (Debra Monk), he says, 'I haven't been able to stand the sight, sound or smell of that woman for 40 years now.')

My one quibble is with Stan's performance. Physique aside, it's sometimes hard to perceive Hal's mesmerizing appeal. The character remains blurry, and is too often played as a goofball. All in all, though, the production is theater you can sink your teeth into. Old-fashioned can be good.

The play succeeds best as a showcase for Metcalf's acting skill. Perry, who also has a third role as a kind of interloper in the story, provides strong support. Stern, though, gives a lightweight effort as Juliana's put-upon husband.

The play is dated and melodramatic, with slang-filled dialogue that can sound tinny. But it has decent theatrical bones, and if well-acted and offered on a humbly human level, might work well on both personal and political levels. But director Bartlett Sher, it seems to me, goes at it in exactly the wrong way, presenting 'Golden Boy' as a loud, brassy, tough-talking period piece. Add in unimpressive performances, and the result is a long evening that, for all its slam-bang moments, is tedious and uninvolving.

'The Anarchist' only runs 65 minutes, but I doubt there'll be any complaints that it's too short.

If there were a Tony Award for extraordinary effort in trying to breathe life into a flat-lining play, Norbert Leo Butz would win, hands down.

So, although Carmello, who's onstage for almost the entire evening, gives a knock-out performance, pulling off gospel numbers and novelty songs with equal mastery, her character remains remote. The score, with music by David Pomeranz and David Friedman, is serviceable, and often performed very loudly. Welcome contributions are made by the amusing Roz Ryan, playing a Kansas City madam turned McPherson assistant, and George Hearn, as the evangelist's sweet-natured father. But 'Scandalous,' despite its title, is remarkably tame.

Ever run into an old acquaintance who's way down on his luck? After you realize there's nothing you can do to help, you feel awkward and embarrassed, and just want to slink away. I had a similar emotion at 'The Performers,' which opened Wednesday night at the Longacre Theatre. The play, which is beyond wretched, stars Alicia Silverstone ('Clueless') and Henry Winkler ('Happy Days'), two actors who've earned our affection over the years. To see them slogging through a scuzzy 'comedy' about moronic porn actors, amid a snickering procession of crude sex jokes, was distressing. Is work that hard to find?

But 'fun' was what I returned to. It most exactly suggests the experience of seeing Rupert Holmes' musical, a production that embraces its audience in distinctively enjoyable ways.

It's the 'Annie' you expect to see — not a song or scene has been changed — but, working with choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler and a vivacious cast, Lapine has created a crisp, colorful, shiny-bright production loaded with theatrical energy. Of course, he had Grade-A material to work with. Every time I see a production of 'Annie,' I'm impressed again with what a really good show it is.

Its latest revival, which opened Thursday night at the Walter Kerr Theatre, is a showcase, of sorts, for two popular and very capable young actors, Hollywood's Jessica Chastain ('The Help,' 'Tree of Life') and TV's Dan Stevens ('Downton Abbey'), each making a Broadway debut. Both give committed and persuasive, if not transcendent, performances. They're supported, and occasionally overshadowed, by two canny veteran stage performers, David Strathairn and Judith Ivey.

Witty, sarcastic, cruel, clownish, with the timing of a stand-up comic, Letts makes George a very funny, scarily driven man, the quicksilver center of the evening. You can see the stakes rise in the color of his face, which turns bright red as his anger peaks. Meanwhile, Morton, a perfect acting mate, gives glimpses of fear beneath Martha's boisterous, belittling manner, prefiguring the last, poignant line of the play.

Witty, sarcastic, cruel, clownish, with the timing of a stand-up comic, Letts makes George a very funny, scarily driven man, the quicksilver center of the evening. You can see the stakes rise in the color of his face, which turns bright red as his anger peaks. Meanwhile, Morton, a perfect acting mate, gives glimpses of fear beneath Martha's boisterous, belittling manner, prefiguring the last, poignant line of the play.

Taken on its own, 'Cyrano de Bergerac' is an extremely entertaining play, and this production allows the audience to enjoy it. If not great or memorable, it's good, and very solid.

The superbly-acted 'Grace,' which opened Thursday night at the Cort Theatre, is odd and utterly compelling. The play, by Craig Wright, pokes fun at a common religious belief, while making as eloquent and sensitive an argument for the rewards of faith as you'll find.

Ibsen wrote the play, at least in part, as a response to the public outcry against his previous play, 'Ghosts,' which bashed Victorian morality and made reference to syphilis. Lenkiewicz seems to give special emphasis to Stockmann’s conflicting qualities. The problem with that, aside from meshing his contradictions into a single, recognizable human being, is that it sticks out of the play like a sore thumb. None of the other characters are in any way complex. The bad guys are essentially nasty, two-dimensional opportunists.

'Chaplin,' the bio-musical that opened Monday night at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, is a mixture of the imaginative and the timeworn. The good things in it begin with Rob McClure’s deft performance in the title role — at times presented on film, in the style of a vintage movie.

Esparza is a dynamic musical-theater performer, but the allegedly charismatic Jonas remains unappealing from beginning to end. And by bringing in, and trivializing, the question of the power of faith, the show feels particularly smarmy. 'Leap of Faith' attempts entertainment by manipulation, but you can see the wires all the way.

There are few things in the theater more distressing than a labored farce.

'The Lyons' — and shouldn't that be 'The Lyonses,' as the plural form of a name ending in 's'? — works only half the time. But that half, taking the notion of family dysfunction to the outer limits of humor, is darkly entertaining theater.

There's little poignancy in the performance. When Blanche goes crackers at the end, it seems to come out of nowhere, rather than being the inevitable result of a long slide. [...] Blair Underwood, another performer from films and TV who is normally a sensitive actor, overdoes Stanley's macho-ness to the point of excluding any other qualities.

It has all the depth, nuance and drama you'd find on the back of a bubble-gum card. [...] The actors playing the basketball stars are adequate, although they're considerably shorter than the players' listed heights of 6-feet, 9-inches. To give the illusion of tallness, they stand on platforms built atop the stage, and are surrounded, for the most part, by short supporting actors.