Robert Hofler — Theater Critic

The play is filled with attempts at wit, like the one Mom delivers about her son being a 'string terrorist.' Or statements that 'the potato chip is nature's most perfect food,' which Lavin delivers as if she's quoting Oscar Wilde. The actress is a real trouper. 'Affair' is nearly a drama-less drama. Nearly every conflict presented is resolved by someone on stage telling us how it is resolved...Likewise, character traits are thrown out and dismissed.

For anyone who's seen 'Noises Off' before, there's much to smile at in director Jeremy Herrin's new revival. Truly inspired is David Furr's performance as Garry Lejeune, the lead actor in 'Nothing On.' Each character in 'Noises Off' has a quirk: nerves, incompetence, alcoholism, forgetfulness. Lejeune's thing is that he stutters. Furr wisely drops the stammering and instead turns Lejeune's inability to say certain words into a chronic inarticulateness, which is much funnier than a speech impediment...A greater problem for this production is Campbell Scott, who has neither the style nor the size to play the director of 'Nothing On,' who not only screws a few people in the company but also needs to represent our reaction to the general pandemonium on stage. Campbell has neither the style nor the size to carry 'Noises Off.'

A sleek, vastly improved and altogether wonderful revival of 'The Color Purple' opened Thursday at Broadway's Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre...under John Doyle's new, inspired direction the musical emerges as one of the most adult shows ever written...Four women is a lot for a musical, and in that original production the focus on Celie...sometimes got lost. The new 'Color Purple' never loses sight of its Celie, and Doyle keeps the show revolving around the stunning performance of Cynthia Erivo in the role. She isn't better than LaChanze, Erivo is just different -- very grounded, less impish and adorable. Her more naturalistic approach roots the show, and that's needed because Doyle's minimalism here is very fanciful...Erivo dominates, as she must. But it's a real contest between her and Danielle Brooks' big-voiced, full-bodied Sofie...Jennifer Hudson, in her Broadway debut, brings star presence to the role of Celie's fickle lover, Shug Avery...Here is another big, rich voice, and it is entirely apt that Hudson should be showy with her overuse of melisma.

Alex Brightman takes over for Black in the new musical version of 'School of Rock,' which opened Sunday at Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre...When he wipes his sweaty torso with a towel and then throws it into a girl's face or spews a mouthful of soda on another teacher (again, a female), he's just a big boorish thug. Missing completely is that anarchic edge of comedy...'School of Rock' is no movie classic, but worth watching because of Black. What the musical most needs is a complete overhaul for the stage; instead it gets Julian Fellowes' faithful-to-a-fault adaptation.

David Mamet has written a devastating portrait of a David Koch/Sheldon Adelson-style tycoon whose deep pockets fund at least one prominent governor...There's only one other character in the play, Ross' assistant (Christopher Denham), who is merely a prop for most of the play's two hours -- until he becomes something much more...What's most fascinating about 'China Doll' is Mamet's leisurely drawn-out exposition...It's a very slow burning first act under Pam MacKinnon's direction, but along the way Ross drops tidbits...The carefully parsed-out details that we do learn, however, make for a riveting second act. Much of the language is sublime and there are great one liners along the way...But would 'China Doll' work without Pacino or a star of his caliber? No way...In 'China Doll,' [Pacino] brings out his entire arsenal of shtick: the popping eyes, extremes in vocal register, exaggerated dipthongs, overly punctuated words.

Watching Bruce Willis move around in his wheelchair in 'Misery,' which opened Sunday at the Broadhurst Theatre, is like watching 'Rope,' a film made in very long takes with next to no editing... Shouldn't there be cuts to Metcalf in a car as she races home to inflict further pain on her idol, a best-selling novelist? Of course, there are no cuts. It's a play! And that's just one of the major problems with William Goldman's stage adaptation of Stephen King's 1987 best-seller, which became a successful 1990 movie scripted by Goldman. Korins's turntable set keeps spinning around and around as Willis and Metcalf play crazy cat and injured mouse, but there's no suspense.

Van Hove is highly dramatic, but he isn't always very subtle. Some of the performances, though, are both. Strong turns Eddie's tragedy into an utter inability and unwillingness to understand his own motives, even when he turns Rodolpho and his friend Marco (Michael Zegan) over to the immigration authorities to have them deported back to Sicily.

Plays and movies about history's most heinous episodes of discrimination are never easy. Too often they collapse under the weight of stereotypes that make the villains all bad and the heroes mere victims. 'Allegiance,' the new musical that opened Sunday at Broadway's Longacre Theatre, avoids this problem by putting only three guardsmen-soldiers on stage, and in very supporting roles.

Imagine a 'Funny Girl' in which Nicky Arnstein is Fanny Brice's talented, hard-working manager-collaborator. That plot would pretty much sum up the love story and rise to fame of Emilio and Gloria Estefan in their new jukebox musical, 'On Your Feet!,' which opened Thursday at the Marquis Theatre.

Mike Bartlett begins his play unpromisingly with yet another of those weekly meetings between a prime minister and a modern monarch. In this case, however, the monarch isn't Queen Elizabeth but her son Charles, who is suddenly king because his 89-year-old mom is now dead. How prescient of Bartlett.

In her own Broadway debut, Keira Knightley plays the title character, and she also has been directed (by Evan Cabnet) to be utterly still, at least for most of the first act. Edmundson gives Therese very little to say in the beginning...When Knightley is able to inject humor into a performance...the results are marvelous. When she's wholly dramatic, as in 'Anna Karenina' or this 'Therese Raquin,' she's monotonous. The larger problem is that Edmundson and Cabnet haven't decided whether 'Therese Raquin' is a great tragedy or some Grand Guignol potboiler...Not everything goes wrong. Ryan, the show's major piece of eye candy, is appropriately studly...Judith Light as Therese's mother-in-law makes the character's tiresomeness almost bearable. But even she can't escape Edmundson and Cabnet's need to go over the top.

All of this gimmickry -- some of it written into the play, some of it resulting from Sullivan's direction -- wouldn't matter if the characters, the dog included, weren't so dull. Larry David's very popular and critically trashed 'Fish in the Dark' from last season displayed more wit in five minutes than Gurney gives us in two-plus hours...The wimpy Broderick and the dynamic White don't belong on the same stage, much less in the same marriage. Her bundle of neuroses, fun to watch in other shows, doesn't fit this level-headed character...Broderick turns yet another character into an eternal adolescent, his voice occasionally sliding up to an F above middle C for the wispiest of comic effects...Ashford's sexy pooch is much snarkier than Parker's. It's the difference between what you want in a pet: an ersatz Madonna or the real Sarah Jessica Parker.

In 2015, how are we supposed to enjoy 'Dames at Sea'...?...With its modest cast of just six, the show doesn't even attempt to replicate Berkeley's big art-deco productions numbers...What we're left with in 'Dames at Sea' are the plots of movies like 'Footlight Parade' and 'The Golddiggers of 1933'...In the new revival of 'Dames at Sea,' Eloise Kropp and Cary Tedder play Ruby and Dick, respectively. Unlike Keeler, Kropp can sing and dance; unlike Powell, Tedder probably won't go on to play Philip Marlowe...Book writers George Haimsohn and Robin Miller make jokes that play on the leading man's name or that rhyme Louis XIV with V.I.P. It's not fun to feel superior to such material; it's numbing. As for Jim Wise's 'Dames at Sea' score, quick: Hum a tune from this nearly 50-year-old musical. The repetition of the music is in a contest only with the repetition of the Dick jokes.

Cicely Tyson doesn't let her approaching 91st birthday get in the way of being downright girlish on stage. She achieves this marvel twice in the new Broadway revival of 'The Gin Game'...She evokes youthful giddiness at beating the pants of James Earl Jones's card-playing veteran in the first act. Later, when she may be falling in love with him, their hands accidentally touch and then they dance. Tyson suddenly has the glow and all of the stability of an adolescent...[Jones'] immense build, especially in comparison to the petite Tyson, is again on display in 'The Gin Game,' but to poignant effect. His character rages at all that power being trapped in an old body that no longer works the way he wants it to...What doesn't work (except as an excuse to watch two pros go at it) is Coburn's play.

Imagine the cartoon character Olive Oyl as a baritone in a red tube dress and you've got Arianda's May. Arianda may be the first actor to feature both arms and legs akimbo, and when she's not working those long limbs, she's running around on the set's motel-room bed like a 3-year-old without her Ritalin. Since May doesn't get to speak every line of dialogue, Arianda spends the rest of her time on stage messing with her hair, braiding her hair, or pinning up her hair -- anything to keep our attention...With Arianda offstage, it's possible to notice Rockwell and Pelphrey, and to see that they're embodying their respective characters with understated grace.

What's the opposite of deconstruction in the theater? I'm not sure. But that's what director Douglas Hodge does with 'Old Times' in this Roundabout production...In Hodge's 'Old Times,' the actors aren't playing the subtext necessarily. They share a feverish imagination that doesn't have much to do with the text, but nonetheless illuminates it in quirky ways...Hodge and company emphasize that defiance...Owen, in his Broadway debut, gives us a Deeley who's not only soused from the get-go but fey in an attractively disheveled sort of way...For theatergoers who are tired of sitting through all those Pinter pauses, Hodge pushes his actors to speak rapid fire, often on top of each other; and when they do take a breath, it's much more than a pause. It's often a long, silent interlude in which they lounge around, smoke cigarettes, or strut as if readying themselves for the next barrage of words.

Arden is much better when he just mixes things up. Especially inventive are his use of posters, projection of words and silences. Sometimes he shows amazing restraint and creativity, as when Mientus seduces Castille atop an upright piano and Stewart's piano player swivels around on his chair in silent ecstasy. Much less wonderful is the over-the-top act one finale when Frank and McKenzie finally make it, surrounded by a hallelujah chorus complete with priests and incense. As for the adults, Russell Harvard, Camryn Manheim, and Patrick Page play a variety of adult villains. Only Marlee Matlin manages to give her roles a modicum of humanity.

Yes, 'Hamilton' is that good, and the still youthful Lin-Manuel Miranda can be mentioned in the same sentence with Sondheim and even Cole Porter. No need to go into all the lyrics here, but Miranda has a syllable-by-syllable rhyme for 'pseudonym,' and many other words, that is absolutely delicious.

Under Gabriel Barre's direction, 'Amazing Grace' feels like a long adult-ed lecture or a night at 'Parsifal'...Smith ends his musical with a stirring rendition of 'Amazing Grace,' but the rest of the score utterly lacks Newton's simplicity and instead treads heavily in the current Broadway vogue for bombastic anthems coupled with a strong percussive element that's meant to send audiences to their feet applauding...In their final exchange, Mary asks Newton why 'it took you so long' to give up his slave-trader ways. Theatergoers will be asking that question much earlier.

For theatergoers who like big casts that are well directed in huge, rambling plays, a visit to see 'Airline Highway,' which opened Thursday at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in New York, is recommended. Lisa D'Amour's new play, which had its world premiere last year at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, gives 16 actors the platform to connect with each other, show off their considerable talents, and, most importantly, build an extended family on stage together. What's theatrically indulgent about 'Airline Highway' - and therefore, so appreciated - is how D'Amour could easily have eliminated a few actors in the ensemble, especially the people (Toni Martin, Todd D'Amour, Sekou Laidlow) who inhabit the crack den that is the lower stage-right unit at the Hummingbird Motel, rendered in seedy (almost smelly) detail in Scott Pask's harrowingly realistic set.

Claire is Durrenmatt's vengeful god, out to make life a living hell for the townspeople who done her wrong long ago...The billionaire Claire is anything but a dame or a broad and she's certainly no Broadway gypsy. Which is what gives Rivera's performance such resonance and power: She's cast way against type, and at age 82 she exposes a facet of her stage persona never seen before. Amazing! Rivera is well matched by Rees...Rees's Anton gets it coming and going. Rees doesn't possess a good singing voice...His acting, though, carries the performance.

Borle pulls off the rare feat of appearing simultaneously sexy and ridiculous as the Bard who rips off 'Hamlet' from a Renaissance nobody named Nigel Bottom. As that timid genius, John Cariani makes adorable totally arresting when he puts up the good fight not to turn his masterpiece into a musical called 'Omelette,' which pits him against his very determined, very dense producer-brother, Nick Bottom (Brian d'Arcy James)...when two or all three of them converge, it's musical nirvana. Kudos to director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw for making that happen...'Rotten' appears to be part of Nicholaw's ongoing mission in the theater to bring 'Forbidden Broadway' to Broadway...Which is where 'Something Rotten!' turns into something recycled...The score by Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick is most successful when it sticks to what always works on Broadway nowadays: disco and gospel, complete with a large-voiced black woman, Marisha Wallace, leading the charge.

Borle pulls off the rare feat of appearing simultaneously sexy and ridiculous as the Bard who rips off 'Hamlet' from a Renaissance nobody named Nigel Bottom. As that timid genius, John Cariani makes adorable totally arresting when he puts up the good fight not to turn his masterpiece into a musical called 'Omelette,' which pits him against his very determined, very dense producer-brother, Nick Bottom (Brian d'Arcy James)...when two or all three of them converge, it's musical nirvana. Kudos to director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw for making that happen...'Rotten' appears to be part of Nicholaw's ongoing mission in the theater to bring 'Forbidden Broadway' to Broadway...Which is where 'Something Rotten!' turns into something recycled...The score by Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick is most successful when it sticks to what always works on Broadway nowadays: disco and gospel, complete with a large-voiced black woman, Marisha Wallace, leading the charge.

It's got more marches than 'The Music Man,' more battle scenes than 'La Forza del Destino,' and it must set a record for the number of gun shots and bomb detonations in a Broadway musical. If all that noise doesn't inspire an immediate visit to the ear doctor, there's the score by Michael Korie, Amy Powers and Lucy Simon that's guaranteed to require it...although Kelli Barrett's chipper Laura offers a few moments of unintended levity. The ponderness of the material and Des McAnuff's direction make the two hours and 45 minutes fly by with the speed of a Soviet Union train. Nothing wears out its welcome faster than bombast. On the plus side, there's something truly noble about Mutu, a fine singing actor who somehow manages to deliver real conviction in the face of such a score, book and leading lady.

As expected, Fleming sounds great when she sings. She's also very funny when she speaks, which is not to be expected after her awkward performance earlier this year at the Metropolitan Opera in 'The Merry Widow,' under the direction of Broadway's Susan Stroman. Musical-comedy veteran Kathleen Marshall directs 'Living on Love,' and you'd never know it's her Broadway debut, too, as the director of a play. No small part of Fleming's success must go to Marshall...With all due respect to the diva of the hour, the real revelation of 'Living on Love' is Sills, whose divo Vito enters the Broadway pantheon of great, inspired, and completely over the-top comic creations.