Robert Hofler — Theater Critic

Since “Hell’s Kitchen” doesn’t have much of a story to tell, Diaz pumps up the drama in a couple of ways that ultimately feel false. He ends Act One of this two-and-a-half-hour musical with the cops confronting Knuck, which leads to the delivery of the Keys 2020 single “Perfect Way to Die.” The reference to Black Lives Matter is powerful, but provides more weight than this musical can sustain — especially when the facts of Knuck’s “arrest” are revealed in Act Two.

Equally etrange, Frecknell has cast Sally as the Emcee’s alter ego, or vice versa. Sally and the Emcee often dress alike, rip off wigs and sport their skull caps — and, most significant, Redmayne and Rankin have been directed to be abrasive to the extreme. Rankin is able to leaven some of this harshness because Sally is a real character. She convinces us that she’s simply out of control, afflicted with a severe bipolar disorder. Because Redmayne isn’t playing a character but rather a symbol of decadence, he presents nothing but a jumble of mannerisms.

Adjmi captures that claustrophobia and inability to communicate, making his “Stereophonic” one of the very best plays to open last year Off Broadway and now this season on Broadway.

“Suffs” entertains because Taub makes her show all about the women, and she makes those women committed but very flawed individuals. Let’s not call them cat fights, but “Suffs” is filled with rivalries between the radical Alice Paul (Taub) of the National Woman’s Party and the more establishment-minded Carrie Chapman Catt (Jenn Colella) of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. An early controversy emerges regarding whether suffragists of color should be included in the march. Black icons like Mary Church Terrell (Anastaćia McCleskey) and Ida B. Wells (Nikki M. James, shedding her ingénue image to emerge as the show’s real matriarch) have no interest in being pushed aside or told yet again to wait. Intriguingly, the conflict between Terrell and Wells reflects the same conservative-progressive pull going on among the white leaders of the suffragist movement (“Suffragette” is considered derogatory).

There’s another thing going on, not around the edges of “The Pursuit of Happiness,” but of “Sally & Tom.” At times, the plays recalls one of those vintage Hollywood movies where the wealthy couple upstairs carries the moral weight of the story and the domestics downstairs are there for comic relief or merely to comment on what the lead characters are doing. Whether Irving and Ebert are playing Sally and Tom or Luce and Mike, they are meant to be taken seriously, which is more than can be said for the gay couple, played by Fowler and Petzold, who just happen to be the two worst actors in the Good Company.

In other words, the actors and dancers in this “Wiz” carry the show magnificently, with Kyle Ramar Freeman’s Lion, Phillip Johnson Richardson’s Tin Man and Avery Wilson’s Scarecrow the funniest trio of misfits ever to take us on this trip to Oz. Watching these three actors outperform each other is a friendly competition not to be missed. This kind of ensemble doesn’t come out of nowhere and credit must go to director Schele Williams. But the secret sauce here is Amber Ruffin, who’s credited with “additional material for this production.” No way did William F. Brown’s book for the original 1974 Broadway production of “The Wiz” offer this many inspired one-liners. Ruffin provides a lot of great stand-up, put-down humor for Melody A. Betts’ wonderful Evilene (a Wicked Witch) and Allyson Kaye Daniel’s equally terrific Addaperle (a Good Witch). Leading the Munchkins, Daniel sets the stage afire until Wilson, Richardson and Freeman come aboard to burn it down completely.

And now for the other shoe to drop. Why have Kreitzer and Gould given their Lempicka nothing but loud, caterwauling screeds to sing? Once upon a time, Espinosa played Elphaba in “Wicked” on Broadway, and here, she appears stuck trying to top “Defying Gravity” in one female empowerment anthem after another. We get it! Tamara de Lempicka is a most liberated woman. Only when the title character is off the stage are we able to give our ears a respite from all the noise. Equally loud but even more grating is the performance of George Abud, who plays a Nazi Emcee on leave from “Cabaret.”

“The Outsiders” is director Danya Taymor’s sophomore effort (after “Pass Over”) on Broadway and her first musical assignment there. She is reason enough to see any play Off-Broadway; her taste in young playwrights is unerring. Here, Taymor brings a nice low-tech look to the show, aided by the “scenography” of AMP featuring Tatiana Kahvegian. In a musical about a bunch of rowdy teenagers, it’s right that a few wooden planks and some tractor tires function as an obstacle course that Rick Kuperman and Jeff Kuperman’s kinetic choreography keeps throwing at the very expert and inexhaustible dance ensemble. These performers come through bruised but ultimately triumphant in face of all those deadening “socs” comments.

The visuals, however, primarily depend on Peter Nigrini’s constantly changing projection designs. In many cases, historic photographs of an urban England are used, and Nigrini has manipulated them significantly through color and distortion to blend seamlessly into more abstract visualizations of Tommy’s consciousness. Some tableaux are breathtaking; others are rather pedestrian, especially when Nigrini’s projections recede and McAnuff’s direction relies on Sarafina Bush’s unimaginative costumes and Lorin Latarro’s equally mundane choreography.

In addition to Boissereau’s horse, “Water for Elephants” gets off to a good start when a number of talented acrobats set up the circus tent for the first time. The Cirque du Soleil effects (“circus design” by Shana Carroll) are dazzling when they are first introduced. By the time the second act rolls around, the acrobats have been turned into filler by director Jessica Stone to prop up a story with little drama going on – unless your idea of drama is contemplating what happens when acrobats miss their mark.

It’s the Covid pandemic all over again at the Circle in the Square, where a radically pared-down version of Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” opened Monday. Best of all is Jeremy Strong’s Dr. Thomas Stockmann, who vividly recalls Dr. Anthony Fauci, especially when this good Norwegian doctor is warning a town about the dangers of an impending epidemic. The only problem with making “Enemy” a blow-by-blow retelling of Trump and Fauci’s battles is that what we all endured in real life a few years ago was so much more dramatic than what’s being offered onstage under the direction of Sam Gold.

Brunstetter’s script advises that the sets (by David Zinn and Brett J. Banakis) and costumes (by Paloma Young) “feel timeless.” That approach sometimes works for a classic tragedy, but a melodrama like “The Notebook” needs context. In this musical, the only thing keeping Allie and Noah apart is her rather uppity parents (Andrea Burns and Charles E. Wallace). Ingrid Michaelson’s score is middle-of-the-road pop. It’s pleasant. It’s easy on the ears. It’s not in any way what this musical needs to be, which is soaring and romantic.

“Titanique” delivers. It’s really funny. And it doesn’t matter that the film “Titanic” is celebrating its 25th anniversary this month. Much more important is how alternately silly and nasty and irreverent and delicious the writers Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue are at sending up the current crop of Broadway jukebox musicals and musicals based on classic movies. In other words, “Titanic” the movie may be a quarter century old, but the subject of this stage parody is practically every musical now performing on a Broadway stage.

This 'Little Shop,' under the direction of Michael Mayer, doesn't really sprout until Borle's Customer arrives. And without him in many of the following scenes, it tends to wilt. The three urchin back-up singers (Ari Groover, Salome Smith and Joy Woods) always manage to delight with the doo-wop songs by Ashman and Alan Menken, and co-stars Jonathan Groff and Tammy Blanchard are also in very strong voice. It's too bad that the developing love affair between the two lead characters, the put-upon shopkeeper Seymour (Groff) and Orin's masochistic girlfriend (Blanchard), never ignites comic sparks.

Playing the bejeweled angel, Porter is, well, Porter: flamboyant, loud and often downright obnoxious. In the beginning, he nearly wipes the stage with Christopher, who enters with his back to the audience and doesn’t seem to know that he’s being radically upstaged. Fortunately, there’s genius in that approach to playing Morton, who never seems to care what we think of him. Porter demands our attention, Christopher earns it in a slow-burn performance that ends in Morton’s grand self-immolation.

In the world of camp, heterosexuality is the biggest joke of all. Except in “Oh, Mary!” On any other stage, Escola’s Mary would steal the show, but fellow actors Conrad Ricamora and James Scully often snatch it right back. And both actors have the far more challenging role of playing a man who wears trousers. (The lavish costumes are designed by Holly Pierson.) The Playbill credits Ricamora and Scully as “Mary’s Husband” and “Mary’s Teacher,” respectively. Escola is an equal-opportunity offender, and lampoons gay sex even more than the straight variety.

Before we get to what’s wrong with Russian characters sounding as if they lived and worked in Illinois, let’s tackle that word “comedy” in the play’s title. The only laughter escaping from the Vineyard Theatre these days is the forced variety that comes from an audience being embarrassed for the performers. You know when a director – in this case, Darko Tresnjak – is desperate to keep an audience’s attention. In “Russian Troll Farm,” two of the Russian trolls conduct their mundane conversation while seated in toilet stalls next to each other. We are spared sound effects, fortunately. Elsewhere, overacting and a bare chest dominate the stage.

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Most important, Greif obtains truly awesome performances from O’Hara and d’Arcy James. Even if you removed the two actors’ vocals, which are phenomenal, the performances stand on their own — especially the motel room scene where Joe finds Kirsten on an extended bender. O’Hara and d’Arcy James are musical theater stars, but with “Days of Wine and Roses,” we can only mourn all those great “straight” performances they never delivered. Who knows? This gig could open up a whole other door for them in the theater.

The incisiveness of Lila Neugebauer’s marvelous direction is most evident in her control of those three principals. Playing the eldest sibling, the archetypal older sister-caretaker of the family, Sarah Paulson is very alpha here. Pissed-off to the extreme, her Toni can’t take one more infraction from her two younger brothers (Corey Stoll and Michael Esper), and lets them and her sister-in-law, Rachel (Natalie Gold) know it in no uncertain and very loud terms. Paulson manages to find nuance in her almost nonstop screeching.

Paulson’s performance begins loud and bitter, but ends soft and wounded. Neugebauer’s direction delivers the absolute reversal of that progression with Corey Stoll’s portrayal of the “successful” beta brother from New York City, Bo. Stoll remains quiet and extraordinarily reasonable, even when Toni takes the bait of his wife to deliver a slur on her Jewish heritage. And even when Rachel is freaking out over her two children (Alyssa Emily Marvin and Everett Sobers) having seen some racist artifacts in the vast mess that is her dead father-in-law’s house, Stoll’s Bo remains the still eye of the family storm swirling around all of them – until near the end. His late-in-the-play explosion, which is much louder than anything detonated by Paulson, provides the play’s comic high point.

I’ve never been to Havana, but watching this production provided me not only a telescope to that place, but to the past. The attention to historical detail here eschews the usual musical-theater glitz to favor what appears to be the real thing. In addition to Maldonado’s weathered set design, there are Dede Ayite’s costumes, Tyler Micoleau’s lighting and J. Jared Janas’ incredibly retro hair, wigs and makeup.

“Walk on Through” is at its best when Creel chucks his life story to delve into his very idiosyncratic yet universal feelings and ideas about art. Like, how looking at lots of perfect marble buttocks and pecs can be a great aphrodisiac. Or, what happens when you fall in love with the guy in Vesvolod Mikhailovich Garshin’s “Illia Repin” who turned out to kill himself? Or, how two people (Creel and Ryan Vasquez) can harbor such different reactions to Edward Hopper’s “From Williamsburg Bridge”?

This playwright is big on concept. Earlier this year, John J. Caswell Jr. gave us a play, “Wet Brain,” that took us inside the fevered mind of an alcoholic. In his new play, “Scene Partners,” a 75-year-old widow from the Midwest takes off for Hollywood to become a movie star even before her dead (and very hateful) husband has been buried. The big concept is her name, Meryl Kowalski.

The audience reaction at the St. James is decidedly more animated regarding the over-the-top performance of Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer. She plays the Lady of the Lake, which is the show’s drag-queen role. The Lady is a diva and indulges in all the caterwauling and overuse of melisma that are a hallmark of the Disney princess roles in musicals. Why audiences laugh at Kritzer’s delivery of songs and then turn around to lap up overblown crap like “Let It Go” remains a mystery. Long stretches of this “Spamalot” appear run by an automatic pilot who’d overdosed on speed. A manic quality often substitutes for anything resembling wit. However, the comedy often comes to life whenever a handful of performers grab the spotlight. In addition to Kritzer, they are Christopher Fitzgerald (a put-upon sidekick), Ethan Slater (a puckish prince), Michael Urie (a nonviolent knight) and Nik Walker (a studly knight).