Roma Torre

As a mother of two, whenever I learn that a family member or friend has just given birth, I often say “Welcome to the agony and ecstasy of parenthood.” And in many cases, it’s the mom who bears the brunt of it. If you want to experience what the worst of it looks like, you can get a crash course in Meat Suit, or the shitshow of motherhood.

Data is a serious play but there is humor, almost exclusively in the hands of Jonah who knows his limitations but compensates by taking on the persona of an over-stimulated dude. Brandon Flynn is that guy to a T, and all the more impressive after seeing him play Marlon Brando so convincingly off Broadway in Kowalski

Did it work? I’m sure not for everyone. This is, after all, the first effort in what I’d call a high-tech existential thought experiment. But despite all the hoopla about the innovative technology, the play’s still very much the thing here, and this is a sweet one.

It’s the same excellent cast from Steppenwolf’s production in Chicago five years ago. But it feels even more relevant now. America’s history of conducting secret experiments on unwitting human guinea pigs planted ample seeds of doubt about our institutions. And today that distrust has only metastasized amid the acute madness of social media-fueled disinformation. Letts cites Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh as inspiration for the play. It’s terrifying to consider how many more are out there.

Spelling bee participants are an odd lot. Full disclosure, I was one of them way back in the day. It’s a terribly vulnerable time for most children that age. Finn’s song “Pandemonium” captures the angst and confusion they experience. The show plays it mostly for laughs but it has the added elements of insight and wisdom. For that reason, anyone raising children may need to see it even more than their kids. It’s not just entertaining and funny, it offers much to learn about family dynamics; and when it all aligns, it’s a perfect syzygy.

When Bess Wohl’s play Liberation premiered off-Broadway last winter it was revelatory. Despite some structural weaknesses that remain, it’s a beautiful work featuring an ensemble of actors at the top of their game. It’s no wonder the production transferred to Broadway totally intact.

The imagery gets a big boost from lighting designers Adam Honoré and Donald Holder’s exquisite palette attaching distinctive shades of light to each of the main groups, and framing them in monochromatic bands painted overhead. And costumer Linda Cho did a terrific job expertly evoking the period, the class and the temperament of the characters. But even without the technical enhancements, the production would still soar given the bravura talents – all 41 actors and 28 musicians – gracing the Vivian Beaumont stage.

Good storytelling is not only key to selling merchandise, it’s essential to musical theater. And while the production at the Laura Pels Theatre has much to offer – most especially a bravura star turn from Betsy Wolfe – the book by Ken Davenport falls rather short in selling Joy’s rags-to-riches story on the live stage.

Smart brings the character to vivid life but she can only do so much to engage the audience when the writing falls short. [...] And yet even with Smart’s bravura acting and the extreme cruelty Izzy experiences, the playwriting never quite manages the emotional depth that the story requires.

At its best, the production, incisively directed by Kate Whoriskey, is a moving and sometimes humorous portrait of two aging midwesterners staring their mortality in the face and re-assessing their lives together. Both have deep regrets and the more we learn about them, the more we can identify with their loss and introspection.

That raucous “Conga” number never fails to disappoint as Ruth frantically tries to interview a group of Brazilian sailors who just want to dance the Conga. It’s the Act One closer and yet I couldn’t help but notice several people seated around me didn’t return for Act Two. The last Broadway revival of Wonderful Town stemmed from a highly lauded Encores! production in 2000. How, I wonder, could the same show yield such different results? Hard to say but I bet if only the creatives had decided to stage it as a concert version this time around, we’d all be singing its praises.

In the end, we’re left with the recognition that these foreign born characters represent the majority of migrants seeking refuge in this country. All they want is a decent life, free of the violence and poverty they left behind. And yet, more and more, they face challenges that make it nearly impossible to survive, let alone afford a decent life for their families. As the characters talk about feeling powerless, the audience is touched in a way that no other medium can do. The best works don’t just entertain us, they move our hearts and minds. This is the power of great theater.

At its most chaotic, Irishtown brings to mind Noises Off, that classic farce about staging a play within a play in the British hinterland. Comedy, as they say, is hard; and it takes tremendous discipline and timing to pull it off. Under the tight direction of Nicola Murphy Dubey the company mostly meets the challenge though the humor occasionally seems forced. Still it’s quite a trip watching talented actors frantically portraying desperate actors acting badly.

It’s overstuffed with silliness like that, and Susan Stroman, who usually has some clever tricks up her sleeve, isn’t able to rein this one in. Her direction wants Smash to be a smash with lots of show-stopping numbers featuring over-amped singers fit for American Idol. But it feels more like a parody of an old-fashioned musical that loses its way with every nutty idea thrown into the mix. And that’s unfortunate considering the A-list roster of talent involved in this production.

It really would take a lot more than one case of miscasting to tank this play. That misstep aside, the production remains highly entertaining. In addition to Odenkirk, Burr and McKean’s standout performances, Donald Webber, Jr. as the stoic office manager Williamson, and John Pirruccello’s turn as Roma’s target – the indecisive schlub James Lingk – are both excellent.

This is not story theater as one might imagine. It is a wondrous merging of technical wizardry, clever stagecraft and incomparable artistry. As you enter the theater, there’s little more than a giant screen suspended on a bare stage. When it begins, we hear Snook’s voice narrating the scene set in an artist’s studio as we meet the artist Basil Hallward and his friend Lord Henry Wotton discussing Basil’s portrait of Dorian Gray, a young man they find “wonderfully handsome.” Snook appears on the giant screen as Dorian, and magically she also becomes the two older men as they all converse about “a new hedonism” that worships the beauty of youth above all else.

The performances are all in sync, never an easy task in modern productions with shortened rehearsal periods featuring actors trained in different techniques and styles. But here they’re all speaking the speech uniformly. Mastering the Iambic pentameter rhythms is always a challenge, but the cast pulls it off quite consistently; and after a while, our modern ears found the Elizabethan language less and less foreign. It’s impossible to pick up everything they say, and the lines are often spoken too quickly to decipher the full meanings but the intentions always come through loud and clear.

Mark O’Rowe does fine work, honoring the author’s intent while subtly framing the words in contemporary vernacular. Jack O’Brien helms the entire production with tremendous economy and restraint. With the exception of Japhy Weideman’s gorgeous blue-hued, rain-soaked lighting, this is not a technically showy production. The creative team wisely focused their collaborative efforts on the powerful text.

Directed by Noah Himmelstein with deceptive simplicity, it’s all richly dramatic but also loaded with laughter as the two characters spar with each other in that affectionate way mothers and sons tend to do. The individual scenes are titled with motherly expressions such as “Tell Me The Truth and I Won’t Get Mad” and “Why Can’t You Ever Meet a Nice Boy.” At one point, Maria fears that Bobby has “the AIDS” as she puts it. And when Bobby finally gets a job at The Meat Hook, a gay bar, Maria asks if it’s a delicatessen.

If you were a woman in 1970, by almost every standard, you were regarded as a second class citizen in this country. You could not get a credit card or mortgage without a responsible man to co-sign for you. Abortion was illegal across the land; no matter your education or experience, you had fewer opportunities and were likely to earn less than your male counterparts; and despite all your protests and your dogged determination to gain equal rights, true equality eluded you. That’s the backdrop for Bess Wohl’s beautifully evocative play entitled Liberation. And given recent setbacks for women in the political landscape, this timely work resonates in a deeply personal way.

The Antiquities is a most perceptive and hauntingly cautionary tale, and it owes much to the production values crafted by the entire creative team. Each of the exhibits, expertly staged by co-directors David Cromer and Caitlin Sullivan, captures just the right sense of otherworldliness, very much like a “Twilight Zone” episode. And it’s all greatly enhanced by Tyler Micoleau’s muted lighting and Paul Steinberg’s minimalist settings.

English, I’m told, is one of the hardest languages to learn. We Americans tend to take it for granted, but with its erratic pronunciations, bizarre contractions and seemingly made-up words, not to mention all the slang, it must be incredibly difficult for foreigners to master our native tongue. And yet for so many people throughout the world, a working knowledge of English is currency to a career, a better life, and even freedom. That’s the backdrop for a group of ESL students studying English in Iran; and as you’d expect, most of them are struggling. Playwright Sanaz Toossi won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for English, a keenly understated work that speaks volumes about the immense impact language has on our culture and identity.

At the performance I attended, they did manage to get all of it done in record time, but even if they had failed, I wouldn’t expect any money back. For 65 minutes their “near burnout” is pure entertainment for the rest of us. It’s packed with suspense: will they succeed? There’s humor: just watch one of the guys attempt to change into a Speedo without embarrassing himself. There’s also a satisfying catharsis. And given the added option of having a drink at the bar before or after, “burnout”, at least when others are threatened with it, is “paradise” indeed.

A Wonderful World, the biographical jukebox musical about the legendary jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong, is named for Armstrong’s signature song “What A Wonderful World.” But a more apt title might be “The Four Wives of Louis Armstrong” because each of the four actors portraying Armstrong’s wives come close to stealing the show. It’s not that James Monroe Iglehart isn’t terrific in the lead role. He most certainly is…but each time the women step up to sing, they knock it out of the park. Iglehart’s role as the gravelly voiced, grinning jazz great is comparatively understated and so, impressive as he is, it’s the women who consistently dominate the spotlight every time they’re on. That’s not a criticism, just an observation, and it gives the show that much more talent to applaud. And talent is on overload in this enjoyable production.

Before I get into the merits of the play and Lincoln Center’s thrilling production, something else that’s very real is the extraordinary talents of its leading man. Making his Broadway debut, Robert Downey Jr., who most of us know only through his film work, is a great stage actor. As famed novelist Jacob McNeal, an egotistical, self-acknowledged asshole, he is a fascinating creature treading the line between obnoxious and seductive. You can’t take your eyes off him…and happily, he’s on stage for the entirety of Akhtar’s 90-minute drama.