Steven Suskin — Theater Critic

When the time finally arrives for Nora to slam that door with no door in sight, Lloyd and Gilmour have a stunningly abrupt solution which will likely leave you agape. Nothing Mr. Ibsen would have or could have imagined; but for Herzog’s adaptation, and for the 2023 audience at the Hudson off Times Square, it is a jolt that indeed honors—and contemporizes—the playwright’s door slam heard round the world.

I ended my review of Friedman’s 2012 version by calling it “as fine a rendition of Merrily as you’ve likely seen.” What we have now is even finer. I needn’t and won’t suggest you storm the NYTW box office, as this engagement seems to have sold out within hours of going on sale. But unless I miss my guess, word of a Broadway transfer will wend our way before not much more than a day goes by, quicker’n you can say “it only gets better and stronger and deeper and nearer and simpler and freer and richer and clearer.”

A spry and seemingly healthy 44-year old, Birbiglia confesses to a history of serious health issues. Thus we have a rumination on severe obstacles which ought not be funny but, in the author's telling, are positively side-splitting. Along the way he meanders off into myriad tangents-wrestling, chlorine, chicken parmigiana-which provoke torrents of laughter while always circling back to the matter at hand. All the while he reveals himself to be a first-class stage clown with mastery of both verbal and physical arts.

A spry and seemingly healthy 44-year old, Birbiglia confesses to a history of serious health issues. Thus we have a rumination on severe obstacles which ought not be funny but, in the author's telling, are positively side-splitting. Along the way he meanders off into myriad tangents-wrestling, chlorine, chicken parmigiana-which provoke torrents of laughter while always circling back to the matter at hand. All the while he reveals himself to be a first-class stage clown with mastery of both verbal and physical arts.

It is not until late in the three-hour ten-minute evening that this Salesman finally starts to crackle the way the entire performance did in London. Specifically, in the office scene in which Willy-on the final afternoon of his life-encounters neighbor Charley (Delaney Williams) and his lawyer-son Bernard (Stephen Stocking). But that's an especially long time to wait through otherwise intermittent high spots.

Countering these assets is the staging. Nuance and subtlety have been discarded in favor of a brash, bold, hit-'em-on-the-head presentation. 1776 was written as a protest musical mixing a strong anti-Vietnam message with a bitter view of then-President Nixon and his administration, the successful implementation of which contributed to the musical's resounding success. 'Momma Look Sharp,' an outspoken folk-tinged pacifist dirge which stands out as a quiet change-of-pace moment in this relatively explosive musical, is here handed over to a stage full of black-cloaked, keening mothers. Effective? Kind of- but more effective than the authors' image of a lonely corpse lying forgotten in the tall grass in the meadow by the red maple tree?

The performers are uniformly excellent. Uranowitz stands out from beginning (as mathematician Ludwig) to end (as his equally mathematical great-nephew Nathan). Krumholtz is equally adept as the conflicted family breadwinner, while Castelow impresses as the out-of-place trophy wife who models for Klimt and nearly disrupts the household. Uranowitz, Augen, and Froushan do stunning work in the play's shattering final scene. (Augen and Froushan, along with Castelow and Neil, played these roles in London.) That said, the stage is filled with too many worthy performances to individually cite.

Frequent Nottage collaborator Kate Whoriskey (director of Ruined and Sweat) has staged a fine production, with a properly 'liminal' set (as specifically called for by the playwright) from set designer Takeshi Kata and properly mystical touches from lighting designer Christopher Akerlind. Jennifer Moeller, meanwhile, gives Aduba an array of startling costumes that might well chasten Diana over at the Longacre. That desperately doomed princess has more actual costume changes than Clyde, yes; but Diana is 40 endless minutes longer than Clyde's, and several of Moeller's greasy spoon wardrobe choices are strikingly more eyegrabbing.

Clarke, a Londoner making her Broadway debut, is not exactly an unknown quantity, given her three Olivier Awards. (These include one for her 2018 performance in this role and another for her Linda Loman opposite Wendell Pierce in the Young Vic's staggering 2019 Death of a Salesman, which fully deserves to be seen on the New York stage). Here, Clarke provides a compelling reason to see Michael Longhurst's production of the Tesori-Kushner musical, which has been imported with an otherwise local cast.

Clarke, a Londoner making her Broadway debut, is not exactly an unknown quantity, given her three Olivier Awards. (These include one for her 2018 performance in this role and another for her Linda Loman opposite Wendell Pierce in the Young Vic's staggering 2019 Death of a Salesman, which fully deserves to be seen on the New York stage). Here, Clarke provides a compelling reason to see Michael Longhurst's production of the Tesori-Kushner musical, which has been imported with an otherwise local cast.

Theatrical astonishment is back on the Broadway boards. The Lehman Trilogy, which has conquered and enraptured audiences since it first appeared, has finally arrived at the Nederlander after a pandemic pause. New Yorkers who missed the production's instantly sold-out limited engagement at the Park Avenue Armory in 2019 have 12 weeks before it moves on to brief stops in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Miss it at your peril.

'It has mass appeal, immediacy, enthusiasm, and an incredibly high sense of style; and it revels in what used to be called 'girl power' but can now more properly be described as simply, or not-so-simply, power. An audience show for a wide audience, Six is a rafter-raising entertainment that'll get you throwing your proverbial bonnet in the air (but please keep that mask on, for now). Even if, yes, a third of the crowned characters portrayed did indeed-in the plot, and in actual history (and in actual herstory)-lose their heads.'

'It has mass appeal, immediacy, enthusiasm, and an incredibly high sense of style; and it revels in what used to be called 'girl power' but can now more properly be described as simply, or not-so-simply, power. An audience show for a wide audience, Six is a rafter-raising entertainment that'll get you throwing your proverbial bonnet in the air (but please keep that mask on, for now). Even if, yes, a third of the crowned characters portrayed did indeed-in the plot, and in actual history (and in actual herstory)-lose their heads.'

Grand Horizons is a new play, but not new in the Broadway sense. This sort of thing abounded in the third quarter of the last century. Some were hits, often major; does anyone remember Never Too Late? (Middle-aged mom gets pregnant to the shock of her husband, pregnant daughter, and son-in-law, for 1,007 performances.) Watching the first act of Grand Horizons, I was swept back to a different old play, a negligible 1972 offering called 6 Rms Riv Vu. This was mostly because that play demonstrated the comic touch of the then-young Alexander, who has spent a good deal of her career playing more serious fare. Her deft performance in Grand Horizons is decidedly reminiscent of that earlier play, which despite her ministrations and those of the equally young Jerry Orbach proved to be a flimsy comedy trying too hard to compete with ol' Doc Simon, a popular gagman of the era.

Transforming My Name Is Lucy Barton from page to stage in such engrossing manner is quite a feat on the part of the actor, as well as Strout, Munro, and Eyre. Linney gives an astounding performance, circling the truth (whatever that might be) with a supreme ambivalence. The overall effect, on that almost bare platform set within the stage of the Friedman, being that she-the actress and the character-is thoroughly, and nicely, compelling.

At base, we have Harry Connick Jr. singing fourteen or so songs by Cole Porter. Given Connick's way with a tune, his nimble pianistics, and his expert arranging skills, the show-a tour promoting his newest album, True Love: A Celebration of Cole Porter-more or less describes itself. Yes, Connick will be swinging along to a high-octane band, concentrating on the music and lyrics of the unlikely songsmith from Peru, Indiana. Rather than simply standing up there and singing the songs, though, Connick has gone out of his way to provide not only a Porter concert but a bells-and-whistles show. And it's a dandy one.

At base, we have Harry Connick Jr. singing fourteen or so songs by Cole Porter. Given Connick's way with a tune, his nimble pianistics, and his expert arranging skills, the show-a tour promoting his newest album, True Love: A Celebration of Cole Porter-more or less describes itself. Yes, Connick will be swinging along to a high-octane band, concentrating on the music and lyrics of the unlikely songsmith from Peru, Indiana. Rather than simply standing up there and singing the songs, though, Connick has gone out of his way to provide not only a Porter concert but a bells-and-whistles show. And it's a dandy one.

Theatergoers fortunate enough to have seen the original cast in the original productions of such two-part dramas as Nicholas Nickleby and Angels in America will likely tell you that those experiences remain unforgettable. The Inheritance hereby joins that list. Pure theatrical magnificence.

All in all, it's a magical evening from Rapp, Cromer, and the altogether mesmerizing Parker and Hochman. Theatergoers who are not averse to listening and thinking should head over to 54th Street to hear The Sound Inside.

Tracy Letts, well known in these parts for his Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County and as a Tony Award-winning actor (in plays including the 2012 revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), is back at his keyboard, and the results are superb. While his past oeuvre has not been noted for laughs-this is the man who wrote Killer Joe and Bug, after all-time and tide have caught up with the playwright, who battles his own fifty-year mark with wild comic lances thrust at life's annoyances, only to have these darts more or less boomerang. The results are knowing, prickly, and altogether hilarious.

Uncomfortable theater, yes; it's impossible for a play called Slave Play, in this day and age, to be-well-comfortable. But Harris, already acclaimed as an important new voice in the American drama, is on to something here. Modernish audiences are likely to quickly embrace this important new play. Others might well find it uncomfortable, but attention should and need be paid.

Is Freestyle Love Supreme traditional Broadway fare? No, certainly. Would this production be ensconced at the fabled Booth on Shubert Alley without the Messrs. Miranda and Kail serving as co-creators and co-producers? Assuredly not. But based on a back-of-the-ticket-envelope tally, I calculate that Freestyle Love Supreme easily merits inclusion on my list of the six most entertaining shows currently on Broadway. So those of you interested in keen and knowing fast-paced topical humor fueled by high intellect and political insight might want to try to get over to the Booth.

The Height of the Storm is a puzzle built on cobwebs, with a couple of puzzle-pieces purposely missing (or perhaps several pieces too many). This allows Zeller's play, like The Father, to succeed on its own terms, sending you out into the night (after eighty-odd minutes with no intermission) talking, thinking, considering and-yes-puzzling over the affair. But in any case, fully and totally engaged.

What you get is mental magic, sleight after sleight after sleight. Because Brown is a master showman, he doesn't just astound you. He starts off small, leaving you to turn in your seat to your companion to whisper, 'How'd he do that?' By midway through the show (a neat two hours, plus an intermission that allows patrons to clamber across the stage), you are cordially nudging your random neighbor to ask, 'How'd he do that?' By evening's end, you're practically shouting out the question on the sidewalk.

What you get is mental magic, sleight after sleight after sleight. Because Brown is a master showman, he doesn't just astound you. He starts off small, leaving you to turn in your seat to your companion to whisper, 'How'd he do that?' By midway through the show (a neat two hours, plus an intermission that allows patrons to clamber across the stage), you are cordially nudging your random neighbor to ask, 'How'd he do that?' By evening's end, you're practically shouting out the question on the sidewalk.