Steven Suskin

Something Rotten! is larded with overripe performances, layer upon layer of schmaltz, and everything in the kitchen sink except a battle of flying cream pies...Something Rotten! hits the target again and again, but as the evening progresses they serve up fewer and fewer bull's eyes...After a dazzling production number midway through the first act...the show loses its freshness...there is no theatre-savvy genius like Bobby Lopez to keep things on musical theatre track...What Something Rotten! does have, to its great benefit, is Nicholaw's sharply-etched comedy blocking, his high-powered musical comedy dancing, and a talented cast of comic actors. D'Arcy James...here displays his outsized comic talents...Cariani...makes a fine counterpart as the poetic Bottom brother...Borle, a superb clown who can chew the scenery with the best of them...makes the most of the smarmy Will (as in 'Will Power'), although the authors have given him more of a sketch than a fully-rounded role.

The hidden strength of the show is Judy Kuhn (of LES MISERABLES and Chess), as the mother Helen. Helen seems almost invisible in this family, her true self having dwindled over the course of the marriage. Late in the show, she is revealed to have been very much aware of the situation all along; but what could she do other than sit at the piano, passively practicing Chopin? 'Chaos never happens if it's never seen,' she repeatedly notes. Finally comes her song, which illuminates the show.

In a day and age when producers, directors and author's executors think nothing of imposing their so-called artistic vision on Broadway masterworks that were pretty good to begin with, it is heartening to see producers, directors and executors just do the show as written...The production has the epic sweep that the authors intended, along with all those songs. Mr. Sher and his leading players also investigate undercurrents of romance and physical attraction which were not evident in the original production...Sher enhances these undercurrents, and has his actors act on them...That this works so well--and adds an additional color to the tapestry of the show--is due in part to the acting. Ms. O'Hara seems to have been born to play musical theatre heroines like Anna, Nellie Forbush and Julie Jordan; if only people were still writing such roles. Her Anna is young and hot-blooded enough to respond to the emotion, although unable...to act on it. Ken Watanabe, meanwhile, proves to be a strong actor, and sparks fly.

Viewing the 2011 tryout at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick (NJ), I found the humor mirthlessly forced...Thirty months later, I'm here to report that It Shoulda Been You is now considerably better than it was. This, thanks to a general upgrading of the cast (other than four central actors); slicker, fast-farce work from director David Hyde Pierce; and what seem to be many more jokes. Weaknesses still remain, led by the contrived story and a decidedly non-rousing score, but what was well-nigh intolerable in New Jersey is now... well, tolerable...Mr. Hyde Pierce's direction, as it turns out, helps keep the proceedings happily and dizzily airborne.

While most theatergoers are likely to be thrilled by The Audience--or more precisely, by Mirren's performance in The Audience--the concept dictates that we will be seeing pages from a scrapbook, without the dramatic heft that would make it a fine and/or important play. Yes, there is great life for The Audience with Helen Mirren; but the script itself seems to be merely an element of the evening devised to support the star performance, in the same manner as Bob Crowley's sets and costumes and Ivana Primorac's hair and make-up.

So here we have Larry David and Fish in the Dark, at the Cort Theatre. And it turns out the thing is an absurdistly daffy laff fest...Mr. David is once again playing himself in Fish in the Dark. Can he really by as objectionably cantankerous a being as the one he draws for us? Standing on the stage of the Cort, he sneers at his audience like a cartoon caricature of a bespectacled turtle cautiously sticking his head out of his shell only to find a smiley-faced insurance salesman; one suspects that underneath the persona, though, he is just an old teddy bear...The whole thing is in excessively poor taste, which students of the Mel Brooks school of etiquette know can make for high-grade hilarity...While the new play draws the same sort of high-octane laughter as the fabled Neil Simon comedies of yesteryear, it is closer in style to Herb Gardner's A Thousand Clowns or Murray Schisgal's Luv. They don't write plays like these anymore, no; but Fish in the Dark is the modern-day equivalent...Art it ain't; Fish in the Dark isn't O'Neill, or even O. Neil Simon. But it's funny, and it's boffo.

Playgoers who haven't walked away from a Broadway musical beaming since before they can remember should head over to Times Square for On The Town...The correct approach, it turns out, is to play down all those layers of camp and nostalgia and let Bernstein, Comden & Green speak for themselves...Director John Rando (Urinetown) and choreographer Joshua Bergasse (Smash) have precisely the right touch, milking every ounce of fun out of the material while treating it with respect. Bergasse is not quite the choreographer that Robbins was, naturally; but he does well in places and even better in others...Where this revival hits the jackpot is in the six leading players.

You will not likely find anything funnier onstage, just now, than Nathan Lane in the opening scene of Terrence McNally's It's Only a Play. Lane, as a humble off-Broadway actor turned top-tier sitcom star, is given a barrage of robustly funny jokes to launch at us, mostly of the lacerating variety...Mind you, laughs continue throughout the two-plus hours of this Jack O'Brien-directed opus; and good old Mr. Lane is omnipresent, always working to entertain us...Theatergoers will get their money's worth, if you can calculate worth by belly laffs, but it turns out that McNally's It's Only a Play is not all that much better than the play-within-a-play that the characters spend the night lamenting. 'It's Only Nathan Lane,' though, is a boffo bonanza.

Simply put, Curious Incident is one of the most memorable evenings you're likely to have on Broadway for quite some time. It has the same emotional impact as War Horse, but with a bit of an edge over that excellent offering. The World War I epic enthralled us with a marvelous physical production, led by those puppets; the story itself, though, was a simple if highly effective tale of a boy and his horse. Curious Incident features a production as marvelously intricate, but it is more stimulating and rewarding as a play.

Seeing Love Letters once again, twenty-five years later, I find it far better than remembered. Gurney's play, as revived at the Brooks Atkinson under the direction of Gregory Mosher, is smart, delightful, and moving...The difference could just come from the marvelous performances by Brian Dennehy and Mia Farrow, on display through October 10; but I have a hunch that this production will retain its magic once the initial cast is gone...Dennehy effortlessly charms and entertains us here, grafting a touch of stodgily stuffy smugness onto the otherwise likeable character. Farrow, somewhat surprisingly, is giving the best performance we've seen from her...In any event, Dennehy is the sturdy rock of this Love Letters while Farrow grabs us and pulls us into the emotional center.

This is one of those 'is the old lady losing her marbles?' plays, in which the doddering, aching, creaking, 79-year-old heroine drifts from witty perceptiveness to the borders of senility and back at the snap of the playwright's whim, all the while wondering 'who is going to take care of my tree?' The best idea author Eric Coble and director Molly Smith have had is to get Estelle Parsons to play the role. Ms. Parsons is 86, by the calendar, but still has all her marbles and reservoirs of acting skill too. She needs them to get through the ins and outs of her character, a sweet old lady who's angry because her favorite son--the gay one, naturally--hasn't spoken to her in twenty years so she fills her Brooklyn brownstone and the stage of the Booth with homemade Molotov cocktails in liquor bottles.

If Foster is exceptional in the title role, she is strongly supported by Henry, Donnell and especially the teen-aged Steele. Director Leigh Silverman (Chinglish) enhances her Encores work, taking the show's built-in production concept--a bus consisting solely of chairs, the heroine's disfiguring deformity suggested only by the facial reactions of the other actors--and using them to great advantage. The nine-piece band and the strong chorus are firmly led by music director Michael Rafter, who has a long history with both Foster and Tesori.

Director/choreographer Nicholaw (of Book of Mormon) is one of Broadway's top musical comedy guys nowadays, as demonstrated by 'Friend Like Me.' The rest of his first act, though, seems restrained and merely atmospheric. The scenery by Bob Crowley is effective, but without the extra-special touch he has brought to various projects in the past (including Mary Poppins and this season's Glass Menagerie). The always-expert Natasha Katz creates magical images with her lighting, while Gregg Barnes (of Follies and Kinky Boots) outdoes himself with costumes that bring new meaning to the word resplendent. The sound, though, is so over-amplified that it obscures what are probably first-rate orchestrations by Danny Troob. Score Aladdin a considerable win for Disney, likely to fill the New Amsterdam with happy crowds for seasons to come. Better than Little Mermaid, Aida and Tarzan, though not exactly a knockout.

Here we have a musical which in its finest moments offers the sort of robustly romantic Broadway-style singing--and writing--that brings to mind such treasures as Carousel and The Most Happy Fella. Those shows, when mounted properly, offer emotional peaks and climaxes so effective that there's not a dry eye in the house. In Bridges of Madison County, when romance goes asunder and the sympathetic lovers are forced apart, we sit there stonefaced, with nary a wet eye in the house. At least, not where I was sitting. You enjoy the wonderful performances and the numerous soaring ballads, frustrated that this exceptional work isn't contained in a more workable musical.

Outside Mullingar is another homegrown production of Manhattan Theatre Club, which has now produced ten Shanley plays. Director Doug Hughes, also from Doubt, keeps the action moving smoothly between the four sets and sustains the mood over one hundred intermissionless minutes. Not the least of Outside Mullingar's delights is the rain-soaked scenery by John Lee Beatty, which provides its own magic in the final scene. Mullingar is admittedly not quite so imperishable and rarefied as Leenane or Inishmaan, no. But Messing and Byrne are likely to leave you with a moonstruck glow.

Everything about the show is so likable. I left Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder having had a perfectly pleasant time with a pair of talented new theatre-writers, in the company of a delightful cast. But rousing? No.

Broadway has recently seen such a steady stream of family musicals devised to rake in Thanksgiving-to-New Year's dollars. 'A Christmas Story,' as its well-known title indicates, is yet another such specimen, but one that distinguishes itself. Based on a memoir by humorist Jean Shepherd and its revered 1983 film adaptation, this tuner boasts a heartwarming but wise story, an impressive score by Broadway newcomers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, canny staging and a series of laugh-out-loud production numbers. While 'Christmas Story' is a natural for kids, there's more than enough here for grown-ups of all ages.

Picking up where 'Leap of Faith' left off, 'Scandalous' is another big-budget, evangelist-with-feet-of-clay tale from the hinterlands, and despite various prior incarnations, it looks woefully out of place on a Broadway stage. Thesp Carolee Carmello ('Parade') does everything she can to breathe life into this bio-musical of forgotten celeb Aimee Semple McPherson, aka Sister Aimee, but no amount of proselytizing is likely to convert Gothamites. The composer, lyricist, librettist, director, choreographer and producers are all Broadway first-timers; so much for beginner's luck.

The most treacherous part of producing a biomusical about an iconic performer is finding an actor who can convincingly handle the role. The producers of 'Chaplin' -- this fall's first Broadway offering -- have passed that difficult test, with relative newcomer Rob McClure proving a small wonder as the Little Tramp. But they have come up all thumbs, alas, in the writing and staging departments. In the hands of composer-lyricist Chris Curtis (who has penned theme songs for the Discovery Channel) and Curtis' co-librettist Tom Meehan ('Annie,' 'The Producers'), Chaplin's remarkable life veers into cliche.

The newly manufactured 1920s-set musical 'Nice Work if You Can Get It' crams vintage Gershwin songs into a bubbly crowdpleaser, enchantingly rendered by thesps Kelli O'Hara, Michael McGrath and Judy Kaye. Mix in staging and choreography by Kathleen Marshall ('Anything Goes') and a cheerfully screwball if somewhat creaky new book by Joe DiPietro, and you've got what might be termed a good new old-fashioned musical. If only its likable, hard-working leading man -- a miscast Matthew Broderick -- didn't seem to be painfully concentrating on his next step, all night long.

Full of moving scenery, lights, projections, film and magical illusions, but devoid of actual magic, the Broadway production of 'Ghost' is a lumbering megatuner with little to offer beyond a limitless array of dazzling effects. But while it's tempting to suggest the show hasn't a ghost of a chance, that assessment might not be warranted: The still-running London production successfully parried a dire critical reception last July, and audience response to the visuals and that familiar title might well attract enough Rialto customers to make a go of it.

Director Michael Grandage scores with a dynamic new 'Evita,' graced by an impressive performance from Argentinean actress Elena Roger and the ticket-selling presence of recording star Ricky Martin, who acquits himself nicely if not remarkably. The 1979 Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice poperetta comes off fairly well in its first Broadway revival, thanks to a director who doesn't seem crimped or intimidated by Hal Prince's striking original staging. That said, the flaws inherent in the material -- typified by grasping-at-straws rhymes like 'That's what they call me/so Lauren Bacall me' -- remain. Look for boffo biz so long as Martin chooses to stay.

The hallmarks of Disney on Broadway -- lavishly expensive sets and costumes, state-of-the art automation and writers seemingly under the direction of some marketing wizard from Burbank -- are thoroughly and gratifyingly absent in 'Newsies,' the corker of a family musical from the Mouse House. Sparked by a star-making performance from Jeremy Jordan, a tunefully friendly score from Alan Menken and Jack Feldman, and high-leaping choreography by Christopher Gattelli, 'Newsies' is Disney's happiest outing since 'The Lion King.'

When Audra McDonald joins Norm Lewis in singing 'I Loves You, Porgy,' their duet will thrill 'Porgy and Bess' newcomers and purists alike. But when McDonald delivers a newly devised reprise of 'There's a Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon for New York' to her baby while snorting cocaine, theatergoers with a knowledge of the original will roll their eyes. This new Broadway version is a re-envisioned and streamlined version of the 1935 folk opera with smudgy fingerprints affixed; McDonald and Lewis make it reasonably entertaining, but this 'Porgy Lite' is not nearly as electrifying as the real thing....Paulus' 'Porgy and Bess' might be more economically feasible than Gershwin and DuBose Heyward's original, but it seems unlikely to supplant that version. The creatives have determinedly removed the majestic quality from Gershwin's music, a wrongheaded starting point for a production that non-aficionados may find moderately entertaining, but never as thrilling or enthralling as 'Porgy and Bess' needs to be.

The skeleton of the 'Clear Day' plot is retained, but without a leading lady playing dual roles, it's like a banana split without bananas. Melinda's neurotic half, Daisy, is now played by a slip of a boy who works in a flower shop; the unsuccessful surgery weakens the score. Some songs, which refer to Daisy's excised ESP story thread, seem robbed of their meaning; the now extraneous title song is relegated to the closing spot. Two songs have been transformed into overblown production numbers, and the new plot calls for seven reprises. (Added songs come from the Fred Astaire pic 'Royal Wedding.') The keen listener will notice numerous unfamiliar lyrics; Lerner seems to have been rewritten by an uncredited hand, and clumsily so.