Steven Suskin — Theater Critic

Director/choreographer Rob Ashford is less resourceful than usual and only intermittently effective; his big idea here seems to be to add dancers doing the frug in the background. It is not Ashford's fault that Michael Bennett's original staging of 'Turkey Lurkey Time,' the big first-act production number, is easily viewable on the Internet; but it is that energy and humor that is altogether missing from the current staging.

One sometimes wonders what the notoriously exacting Sondheim privately thinks of the many revues and revivals of his work that come along. No worry here; 'Sondheim on Sondheim' is engrossingly entertaining and thoroughly captivating. An enchanting, warm and provocative opportunity to hear not only Sondheim's songs but -- literally -- the master's voice.

Dramaturgy aside, 'American Idiot' comes dressed in an exciting and impressive production. Mayer's set designer, Christine Jones, has contrived a monumental space flanked by towering postered walls incorporating 43 busily working video monitors. There is also a metal staircase to the stars, or the flies of the St. James, which is only half used by the director; the two upper landings are reserved for the violinist and the violist, who must get pretty lonely up there. Mayer and Jones have been joined by video designer Darrel Maloney and lighting designer Kevin Adams to create what might be termed a 'really big show.'

Here, finally, we have a realistic and believable pair who have been devotedly living with each other for a quarter century. And that makes 'La Cage' more emotionally effective than before. The producers are fortunate to have imported Hodge, who won an Olivier for this role. He comes on looking and acting like Colleen Dewhurst playing farce, and proceeds to offer a performance at once grandly over-the-top (in the first act) and emotionally grabbing (in the second). The surprise of the evening comes from Kelsey Grammer as Georges. He plays the comedy and acts the host perfectly well, but in 'Song on the Sand' and 'Look Over There' he gets to the heart: Here is a man earnestly and enduringly in love.

Broadway's parade of musicals for people who grew up on rock rather than show tunes continues with 'Million Dollar Quartet,' which eschews the music of Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim for the sounds of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. By placing the latter gentlemen among the dramatis personae and lacing the proceedings with a fair deal of historical dramatis, authors Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux and director Eric Schaeffer have come up with a crowdpleaser that mixes jukebox and story into a satisfying whole, while the knockout performances keep the joint jumpin' with great balls of fire.

The Addams Family' -- the 1960s sitcom, that is -- was famously kooky, spooky and altogether ooky. The new Broadway musical, based not on the sitcom but on assorted one-panel cartoons drawn over the years by the New Yorker's Charles Addams, is kooky but not spooky or ooky; nor is it neat, sweet or petite (as the song goes). What this 'Addams Family' has is the gloweringly perfect Nathan Lane, who gamely thrusts Gomez's rapier at anything -- or any joke -- that moves. But $16.5 million has brought forth an ill-formed one-dimensional cartoon with lines and shading not quite inked in.