Suzy Evans

When Carmello sings, there’s magic in the theater, even if David Pomeranz and David Friedman’s tunes are generic (Gifford also gets a credit for “additional music”). Joel Fram’s music direction and vocal arrangements, though, are an absolute delight. The revival scenes feel like a religious experience, thanks to a winning ensemble and Lorin Latarro’s peppy choreography. Puzzlingly, set designer Walt Spangler’s clunky white altar staircase never leaves the stage. (There has to be wing space at the Simon, right? Why would there be an altar on the farm where Aimee grew up?) The entire cast is fantastic. Roz Ryan gives Carmello some scene-stealing breaks as brothel owner–turned–revival assistant Emma Jo Schaeffer. Candy Buckley fills the bill as Aimee’s overbearing mother, and Edward Watts believably morphs into two characters, husband Robert and love interest David Hutton.

Rebecca Lenkiewicz has transformed Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 play “An Enemy of the People,” an insightful work about the cost of free expression, into a coherent, topical, and thrilling piece that pokes and prods at our own moral fiber. Expertly realized by director Doug Hughes, the production succeeds on merit instead of flashiness or celebrity—with an outstanding cast of theater veterans led by Richard Thomas and Boyd Gaines—and causes us to question just how far we are willing to go to stand up for our beliefs.

Though a technical glitch caused an unplanned 25-minute break at the performance I attended, I’m not going to get caught up in the details. The incident only illustrates exactly what is wrong with “Ghost”: It’s trying to be something it’s not. Warchus has turned a touching silver-screen love story into an overly flashy showbiz musical that betrays the intimacy of its source.

Though director Thomas Kail tries to re-create the adrenaline rush of a basketball game onstage, his trite devices, coupled with Eric Simonson’s flat script, can’t deliver the same energy as a Final Four playoff. [...] The supporting cast—Deirdre O’Connell, Peter Scolari, Francois Battiste, and Robert Manning Jr.—shows impressive range, filling out a series of one-note characters such as sports reporters, bartenders, parents, fans, and teammates.

'Star Trek' fans will be disappointed to learn that he doesn't beam in but instead makes his entrance as an ordinary actor. ('Everybody beams in,' he jokes.) Starting with his origins in Montreal, Shatner charts his career chronologically, from understudying Christopher Plummer in 'Henry V' at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival all the way to announcing the final wake-up call for the space shuttle Discovery. His famous gigs—the Priceline Negotiator, 'Boston Legal,' 'Reno 911,' 'The Practice,' and of course 'Star Trek'—make modest appearances, but the insider jokes are rare and fairly obvious, even to the Shatner neophyte. Whether they're funny is another question.