Thom Geier — Theater Critic

Julianna is a perfect fit for Laurie Metcalf, a Steppenwolf Theatre veteran best known for her Emmy-winning work on Roseanne. Still lithe in a slim black skirt and jacket with a black and white top (the costumes are by David Zinn), Metcalf radiates a brusque intelligence and mordant wit with occasional flashes of raw and childlike vulnerability. Hers is a mesmerizing performance

Norbert Leo Butz is no stranger to playing shady characters...In Dead Accounts, Theresa Rebeck's engaging but unsatisfying new dramedy, he brings a fast-talking charm to a New York banker named Jack who suddenly shows up at his parents' suburban Cincinnati home with suspicious stacks of cash...With the exception of Jack, though, the characters are as thin as old dish towels. Holmes, effortlessly sympathetic in an underwritten role as a dithering thirtysomething, tears into a populist rant against banks and flirts playfully with Jack's still-in-Ohio high school pal Phil (Josh Hamilton)...The first act of Dead Accounts plays like a claustrophobically staged TV pilot...But Act 2 is like the second episode of a 13-show season, ending on a mini-catharsis as modest as a churchgoing Midwesterner. A full season (or further re-writing) might have allowed Rebeck to flesh out her promising setup, but this wisp of a show pays steep penalties for premature withdrawal. B–

Director Moisés Kaufman's crisp, first-rate production finds an admirable complexity in Ruth and Augustus Goetz' 1947 drama, based on the Henry James novel Washington Square. In her Broadway debut, Chastain conveys social discomfort and awkwardness without veering into caricature. In the second act, as her mouse of a character gradually learns to roar, the uniquely American arc of this tragedy comes into sharper focus.

It's been exactly 50 years since Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? first brayed its way onto Broadway, but Edward Albee's four-person drama has lost none of its searing psychological power over the years...Letts, better known as the playwright behind the Pulitzer winner August: Osage County, brings a fresh approach to the usually much quieter role of George...Morton's may be the most sympathetic Martha ever to appear on stage — her implosion in the play's final scenes is devastating on multiple levels...it is Letts and Morton who put their stamp on the play — and just about manage to eclipse the memory of the fine Broadway revival starring Bill Irwin and Kathleen Turner just seven years ago.

Director Dexter Bullard keeps the action moving fluidly. Unfortunately, he also keeps Beowulf Boritt's turntable set in nearly constant motion as well — audiences might consider popping Dramamine for all the random rotation of the wicker furniture representing both Steve and Sara's as well as Sam's apartments. Perhaps, despite all of Wright's jabs at believers, this is the surest evidence of an unseen God at work in the universe.

Early in Act 2 of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the genetically altered villain Green Goblin (Patrick Page) sings, 'I'm a $65 million circus tragedy - actually, more like 75.' Yes, that's a wink-wink nod to the show's notorious crawl to opening night following months of delays, budget overruns, cast injuries, and the exit of original director and co-creator Julie Taymor. So how does the retooled Broadway production fare? It gets full marks for spectacle - Daniel Ezralow's aerial choreography and George Tsypin's sets deserve a curtain call all their own - but only partial credit as musical theater.

The unevenness of Cromer's direction is most pronounced in the first act, which is dominated by Artie, Bananas, and Bunny. The second act perks to life with the introduction with a farcical fleet of new characters, many of them played by scene-stealing stand-outs: relative newcomer Christopher Abbott as the Shaughnessys' increasingly deranged Vietnam-bound son, Ronnie (the role Stiller once played); Alison Pill (Milk) as the delightfully daffy deaf actress Corrinna Stroller, a vision in a white dress; and Thomas Sadoski (reasons to be pretty) as the neighborhood boy-turned-Hollywood hot shot whose coattails Artie unrealistically hopes to ride to fame. Yet overall, this production of The House of Blue Leaves is not unlike one of Artie's wannabe hit tunes: The notes are there, and the enthusiasm, but it never quite finds its rhythm.

At the heart of the new production, directed by Joel Grey and George C. Wolfe, is a subtle and superb performance by Joe Mantello...This is not a great play, to be honest. There is too much speechifying by characters who are too easily interchangeable. But as a chronicle of a historical moment, The Normal Heart still packs a serious emotional wallop.

You need look no further than Patina Miller, a natural and dynamic performer who proves there's a genuine virtue in the old phrase 'force of habit.' Even when she's tamed her curly 'do behind a long black robe and veil, she brings an irresistible energy to this crowd-pleasing show.

Theater can be like magic. You can take an assemblage of wire, wood, and mesh — and convince people without a shred of doubt that it is a horse. And not just any horse, but Joey, the beloved half thoroughbred who is the heart and soul of the imaginative, moving new Broadway drama War Horse. First produced at the National Theatre of Great Britain in 2007, the play centers on a gawky British teen named Albert (Seth Numrich) who enlists during World War I hoping to find Joey after his drunken lout of a father (Boris McGiver) sells the steed to the British army. (Steven Spielberg's film version is due in theaters this December.)

Jerry Mitchell's choreography is also a bit of a grab-bag - a little kick-line here, a little Fosse there - though it's consistently both energetic and spirited. In fact, the entire cast (which also includes Tom Wopat as Frank Abagnale Sr.) seems to be working very hard to put over the material. Under the direction of Jack O'Brien, though, Catch Me If You Can moves mostly in fits and starts. The first act ends abruptly, without a big production number, and throwaway songs like '(Our) Family Tree' with Brenda and her parents tend to stop the show in its tracks. In the end, you have a rooting interest in both Frank and his cohorts on stage. You want them to get away with just about anything. But the creators of Catch Me If You Can have rigged the game against them. What should have been a fun lark of a story seems almost stodgy, like your grandmother's idea of a good time.

In fact, it's hard to unravel where Finch ends and Radcliffe begins, so thoroughly do the two seem to be entwined in this triumphant performance. On the surface, the British actor - with his squat, compact body and somewhat pasty complexion - seems an unlikely leading man. Though he has a stronger singing voice than Broderick and a limber, go-for-it approach to director Rob Ashford's exhaustingly acrobatic choreography, he's not a natural, effortless triple threat. But like Finch, he seems to be tapping into an almost bottomless reserve of willpower and determination to claim his place in the spotlight of a big-budget Broadway musical. Your eyes keep being drawn to him, even if he always lets you see him sweat.

The nylon-thin plot is mostly an excuse to set up the classic tunes on the soundtrack. As fans of Glee know by now, there's a certain pleasure in the truly unlikely segue. It's natural for Tick to begin 'Say a Little Prayer' seated at the mirror: 'The moment I wake up, before I put on my makeup...' But you can imagine the narrative lengths to which the creators must go to introduce Jimmy Webb's 'MacArthur Park,' which memorably begins: 'Someone left the cake out in the rain.' Needless to say, the show is campier than a tentful of Boy Scouts (working on their choreography merit badge). And there's a dance-party atmosphere that helps compensate for the show's plot implausibilities and clunkier moments. Among the three leads, Adams seems the most solid and comfortably over the top as a bratty young provocateur. Sheldon is not the strongest singer, but brings some touching pathos to his role as the aging diva. The weakest element is Swenson, who seems a bit ill at ease as Tick/Mitzi (and the actor's shaky accent often seems closer to Eton than Australia).

Memorably played by Frances McDormand with a potent mix of prickly aggression and bruised-feeling withdrawal, Margaret is a middle-aged woman in South Boston's Lower End. At the start of the play, she is fired from the dollar store where she works due to her perpetual tardiness — she's usually late because of a grown daughter with serious development issues still living at home. This is a woman who has made serious sacrifices in her life — as the events of this remarkable and timely new play make clear.

This is one excruciating, headache-inducing evening of theater — and a long one at that.

The sugarplummy supporting cast includes Cheers veteran George Wendt (as a wizened, wisecracking Santa), a nicely sarcastic Amy Spanger (as Buddy's unlikely and underdeveloped love interest), and a strong-voiced Matthew Gumley (as Buddy's much younger half-brother). Elf is a modest show with modest charms, but director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw keeps the production humming along, particularly in the fleeter second act. One can imagine the show having a second life in high schools and regional theaters (visions of licensing fees will no doubt be dancing in the creators' heads). For now, though, Buddy and his pals seem very much at home on Broadway.

It's tempting to dismiss the new musical adaptation of Pedro Almodóvar's seminal 1988 movie farce Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown as a hot mess. But in truth, this ill-conceived Broadway production is more of a lukewarm gazpacho — which is almost fitting since a version of the dish, seasoned with Valium, figures prominently in the plot.

Yes, the show delivers a history lesson about America's racist past by employing an array of theatrical tropes that are frankly racist themselves (shuffle-and-jive dance steps, Stepin Fetchit comedy routines, blackface, etc.). The virtually all African American cast plays the Scottsboro defendants in a naturalistic way while employing more stylized, controversial minstrel performance methods to play the story's white characters: the slutty white women who cry rape, the racist sheriff who arrests and beats the prisoners, and the New York Jewish lawyer who swoops in to defend them in court. As intentionally broad as the performances often are, the actors are terrific — and the effect is to underscore both the horror of the Scottsboro case as well as the ways in which popular culture has reinforced racial stereotyping.

There is a lot of high-minded talk throughout the play — is art an elitist pursuit or truly for the masses? — but it yields little in terms of dramatic tension or surprise. And for such a fundamentally didactic show, the takeaway seems rather simplistic. It's like a paint-by-numbers exercise in extolling the virtues of art.

Even if you're not familiar with David Lean's 1946 movie melodrama Brief Encounter, you will find yourself caught up in writer-director Emma Rice's brilliantly reconceived stage adaptation, now playing at Broadway's Studio 54 following a successful run last winter at Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse. (EW's original review). Despite playing in a much-larger theater, the show loses nothing of its considerable wit or charm.

With time, I suspect that she too will get into the rhythm of director Trevor Nunn's smartly executed production. There was always something a little odd about making a star vehicle for Zeta-Jones out of a show that is very much an ensemble piece. A certain balance has been restored to A Little Night Music in its current incarnation. As the song goes: Isn't it rich! A-

One understands the desire to goose material that is both potentially dry and well past its sell-by date. (In the wake of AIG and Bernie Madoff and Lehman Brothers' own collapse, doesn't the Enron scandal seem so 2001?) But subtlety gets lost in the process: At one point, Butz's Skilling literally stomps his foot like a petulant 2-year-old when Lay sides with Roe in a corporate dispute — an over-the-top gesture that undercuts any effort by the production to make its characters more than cardboard stand-ins for American Big Business excess and immaturity. Goold further muddles the satire with kitchen-sink showmanship, employing everything from a barbershop quartet of traders to a mini-ballet by lightsaber-wielding execs. He even creates anthropomorphized 'raptors' to represent the shady debt-laden shell companies that led to Enron's ultimate unraveling. We see Fastow and Skilling kill the raptors at the end, but there's no real-world explanation of what they're doing; Goold is too caught up in his theatrical conceit to serve the fact-based story he's trying to tell. Too often, in fact, Enron plays like 60 Minutes on acid.

But the show, newly revived on Broadway under the thoughtful direction of Terry Johnson, proves to be surprisingly sturdy — despite the three-inch pumps donned by the cross-dressing Cagelles at the Saint-Tropez nightclub that Georges and Albin call home. Herman's score is studded with melodic winners, including the gay-rights anthem 'I Am What I Am,' which closes the first act on a stirring and deeply moving note. Delivering that show-stopper is Douglas Hodge, a transplant from Johnson's 2008 London revival of La Cage. Hodge is practically perfect as the fey Albin, a tricky role in which an actor could easily slip into caricature or sentimentality. Hodge manages a careful balance, delivering a performance that is both hilarious and heartfelt; his character is admittedly over the top, but he always feels real. As his partner, the La Cage manager Georges, Kelsey Grammer proves to be an equal partner in carrying the show. Grammer has a surprisingly strong singing voice (better than his rendition of the 'Frasier' theme song might suggest), and he never makes you doubt his commitment to Albin or his son; you feel the anguish as he seeks to reconcile the conflicting desires of his two loves.

But the show, newly revived on Broadway under the thoughtful direction of Terry Johnson, proves to be surprisingly sturdy — despite the three-inch pumps donned by the cross-dressing Cagelles at the Saint-Tropez nightclub that Georges and Albin call home. Herman's score is studded with melodic winners, including the gay-rights anthem 'I Am What I Am,' which closes the first act on a stirring and deeply moving note. Delivering that show-stopper is Douglas Hodge, a transplant from Johnson's 2008 London revival of La Cage. Hodge is practically perfect as the fey Albin, a tricky role in which an actor could easily slip into caricature or sentimentality. Hodge manages a careful balance, delivering a performance that is both hilarious and heartfelt; his character is admittedly over the top, but he always feels real. As his partner, the La Cage manager Georges, Kelsey Grammer proves to be an equal partner in carrying the show. Grammer has a surprisingly strong singing voice (better than his rendition of the 'Frasier' theme song might suggest), and he never makes you doubt his commitment to Albin or his son; you feel the anguish as he seeks to reconcile the conflicting desires of his two loves.

But the show, newly revived on Broadway under the thoughtful direction of Terry Johnson, proves to be surprisingly sturdy — despite the three-inch pumps donned by the cross-dressing Cagelles at the Saint-Tropez nightclub that Georges and Albin call home. Herman's score is studded with melodic winners, including the gay-rights anthem 'I Am What I Am,' which closes the first act on a stirring and deeply moving note. Delivering that show-stopper is Douglas Hodge, a transplant from Johnson's 2008 London revival of La Cage. Hodge is practically perfect as the fey Albin, a tricky role in which an actor could easily slip into caricature or sentimentality. Hodge manages a careful balance, delivering a performance that is both hilarious and heartfelt; his character is admittedly over the top, but he always feels real. As his partner, the La Cage manager Georges, Kelsey Grammer proves to be an equal partner in carrying the show. Grammer has a surprisingly strong singing voice (better than his rendition of the 'Frasier' theme song might suggest), and he never makes you doubt his commitment to Albin or his son; you feel the anguish as he seeks to reconcile the conflicting desires of his two loves.