Nathan Lane, Rupert Grint in Terrence McNally’s ‘It’s Only a Play’
7 / 10
A passel of well-known actors from film, stage and TV including Matthew Broderick, Stockard Channing, Megan Mullally, Rupert Grint and F. Murray Abraham cavort along with Lane in this evening of intermittent amusement -- merely lukewarm because with its slightly dated conceits, it can't decide whether to go in fully for sentimentality, satire, or the kill...And though McNally has updated the comedy's name-dropping...the breathless premise on which the comic complications hang, the outrageously eviscerating verdict of a dyspeptic New York Times critic, feels sorta kinda out of the lore of another era. Those who revel in Broadway mythology, though, will forgive the shortcomings (and drawn-out speechifying) of 'It's Only a Play' and enjoy some of the better skewering of theater archetypes.
