Review: ‘Dana H.’ leads us into the underworld
A play as uncommon, and uncanny, as Lucas Hnath’s “Dana H.” requires an actor of, well, uncommon and uncanny talents. Deirdre O’Connell is just...
Review: ‘The Lehman Trilogy’ chips away at a monolith
“The Lehman Trilogy” represents the kind of prestige Broadway production that invariably causes a certain class of well-heeled, culturally savvy New Yorkers to salivate...
Review: ‘Thoughts of a Colored Man’ asks the audience to listen
The busy streets of Brooklyn provide the background to Keenan Scott II’s “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” but firmly seizing the foreground are the...
Review: ‘Is This A Room’ narrows in on an unsettling truth
People generally don’t attend a Broadway show expecting to become flushed with anxiety. But it’s hard to watch the documentary drama “Is This A...
Review: ‘Chicken & Biscuits’ serves up roaring comedy
Douglas Lyons’s “Chicken & Biscuits,” at Broadway’s Circle in the Square theater, is a savory comedy served with a hefty side order of sentiment....
Review: In ‘Lackawanna Blues,’ Ruben Santiago-Hudson revives his community
All great blues songs have a timeless quality, so it’s entirely fitting that Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s solo show “Lackawanna Blues” still gleams like a newly...
Review: ‘Six’ pops back on Broadway
Theatergoers thirsty for something festive, fresh and funny — which is to say, just about all lovers of theater who have endured the drought...
Review: Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s ‘Pass Over’ is a Broadway landmark
For a play with just four characters and a single, sparsely furnished set, Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s “Pass Over” feels almost momentous — even historic....
Review: ‘Girl From the North Country’ illuminates lives adrift
You can practically see the tumbleweeds blowing through the hearts of the characters in “Girl From the North Country.” This achingly beautiful musical weds...
Review: Ivo van Hove’s ‘West Side Story’ feels more cinematic than theatrical
With his new production of “West Side Story,” the estimable Belgian director Ivo van Hove has essentially stolen a march on no less a...
Review: A fresh take on a familial tale in ‘Grand Horizons’
In just the first minutes of Bess Wohl’s “Grand Horizons,” a supremely funny comedy of marital malaise presented by Second Stage Theater, Jane Alexander...
Review: ‘A Soldier’s Play’ is a captivating whodunit
Shots ring out. A man falls dead at the hands of an unknown killer. Enter an investigator to sort through a hefty pile of...
Review: Laura Linney shimmers in ‘My Name Is Lucy Barton’
When the theater goes to the library for inspiration, the results can often be disappointing. Even great books can wither and wilt when they...
Review: Harry Connick Jr. showcases his love for Cole Porter
Love is most certainly for sale at “Harry Connick Jr.: A Celebration of Cole Porter.” Although the composer-lyricist is justifiably renowned for his coruscating...
Review: ‘Jagged Little Pill’ overflows with real-world storylines
In “You Learn,” the song that concludes the new musical “Jagged Little Pill” on a note of hard-won, almost downbeat uplift, a lyric from...
Review: An inventive ‘Christmas Carol’ tugs at the heartstrings
If you don’t respond with a moist eye and a swelling heart to “A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens’ classic tale of a miser’s spiritual...
Review: Generations of love, loss and wisdom gained in ‘The Inheritance’
Most Broadway seasons feature at least one show that gathers an aura of importance even before it opens. This year it is undoubtedly “The...
Review: ‘Slava’s Snowshow’ sends in the sad clowns
“Slava’s Snowshow,” which has returned to New York for a limited engagement more than a decade after its first Broadway run, is not your...
Review: A fearless Kristin Chenoweth dazzles in ‘For the Girls’
To the long list of adjectives we toss around like verbal confetti to describe Kristin Chenoweth – radiant, impish, perky, sunny, funny! – we...
Review: The Tina Turner musical can’t match its sublime star
If a single voice, or a single performance, could send a Broadway musical soaring to greatness, “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” would handily qualify...
Review: Evoking nostalgia with an eye to the future in ‘American Utopia’
“We’re on a road to nowhere,” David Byrne sings in the final encore of his Broadway concert, “American Utopia,” at the Hudson Theatre. Can...
Review: A return to gloom in ‘The Sound Inside’
Pop quiz question: Can you name a single writer darker than Dostoevsky?
The options are few, but I hereby nominate Adam Rapp, the playwright and...
Review: ‘The Lightning Thief’ inventively reveals the demigods among us
You think your dad (or mom) is a deadbeat? Consider the plight of the young characters in “The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical,”...
Review: Comedy trumps romanticism in this ‘Rose Tattoo’
As Serafina Delle Rose, a grieving Italian-American widow struggling to open herself to life again in Tennessee Williams’s “The Rose Tattoo,” Marisa Tomei bares...
Review: In ‘Linda Vista,’ one man’s spiral creates a tornado
A sad romantic comedy sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it’s an apt-enough description of “Linda Vista,” a slight but funny and quietly...
Review: ‘Slave Play’ questions more than it answers
If there’s anything more boring than hearing about other people’s dreams, it’s hearing about their therapy sessions.
And, to my mind, hearing about people's sexual...
Review: ‘Freestyle Love Supreme’ expertly treads the tightrope of improv
If “gerund” isn’t the very last word I ever expected to hear uttered on a Broadway stage, it’s probably pretty darn close. Broadway rarely...
Review: LBJ receives a lengthy reprise in ‘The Great Society’
When incendiary current events are leaping from your TV screen into your lap on an almost hourly basis, a play such as “The Great...
Review: Tracking a moving center in ‘The Height of the Storm’
As a literary luminary slowly sinking into senility, thrashing through his failing memory like a man battling the suffocating grip of quicksand, Jonathan Pryce...
Review: Derren Brown brings a sense of wonder to Broadway
Where did that infernal banana go?
This is not the kind of question you expect to be rattling around your brain during an evening of...
Review: A love triangle turns inward in ‘Betrayal’
There are three principal characters, unfixed points in an adulterous romantic triangle, in Harold Pinter’s 1978 play “Betrayal,” now being revived to thrilling —...
Review: Life, death and the banalities in between in ‘Sea Wall/A Life’
Love and marriage. Birth and death. Sorrows and joys. Loss and renewal. Bacon and eggs.
Whoops — sorry! My mind wandered to breakfast plans while...
Review: ‘Moulin Rouge!’ hits Broadway with a panache of pop
The Broadway exclamation point — once a marquee staple, later an overused joke — makes a roaring comeback with “Moulin Rouge!” This new musical,...
Review: A blending of the prosaic and the poetic in ‘Frankie and Johnny’
It’s only in the final moments of the moving new Broadway revival of Terrence McNally’s “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune” that...
Review: In ‘Beetlejuice,’ death comes to life
For a musical jubilantly proclaiming that its overriding theme is death, “Beetlejuice” has a surprisingly lively spring in its step.
As is well known...
Review: ‘Ink’ takes a multi-paged romp through tabloid journalism
“People like stories,” says Rupert Murdoch — a fictional Rupert Murdoch, that is — just before the lights dim on the last scene of...
Review: ‘Tootsie’ gets the laughs, but not the music
The familiar rap on flawed Broadway musicals usually goes something like this: “Well, the score is great...but the book has problems.”
Enter “Tootsie,” red...
Review: A superb ‘All My Sons’ revitalizes a classic drama
There must be something in the cultural moment because two major and starry revivals of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” are opening this week....
Review: After the fall of the emperor, confusion reigns in ‘Gary’
There are no guarantees of success when attempting to stage ambitious new work. If one were seeking proof that the theater can be a...
Review: Skimming the surface of semi-fiction in ‘Hillary and Clinton’
Hillary: Likable or not? Likable enough? And if not, why not?
Those much-discussed questions, asked and answered ad nauseam over the course of her two...
Review: An exhilarating ‘Hadestown’ revitalizes a classic love story
The road to hell is paved with heavenly music in “Hadestown,” the exuberant, exhilarating new musical that stands tall among a season of mostly...
Review: A blazing Adam Driver commands the stage in ‘Burn This’
Winter storms may be in the rearview mirror, but idle storm chasers should know that there’s a tempest being whipped up nightly at the...
Review: A distracted ‘Oklahoma!’ skims the emotional surface
The new Broadway revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” could be compared to a surrey with a little too much fringe on top, to...
Review: A scorching Glenda Jackson leads the way for the women of ‘King Lear’
Women are in firm control of the kingdom in Broadway’s Cort Theatre, where a new revival of “King Lear,” starring Glenda Jackson in the...
Review: An act of resistance in ‘What the Constitution Means to Me’
The layered and strategic structure underpinning Heidi Schreck’s “What The Constitution Means To Me” could easily be underestimated. That is because the wacky and...
Review: ‘Ain’t Too Proud’ hits the steps, but not the story
Broadway’s proudest moments of the past couple of decades have rarely – er, make that never – included any of the long parade of...
Review: Kelli O’Hara soars in a revised ‘Kiss Me, Kate’
Spring was tardy this year, so if you are still suffering from seasonal affective disorder, you might try some therapeutic theater courtesy of the...
Review: ‘Be More Chill’s’ slick production misses a moral center
Much has been made of “Be More Chill’s” unusual path to Broadway. Originally produced to middling response at New Jersey’s Two River Theater, the...
Review: A classic sibling battle gains new depth in ‘True West’
Toxic masculinity may be a growing blight on society, but for spectacular proof that onstage, at least, it can also be vital entertainment, look...
Review: ‘Choir Boy’ vibrates with emotion, moves with lyrical dialogue
Spiraling in the light, fog stealthily transforms schoolboys in their locker room into living sculptures, accompanied only by the insistent atonal plinking of dripping...
Review: ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ holds court, without the drama
“All rise!” is the exhortation upon which Aaron Sorkin’s new adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird” ends, and, sure enough, before the curtain could...
Review: Christmas gone wrong at ‘Ruben & Clay’
Toward the merciful end of “Ruben & Clay’s First Annual Christmas Show,” or as it is also called, “Ruben & Clay’s First Annual Christmas...
Review: A slick ‘Network’ showcases Bryan Cranston’s talent
If satire is what closes on Saturday night, as George S. Kaufman famously said, how can one explain the roaring success of Broadway’s “Network,”...
Review: ‘The Cher Show’ offers a bumpy ride through an icon’s career
Fame may be a “fleeting bitch,” according to the title character in “The Cher Show” — and who would know better? Temperamental she may be,...
Review: ‘The Illusionists’ is all tricks, but little magic
The Vegas-style entertainment show “The Illusionists” has returned to Broadway in time for the holidays. Unfortunately this latest iteration, the group’s fourth appearance on...
Review: ‘The Prom’ finds meaning amid the glitz
“Make ‘em laugh, then make a point!” Borrowing a cultural meme to describe the new musical “The Prom” seems fair game because the show...
Review: With warm humor, ‘The New One’ tackles the question of procreation
In “The New One,” which has transferred to Broadway after a sold-out run off-Broadway this past summer writer and comedian Mike Birbiglia improbably begins...
Review: ‘King Kong’ is a lackluster vehicle for a star gorilla
He can’t sing a note. They definitely don’t make tap shoes in his size. And, aside from some extremely expressive growls and roars, he...
Review: ‘American Son’ takes a piercing look at our country
“Everything’s coming apart,” cries Kendra, a distraught mother who’s awaiting news of her missing boy, in “American Son,” an arrestingly topical drama by Christopher...
Review: A reincarnated ‘Torch Song’ blazes with newfound comedy
Seeing the original “Torch Song Trilogy” off-Broadway in 1982 remains an indelible theater-going memory — so much so that I approached the current Broadway...
Review: An exquisite blend of humor and sorrow in ‘The Waverly Gallery’
To laugh or to cry? That mostly theoretical cliché becomes a matter of actual, uncomfortable urgency as you watch the superlative Broadway revival of...
Review: ‘The Ferryman’ brims with life as a threat looms
A man’s death casts a seemingly endless shadow over a family’s life in “The Ferryman,” the breathtakingly good, devastating drama by Jez Butterworth that...
Review: ‘The Lifespan of a Fact’ loses drama to the truth
Fact: I began my career in journalism as a fact-checker at a magazine in Los Angeles.
Opinion: My experience with this oft-tedious task unfortunately did...
Review: Colorful characters punch up ‘The Nap’
Snooker, anyone?
Anyone?
British plays may be as abundant on Broadway as mushrooms in a rain-soaked forest, but “The Nap,” by Richard Bean, may...
Review: An exploration of female power in ‘Bernhardt/Hamlet’
Playing the great Belle Époque actress Sarah Bernhardt, who is herself, preparing to play Hamlet, Janet McTeer proves to be a woman not only...
Review: ‘Pretty Woman’ is a cardboard cutout of the movie
It’s very sweet that, as in the movie, the two unlikely lovers in the musical “Pretty Woman” end up rescuing one another from their...
Review: The same old story at ‘Gettin’ the Band Back Together’
Before the curtain rises on the new musical “Gettin’ the Band Back Together” at the Belasco Theatre, Ken Davenport, the show’s lead producer, who...
Review: ‘Head Over Heels’ can’t find the beat
Summer is not officially the silly season on Broadway, but you might be forgiven for assuming so should you wander into the Hudson Theatre,...
Review: A lesson in sympathy from ‘Straight White Men’
In case you have been singing loudly with your fingers stuffed in your ears for, say, a year and a half, you have probably...
Review: ‘The Boys in the Band’ still resonates beneath the laughs
“Thanks for the laughs,” says Harold, whose disorderly birthday celebration is the occasion on which the men in “The Boys in the Band” gather...
Review: Denzel Washington radiates energy in ‘Iceman Cometh’
When Denzel Washington, who plays the salesman Hickey in the shatteringly good Broadway revival of “The Iceman Cometh,” unleashes his dazzling smile, it’s fair...
Review: Historical exposition weighs down a solidly acted ‘Saint Joan’
George Bernard Shaw’s plays are performed so rarely on major New York stages that it’s hard not to feel grateful for a chance to...
Review: ‘Travesties’ dazzles with zany wit
“Da, da!” when translated as “Yes, yes!” is a fittingly celebratory salutation to greet the sparkling and incisive revival of Tom Stoppard’s “Travesties” which...
Review: At ‘Summer,’ the disco ball has spun off its axis
Someone really did leave the damn cake out in the rain.
That’s my metaphorical summation of “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical.” Fans will recognize...
Review: ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ brings magic to Broadway
If massive success on Broadway could ever be a foregone conclusion, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” would indubitably be the show to bet...
Review: ‘My Fair Lady’ is a beautifully polished antique
Impeccable is the first word that springs to mind to describe the Lincoln Center Theater revival of Lerner and Loewe’s “My Fair Lady.” But...
Review: A layered ‘Carousel’ finds new depth
At the core of “Carousel,” which has been revived with breathtaking emotional intensity at the Imperial Theatre, is a dark fatalism that trails the...
Review: ‘Children of a Lesser God’ struggles to connect
The challenges that all of us must confront in order to achieve meaningful human connection is the central theme of Mark Medoff’s play “Children...
Review: ‘Mean Girls’ is funny, but not fresh
Does it make me a mean girl if I say that “Mean Girls,” the new Broadway musical based on — well, duh! — is,...
Review: ‘Three Tall Women’ looks at life head on
Unless you have a raging fever, an ice bath wouldn’t seem like a particularly pleasurable experience. And yet “Three Tall Women,” Edward Albee’s late-career...
Review: ‘Rocktopia’ feels like a Vegas act on Broadway
If only what happened in Budapest stayed in Budapest.
I have nothing in particular against the city, really. I quite enjoyed my one visit...
Review: ‘Lobby Hero’ is a small play about big ideas
Life is never simple. Nor is trying to figure out what kind of lives we aspire to lead. Even if we can decide what...
Review: ‘Angels in America’ is as resonant and urgent as ever
“The world only spins forward,” says Prior Walter, ravaged with AIDS but still enduring, in the culminating speech of “Angels in America,” Tony Kushner’s...
Review: ‘Frozen’ freezes up on stage
Should hell freeze over — and given global environmental trends, well, who knows? — it’s possible that “Frozen” will not be Disney’s next from-now-until-eternity...
Review: ‘Escape to Margaritaville’ provides fun for Buffett fans and the masses
Jimmy Buffett believers, also known as “Parrotheads,” are going to have a whale of a good time at “Escape to Margaritaville" which opened at...
Review: Bernadette Peters shimmers and delights in ‘Hello, Dolly!’
All those who declined to take out a second mortgage to buy a pair on the aisle for Bette Midler in “Hello, Dolly!” can...
Review: John Lithgow hosts a fireside chat in ‘Stories By Heart’
John Lithgow is a mighty fine actor, and an all-around decent fellow judging from two hours spent in his company at his solo show,...
Review: In ‘Farinelli and the King,’ music soothes us all
“Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.” So wrote 17th-century playwright William Congreve. With that...
Review: ‘The Children’ is an exquisite look at human life
The room is a very modestly furnished kitchen: mismatched chairs around a table, a miniature refrigerator, a scruffy but cozy-looking armchair, slightly out of...
Review: ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ is far from ‘a simple sponge’
A new kind of cockeyed optimist has arrived at the Palace Theatre in the form of SpongeBob SquarePants, the indefatigably cheery anthropomorphic hero of...
Review: A heartwarming breeze from ‘Once on This Island’
Continual waves of radiance, warming the blood and stirring the heart, flow forth from the sand-covered stage of the Circle in the Square Theatre,...
Review: ‘The Parisian Woman’ delves into current politics, but with little effect
Sleepy times, right? No drama emanating from our nation’s capital. Barely enough sensation to fill a single page of a broadsheet. Nary a shocking...
Review: ‘Meteor Shower’ misses the mark with its scattered plot
The stars supply most of the fireworks in “Meteor Shower,” a scattershot – and even scatterbrained – comedy of bad manners by Steve Martin...
Review: ‘Latin History for Morons’ gives us footnotes, not a lesson
In spite of significant limitations, it would be churlish not to acknowledge the ambitious aims and wide-ranging scope of “Latin History For Morons”, a...
Review: In ‘The Band’s Visit,’ small moments are made profound
The opening of “The Band’s Visit” at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, after a triumphant off-Broadway run last spring, is very good news for many...
Review: ‘Junk’ teaches a lesson in high finance
A business degree is not a prerequisite for an appreciation of “Junk,” a new play by Ayad Akhtar about the heady heights and ethical...
Review: ‘M. Butterfly’ never takes flight
That silk kimono hides a scandalous secret in “M. Butterfly,” David Henry Hwang’s 1988 Tony Award-winning drama about the romance between a French diplomat...
Review: Springsteen connects with his sensitive side in Broadway debut
“I’ll handle this myself,” said Bruce Springsteen with a wry smile on Wednesday night at the Walter Kerr Theatre, as his enraptured audience began...
Review: ‘Time and the Conways’ offers a graceful masterclass in time and failed dreams
The ineluctable force that touches all our lives – the day-to-day, year-to-year process by which the present becomes the past, and the future bears...
Review: ‘Prince of Broadway’
What’s the last word I thought I’d ever use to describe a show directed by Harold Prince? Bland.
And yet, sadly, that’s the overall effect of...