Jonathan Mandell

“But it also somehow feels slighter than it did when I saw it in 2017.”

“But it would be delusional for anybody in the audience to think they are somehow striking a blow against our celebrity-obsessed culture by paying to see current-day celebrities make fun on Broadway of other celebrities, many of whom either stretch the definition of celebrity or are now long dead.”

“‘The Lost Boys’ is, in other words, a theatrical crowd-pleaser.”

“This second Broadway production of August Wilson’s 1988 play, in other words, is well-timed.”

“It’s hard to see why we needed it.”

“The cast is stellar and the staging is inventive, but the production just doesn’t measure up to the original.”

“David Lindsay-Abaire’s fresh and funny comedy uses the pettiness, blind spots and outright biases of the diverse characters who are involved to comment with sharp insight on The Way We Live Now.”

“‘Schmigadoon’ is sort of like ‘The Book of Mormon’ and more like ‘Forbidden Broadway,’ and, like both, it made me laugh.”

“Yes, there are traces of the wicked Coward wit, although it’s not as sharp as the playwright’s more frequently produced comedies (Blithe Spirit, Hay Fever, Present Laughter, Private Lives.)”

“Edebiri, best known for her Emmy-winning role as sous chef Sydney Adamu on The Bear, certainly makes a respectable debut on stage.”

“He brings all this to bear in a performance that goes beyond the thrill of seeing a movie star’s first time on stage.”

“If ‘Titanique’ gives off a distinctly amateur vibe, its goofiness is professionally honed.”

“But this ‘Death of a Salesman,’ opening on Broadway tonight just three years after the previous Broadway revival, will be most satisfying to those theatergoers who have never seen a first-rate production of the play.”

“That theatergoers are unlikely to wind up dismissing any of these blunt-speaking characters as complete boors is a testament to the playwright’s rich, nuanced writing, and the layered portrayals by the stellar five-member cast, three of whom are making impressive Broadway debuts.”

“Artistically, the fresh interpretation not only offers the possibility of a renewed life and a new audience for this overly familiar 45-year-old show; it suggests how the art form as a whole can be reinvigorated.”

“But I guess nobody can, because Guirgis hasn’t.”

“But Rosenblatt is a brave and intelligent playwright willing to take on a subject that no one else seems willing to touch.”

“What’s not lost is Radcliffe’s performance.”

“Much of the effect for me has worn off.”

“Whether or not the show is a cash grab, it's certainly a grab-bag.”

“There is still much in the play that I find clever and thought-provoking.”

“Not knowing English might help even more, since too many of the lines and lyrics detract from what’s enjoyable about the show, which is the catchy rock score and the performances by the exciting Broadway pros Aaron Tveit, Lea Michele and Nicholas Christopher.”

“‘Two Strangers (Carrying A Cake Across New York)’ is a low-key, tuneful, predictable if not entirely formulaic production that relies on the talent and charm of its two youthful performers.”

“Icke makes two promises of his own to the audience, in a production now on Broadway that stands out for its exceptional cast, with performances of remarkable intensity by Mark Strong as Oedipus and especially Lesley Manville as Jocasta, making a much-welcomed Broadway debut.”

“But it doesn’t adequately answer for me Sondheim’s essential question: Why should this be a musical?”

“Only in a production directed by Joe Mantello of a play written by Samuel D. Hunter could a couch feel so cosmic.”

“‘Liberation,’ which is subtitled ‘A About Things I Don’t Remember,’ is another dramatically inventive play by a writer who has a long list of them.”

“If anything, this musical adaptation of E.L. Doctorow’s novel about the cultural and political upheavals in the New York of the early 1900s, feels even more timely in the midst of the cultural and political upheavals in the America of 2025.”

“If the play isn’t perfect, there is enough in ‘Punch’ to make it feel vital.”

“But director Jamie Lloyd could have done a lot worse than recapture the humor of those goofy characters Bill and Ted in more than just that one moment.”

“It’s telling that the comic bit in ‘Art’ that makes by far the best landing is Corden’s breathless, desperate account of the complications and aggravations involved with planning his forthcoming wedding – which has nothing to do with art or friendship.”

“Everything looks so tangible, touchable, that that in and of itself turns the production into an argument for live theater.”

“Personally, I found this ‘Mamma Mia’ at its most exciting at the curtain call.”

“This new play, which veers between the predictable and the implausible, adds little to the conversation, and pales beside that canon.”

“‘Floyd Collins,’ in other words, doesn’t especially stand out in its choice of subject or treatment of themes or for any depth of psychological, cultural or political insights.”

“But this self-conscious slice of Americana winds up almost as creepy as clever, and less resonant than it might intend.”

“If it has a predictable plot, it’s all these women together, and the proud characters they portray in the show, that make it work.”

“Bobby Darin frankly does not strike me as having either the endurance in the culture or a uniquely compelling enough story to be the most obvious figure to build a Broadway show around.”

“Those who don’t know the series get…smoke and mirrors.”

“Here he is dashing and comic in equal and appropriate measure, with a swoon-worthy voice.”

“Opening at the start of Spring Break, ‘John Proctor is the Villain’ is an entertainment that doubles as an appropriate lesson for teenagers in history and literature, and for their parents in popular culture.”

“200 bucks for a ticket. I can stay home and be depressed for free.”

“These are talented performers putting over some tuneful and clever numbers, in what is the latest of many Sondheim revues – which have their obvious pleasures, as well as some potential pitfalls.”

“Little of it feels original, and none of it feels necessary.”

“But for this relationship to matter to us, we have to discern something – anything — that drew them together in the first place.”

“But I no longer share in their enthusiasm, not even for Mamet’s most acclaimed early plays, the two that keep on getting revived.”

“If there’s not much change in content, ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’ is transformed by its context.”

“They, and especially video designer David Bergman,.also help turn writer and director Kip Williams’s adaptation of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ into a visually clever, technically sophisticated production for which ‘solo play’ feels like an inadequate description.”

“If it ultimately feels too clever by half, that may be because this new musical by comedy troupe SpitLip, opening on Broadway tonight, is different in a crucial way from, say, ‘Monty Python’s Spamalot’ or Mystery Theater Company’s ‘That Goes Wrong.’”

“‘Buena Vista Social Club’ is now an even better Broadway musical, opening tonight at the Theater.”

“Even so, it is a consistently entertaining play, and something more, a subtle, intelligent contemplation of the various ways the characters search for purpose, and how sweet it is to have one.”

“Which is a sensitive way of saying, no, 'Redwood' is not a wholly satisfying Broadway musical, despite those striking visuals.”

“It just doesn’t feel as deep as it did in 2022.”

“McDonald seems to project her heartache from her insides directly into ours; it’s honestly difficult to witness her ‘Rose’s Turn’ without crying.”

“It's a credit to the playwright and the production that 'Eureka Day' can be so humorous, and yet smoothly shift gears to provide insight into each of the characters, and wind up a realistically plotted and touching story.”

“But she replaces it with another formula, that of the dysfunctional family drama.”

“It’s Tazewell’s costumes that seemed most fully to express the tone of the show: over-the-top but simultaneously making fun of how over-the-top it is — and having fun doing so.”

“Rather, it left me aware of the qualities that were in insufficient supply – tension and details and meaning.”

“But this latest production — overlong,, more dopey than witty, and mostly missing the spark of the original — largely demonstrates that, sometimes, Christmas spirit is not enough to keep a vehicle aloft.”

“Yet for all its promise, ‘Tammy Faye’ struck me as essentially hollow, without a clear reason for existing.”

“It somehow turns into something just as rare – an original show, charmingly acted and cleverly staged, with a touching take on love and mortality.”

“The effort to do both does no particular favor to either.”

“But my attention shifted during a telling moment involving Tom Francis as Joe Gillis, the failed young Hollywood screenwriter.”

“The cast’s relative lack of stage experience is manifest in a flattening of both the poetry and the tragedy.”

“Ephron’s memoir just didn’t translate well to the stage.”

“If ”Our Town” at the Barrymore is not a production for the ages, it’s as good an introduction to the play as any for somebody who has never seen it – and surely there are such people, even in America.”

“Yellow Face is as thoughtful as it is playful, not the self-indulgent autobiography that DHH himself calls it in the play itself.”

“Akhtar exhibits his customary intelligence about an issue of the day In his first New York production in seven years, one greatly enhanced by spot-on special effects.”

“‘The Roommate’ is like a female ‘The Odd Couple’ that’s more odd and less funny, and worth a Broadway production for two reasons: Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone.”

“We get a full blast in the face of those costs in a twist that would be a spoiler to reveal, except to say that it is so shocking and implausible that it undermines much of what I found worthwhile about ‘Job’ up until then.”

“So, what if you don’t find this alternative history all that funny?”

“Real-world events have turned what I might have dismissed as a dated fable into what feels like a prescient reappraisal.”

“McAdams winds up startlingly effective in a play whose weight and power sneak up on you.”

“But, with one exception, this last Broadway musical to open this season is also just not very satisfying to me as a musical, despite (or in part because of) the many ways it strains, loudly, to proclaim itself a quintessential Broadway musical.”

“‘Mother Play’ is not as great as plays Paula Vogel has written in the past – perhaps not as great as she might be able to make it in time – but under Tina Landau’s direction, it is a mesmerizing production, albeit not always easy to watch.”

“The Lincoln Center ‘Uncle Vanya,’ which is the 11th production of the play on Broadway, doesn’t completely solve the central difficulties of staging it.”

“But for what it is, the show has its moments.”

“If so much of it weren’t so out of balance, this fourth Broadway revival of ‘Cabaret’ would be impressive in its complete transformation of Kander and Ebb’s great musical.”

“But the songs and scenes ultimately add up to an almost mechanical-feeling sameness, loud and overwhelming.”

“The story is told with a score by the Texas-born duo Jamestown Revival and Justin Levine, which has a sometimes lilting sometimes hard-charging Southwestern country sound infused with heartfelt harmonies.”

“But in the new production, helmed by the original director and co-librettist Des McAnuff, those songs have lost none of their appeal.”

“Much else in ‘Water for Elephants’ has its pleasures – the score, the singing, the puppetry, the acting, even the love story — but nothing else matches the circus artistry for its originality, variety and consistency.”

“It’s the associations we make with these actors’ most famous roles that help complicate our understanding of the characters they are now portraying — and complicate what we take away from the play.”

“The story is cleverly adapted by librettist Bekah Brunstetter, who seems almost as much guided by the TV series ‘This Is Us’ (where she worked as a writer and producer) as by Sparks’ novel.”

“The deceptively simple script holds up, the production is sturdy, but only one of the four performances is superb.”

“This overwhelming jumble of emotions is expressed through an impressive synthesis of classical, modern and street choreography, accompanying an eclectic and pleasing mix of orchestral music.”

“The two stars carry ‘Days of Wine and Roses,’ their exquisite voices bringing out the brilliance of Adam Guettel’s jazz-inflected, often operatic score, and investing the characters’ rocky emotional journeys with a credibility that few other performers could match.”

“Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ resonant play also in its own wry and sly way tells a dark story of race in America.”

“But the musical falls short of the documentary it has adapted in ways that make the translation to the stage feel like less than an ideal fit for Broadway.”

“‘Spamalot’ is high-stepping, low-brow and often hilarious.”

“The show feels now like an occasionally enjoyable entertainment more than something we need to see.”

“But ‘I Need That’ does deliver Danny DeVito, and for some, that will be enough.”

“Director Maria Friedman doesn’t eliminate what’s off-putting about ‘Merrily Along’; instead she directs our attention to what’s best about it.”

“The performers make the most of Bioh’s sharp eye for character and precise ear for dialogue that’s both spot-on and hilarious.”

“As deft as the acting is, the audience also winds up toggling – between the (sometimes outdated) comedy of the plot and the (often still timely) underlying outrage.”

“The production is not an embarrassment.”

“But long before the curtain call, not even the terrifically appealing cast nor the much-welcome air conditioning could dissuade me from seeing this ersatz 1920s British comedy of manners as a tedious two-hour exercise in comic overkill.”

“Or one can welcome ‘Here Lies Love,’ as I do, as the closest Broadway will probably ever get to immersive theater.”

“‘Just for Us’ is the only one of these shows that takes place in the current era.”

“The design is flashy, and the choreography is thrilling.”