Matthew Murray

“Illinoise is a show that succeeds on multiple levels, offering both visual and aural delights that complement each other beautifully.”

“Hoffman and Reilly, regardless of the role each is playing at the moment, transcend the limits of this production, and make True West one of the few 'must see' plays of this season.”

“Witnessing a rising class of out A-listers sink their teeth into the self-loathing, shame, and desire that have coursed through generations of gay identity is a truly transcendent experience — even if it doesn't quite tear up old scars.”

“He has a keen partner in director Sam Gold, who's richly returned to form following his misguided deconstructionist version of The Glass Menagerie earlier this season.”

“Bandstand is a show that wears its heart on its sleeve, and that heart beats with genuine affection for both the men who served our country and the music that helped them—and us—heal.”

“But that isn't required for Six Degrees of Separation to hit its marks, and you walk away from it impressed anew at the power it still wields to remind us to latch on toand learn fromkey experiences, and not let them merely wash past us.”

“But I will say that the presence of additional adults could have made a greater impact behind the scenes, where they might have prevented this Charlie and the Chocolate Factory from becoming a massive, melty mess.”

“And Hello, Dolly! is about as good as the Broadway musical gets.”

“Either way, this is a fiery play that's a definite hot spot for the season when Linney is working her blazing magic on a Regina you won't forget anytime soon.”

“That's what makes all those things greatand what, ultimately, makes Indecent great as well.”

“But for Karl's impenetrable Phil and the rest of this inchoate Groundhog Day, once is more than enough.”

“His job is to articulate, elucidate, and distill, to help us understand on a level deeper than facts that which cannot be understood.”

“War Paint is a show that wants to be many things—a celebration of female empowerment, a meditation on beauty and aging, a business saga—but never quite decides which of these it wants to be most.”

“After all, great stars and great plays can never be fully tamed or obscured.”

“For all this, though, That Goes Wrong, a Mischief Theatre production from London, stops well short of hilarious.”

“Nottage has not done a lot of complex narrative crafting here. But what she has done is strong and smart, and addresses the many simmering tensions on which the play is constructed...Nottage does not shy from exploring, occasionally in brutal fashion, how America's ever-evolving work life changes the souls of those who are subjected to it.”

“The unavoidability of that is all the more reason to treat The Price with the gentle, thoughtful touch it doesn't receive enough of here.”

“Away is a musical that restores your faith in both humanity and the theatre.”

“A touching and delightful play...The terrific actor who plays Jordan, Gideon Glick, imbues him with the kind of warmth, humor, and unsullied pathos that's all but unheard of among even today's brightest young stage stars...Although Harmon has painstakingly chiseled Jordan, he's accomplished no less with the other characters...”

“Theirs is one of the most human problems there is, and Wilson captures that humanity, and the sweat and blood that go along with it, in all its intoxicating glory.”

“Dear Evan Hansen is a show that gets so much right about the teenage experience and mental health that its missteps feel all the more glaring.”

“In Transit is a musical that's easier to admire than to love, though it certainly deserves credit for its ambition and its performers' considerable talents.”

“But if you can be satisfied with this sort of fantastical cityscape, there are far worse ways to burn off a couple of hours than A Bronx Tale.”

“More often than not it succeeds at making a great time, even if it falls short of making great art...Though I remain an admirer of 'Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812,' I find that its flaws are even more evident now, and Chavkin and Malloy are not able to disguise how hard they're working...”

“Here, they spend most of their time not flirting with anything at all.”

“Forget the title: Falsettos might just be the deepest musical in town.”

“Because Stephens doesn't make that case, the evening becomes more about the artifice of its creation than the relationship it documents, and despite its intriguing, understated premise (the title is never directly explained), it just isn't written well enough to function in that capacity.”

“But I can't help wishing those involved had wanted to do more with such tantalizing raw components.”

“This is theatre so pure, it doesn't need sets.”

“But this production proves, despite its missteps, that it's capable of harnessing pure theatrical enjoyment for two and a half hours, and conjure an experience more memorable than many of today's overworked and overworkshopped offerings.”

“Only the choreography, simple but spirited recreations of the 1960s-1970s sexual, angular dances, lives up to expectations.”

“Lovely, honest, and ultimately moving, in the ways that matter most, it's what a musical should be.”

“Earthly breath and blood are no match for the ethereally theatrical reality-altering substitutes Falls and his company provide in Long Day's Journey Into Night, one of the most arresting - and necessary - four hours to ever pass in a single heartbeat.”

“Anyone who sees Shuffle Along, or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed will be hard-pressed not to full-throatedly agree and cheer.”

“There's still something for everyone on this menu, which makes Fully Committed the rare nutrition-free amuse-bouche that genuinely, unapologetically amuses.”

“What's most remarkable about Waitress is how it manages to be both deeply personal and broadly universal”

“All you can think about instead is how this play has finally received its ultimate production, but been destroyed by it.”

“You have a show that, at this scale, must be endured rather than enjoyed.”

“But from that uncertainty Gurira has wrenched a dazzling, urgent drama that knows what it is, what it wants, and why it matters—for those suffering no less than its subjects, and everyone else, too.”

“This bestows upon what is, at least at first, a pretty typical dysfunctional-family drama new layers of depth, weight, and significance that make this as effective and affecting as anything the Main Stem has seen in years.”

“It's to Herrin's immense credit that so many of the thousand jokes still hit their targets, when they never seem to be his prevailing goal.”

“That's the musical theatre ethos; instead of being wrong, Hecht's elevating rather than razing her character brings this Fiddler on the Roof as close as it gets to being right.”

“Seeing them unleash all they have and then some is destined to be one of the most scintillating joys of this Broadway season, and worth the price of admission by itself.”

“China Doll is less a play than a very expensive therapy session that we've been forced to attend.”

“This production proves that van Hove's attempts to untether A View From the Bridge have only locked it away further, behind an opaque cube that, like that of his set, he'd better off lifting away.”

“It's not a bad time, but when you're a millisecond away from witnessing a brutal act and you and the people around you can barely stifle snickers, it's not exactly a good time, either.”

“Allegiance is a show that demands to be seen and heard, even if it doesn't always succeed in making its case with the theatrical sophistication its subject deserves.”

“But much of this would be at least as effective (and probably more so) if the focus were more firmly on the music than on the Estefans.”

“The broad strokes are here for a transporting portrait, but what supports them needs to plunge us into the depths and not water down all the essential heat.”

“This revival proves that some plays are every bit as timeless as man's best friend.”

“So delightful is everything here that it seems a shame to question it too much.”

“Even if the rest of The Gin Game stalls, at delivering that essential theatrical element, Jones and Tyson are an unvarnished success.”

“At its heart, this production is irredeemably nice, perhaps the most devastating quality for any Fool for Love.”

“Their specific application of their issues guides us to Spring Awakening on their terms, which are vastly more compelling than the show's.”

“Fervent theatregoers may try for years, if not forever, to find one more higher-aiming and ‘here,’ though locating one more rewarding and just plain better will take a season, tops.”

“This production may lack all the guts it ought to have, but Tori Murray possesses them in spades.”

“There's a too-colorful, almost exploitative feeling about the proceedings that is less a gut punch than a mild upset stomach.”

“Otherwise, this production only moves when that dynamic quartet of porters wants it to.”

“If Close is the most glowing representation of the tangled contradictions that have always identified Albee, and that are so elemental to this play, her cast mates and MacKinnon offer a wealth of reasons to revisit it or take the bracing plunge for the first time.”

“Don't be surprised if, as you experience the epic quest of the real people pushing through pain to find real redemption, you find yourself willing to follow them straight to the open sea—or just about anywhere else.”

“In this Disgraced, it's tough to accept that he really believes in much of anything at all, which, even more than the dinner scene that isn't, leaves you hungry.”

“And, overall, this It's Only a Play gets it very, very right indeed.”

“The show isn't just insignificant — it's all but nonexistent.”

“Given that so many of the people in Chekhov's plays are tortured by saying too little, it's the last, depressing irony in The Country House that these characters are instead hobbled by saying far too much.”

“If Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey's new musical spent as much time breaking new ground as it does pacing about the familiar, this impressively average show could be very good indeed.”

“This is the most vibrant and alive the show has been in years, and something our homegrown shows should carefully note and emulate.”

“He ensures you can't look away, even though the rest of Aladdin seems determined to give you little, if anything, worth looking at or thinking about.”

“So electrifying is Rocky in its stagecraft that it would a pleasure to be able to report that its writing matched the caliber of its presentation. Alas, this is not the case.”

“As hard as Mueller works, she lacks the charisma needed to transform this kid-gloves enterprise into something, well, beautiful.”

“Theatregoers, new or seasoned, who want to witness as well as understand how far one can and should go when time is dwindling should heed Beckett's implicit warning and not wait too long.”

“He makes A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder a legitimate must-see, when otherwise it would be at best a forgettable lark.”

“Whether you intellectually (or spiritually) agree with, or even merely tolerate, this interpretation of mankind's most famous mother, writer Colm Toíbín, director Deborah Warner, and actress Fiona Shaw strive nonstop to emotionally justify it in this fascinating but flat one-woman play.”

“Kinky Boots is a show that knows exactly what it wants to be and how to get there, even if the path it takes is more conventional than its subject matter might suggest.”

“If only the rest of Picnic gave you as much to chew on.”

“This is not only by far Mantello's best directing work ever, but masterful in its own right.”

“The musical that just opened at the Neil Simon is distinctive in not one positive way, but it's nearly impossible to wrench your gaze from its glitz-drenched train wreck thanks to its sublime star, Carolee Carmello.”

“MacKinnon's staging is intently focused and superbly paced—Letts's and Morton's walking over each other's lines in the first scene, as if rehashing a battle they've waged thousands of times before, sets a high-octane standard for the evening that refuses to flag.”

“Their show too often plays like a silent movie dubbed over with the wrong soundtrack.”

“Without that feeling, there's barely enough to the show for it to qualify as cohesive drama in any recognizable sense.”

“But Marshall hamstrings them all, with arid staging, flaccid pacing, and witless choreography that makes even the peppiest numbers feel leaden.”

“The acting is searing, precise, and brutally incisive: Wood is elegantly moving as a man secretly crippled by loss, Shamos suavely teases the borders of lovely-looking hatred, and Dickinson makes show-stopping dynamite out of ingredients as deceptively simple as a narrow-eyed glare.”

“And this comedy is as intense—and funny—as it gets.”

“If not for the superb actors and Leon's fiercely committed treatment of them, the gorgeously messy plot could not keep the play from being a snoozer.”

“That does add a touch of pleasing weight to a show that's as elaborately appointed as anything this feather-light can possibly be.”

“Everything else shines, however. From start to finish this production conveys with absolute precision the dueling importance and instability of love.”

“The thematic undercurrents of socialism versus capitalism as applied in a time of crisis, the pervasive agony that's trying to bust down the doors of Basil's apartment, and the charismatic greasiness of Gregor speak for themselves and our time with no extra assistance required.”

“For most of its two-hour-and-fifteen-minute running time, nothing can stop this Godspell from exploding straight into your heart and—dare I say it?—soul.”

“When The People in the Picture drives home that message post-intermission, it becomes the one thing its first act convinces you would be impossible: unforgettable.”

“Clearly, the writers' interest in the group only extends so far.”

“There's nothing flimsy about Arianda, who owns the stage—and your heart—every moment she's on view.”

“Joey is proof, in a season and a community in which it is urgently needed, that theatre at its simplest can still incite, inspire, and enliven as no other art form can.”

“That's why this Anything Goes disappoints with how often the rest of it is rooted in the flimsiest kind of musical theatre we've spent much of the last eight decades trying to escape.”

“That it doesnt prevent the new musical at the Eugene ONeill from the being the freshest and funniest to open in several seasons is a miracle.”

“This is unfortunately being proven by the new revival of the play at the Ethel Barrymore, which under David Leveaux's direction is too chaotic for its own good.”

“It remains fixed, insisting we come to meet it despite its not providing us a single compelling argument to do so.”

“If one wishes the conclusion demonstrated the courage of the earlier scene's convictions to make such points more subtly, that buildup is so satisfying that the last-minute careening off the road matters surprisingly little.”

“It's just that it's so flabby, flimsy, and undercooked that even most four-star sushi restaurants would balk at it.”

“It's all intriguing on some level, but without a juicy narrative linking all the disparate pieces, Guare's ostensibly meaningful exploration of a uniquely American problem ends up lacking any meaning at all.”

“But with so many empty, obvious stretches where seriousness silliness is called for, their efforts can't completely fill out the time they've been allotted.”

“Even with Gallagher thrashing around at its center, American Idiot satisfies in spite of all that's working against it—including the passage of time (and a presidency) that's rendered much of its discontent obsolete.”