Michael Feingold

“O’Neill tried to sound a wake-up call; we can be grateful that it rings out so loud and clear in this production.”

“As it stands, its effect more closely resembles a pack of Bertie Botts’s Every Flavor Beans — in which, too often, you draw the wrong flavor.”

“The one serious misfire is Garfield’s Prior, squawky and overstated, with little emotional shading and barely a hint of the physical weakness in the character’s condition; memories of Stephen Spinella’s immaculately nuanced Prior keep crowding him off the stage.”

“Frozen itself is like Elsa’s ice palace — a big, cold, ugly thing, full of glittering effects but ultimately barren.”

“"A tuneful tribute to the Antillean residents’ adaptive ability and will to survive, its spirit well captured in Arden’s cheerfully flamboyant production...Of the many musicals Ahrens and composer Flaherty have written together, this one shows her skills at their best...”

“Regrettably, the most provocative thought The Children has left me with is the gnawing concern that plays of its kind will not do anymore, that the mounting crises of our world can no longer fit inside a box set, however oddly canted or dressed up with effects.”

“Gently and subtly, Cromer blends this mix of arid discontents and lush emotional yearnings into a startlingly savory whole, a piece of musical-theater nouvelle cuisine, in which the disparate elements enliven one another’s flavors.”

“That such a love is misguided, blinding those afflicted with it to so much else in the world, contributes to the play’s melancholy chill, as does Akhtar’s awareness, pointed up in two key late scenes, that most of us will never feel or comprehend it.”

“In fact, you may find yourself wishing the Cort had provided seat belts, because if your fondness for the original runs high, your feelings may be in for a very bumpy night.”

“It does so, however, in a puzzlingly perfunctory fashion.”

“Sher achieves a gallery of first-rate performances, with Mays and Ehle, caught in the middle, gulping in anguish or swallowing their pride as the two opposing teams veer from hostile harshness to cheerful camaraderie and back again.”

“War Paint may not be this year's best musical, but it's a highly entertaining, inventive, and informative show.”

“Buloff's comedy was gigantic; DeVito's feisty, energetic extravagance makes him loom nearly as large.”

“What a paradox that a musical so full of humanity and light could be built on the relentless exactitude of his inner questing.”

“That depth and density comes out vividly in Ruben Santiago-Hudson's production. Every role is fulfilled handsomely and inventively.”

“He communicates the role infallibly — ironic, given that its core is the character's anxiety over his constant miscommunication.”

“The bigger show, it turns out, is the more quietly real.”

“It's a terrible shame, it's an insult to the talented performers.”

“Regrettably, the neatness, like the play's dramatic interest, begins and ends there.”

“Daly, a forceful, convincingly complex presence in the coaching scenes, seems uncertain and unfocussed in the reveries (where Stephen Wadsworth's scattershot staging doesn't help).”

“I've never seen a production that kept them buried more effectively than this new revival, directed by Doug Hughes as snappily as if Born Yesterday had been written yesterday.”

“His actors, both accomplished individually, make no emotional connection.”

“Less gaudily surreal than the original, Warchus's staging makes a strong case for Hirson's writing, but can't hide his dramaturgic flaws.”

“Despite the glibly drawn characters, the all-English ensemble, under Max Roberts'”

“Even Nathan Lane's resourcefulness, Kevin Chamberlin's moonstruck charm, and Carolee Carmello's giddy vocal display can't reanimate this inert monstrosity.”

“Parks throws a variety of theatrical surprises into this situation, but they tend, rather more surprisingly, not to alter it.”

“Luckily, these minor visual nuisances can be ignored, since Aukin hasn't neglected his central task: getting from his cast five uniformly affecting performances, rich, detailed, and sensibly unshowy.”

“They're selling you the dream, not living it.”

“Some aspect of this uninviting work about unappealing people must have revitalized him.”

“The show's a mess, but it's a likable, good-hearted, overstuffed mess; you're more likely to go away feeling puzzled than feeling cheated by its unevenness.”

“Patti LuPone has enriched and refocused her performance till it actually deserves some of the torrents of gush the press has poured over her.”

“Hence Wicked, a hideous mess of a musical that wants to be many different things, and rarely succeeds in being any of them.”

“Tossing about its alternative hypotheses, Copenhagen has the odd, brainily diverting quality of a salad made of cut-up strips of conflicting doctoral dissertations -- hard to swallow but great fun to toy with on the plate.”

“But for a new musical, Jersey Boys seems amazingly like a rerun.”