New York Theater

“But while barreling forward through nearly two hours of song-and-dance-and-derision without let-up (or intermission), the show feels less and less entertaining, and the point of it all seems more and more uncertain.”

“Director Daniel Fish, whose dark version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘Oklahoma!’ similarly featured some distracting avant-garde touches, nevertheless provides a useful historical perspective with this production.”

“Like those award-winning plays, there is much that is well-observed in ‘Degenerates,’ and some moments that are bracingly theatrical.”

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

“What is undeniably real is Ming-Trent’s infectious energy and humor, which he firmly established as a performer.”

“These are the moments that made it worth sitting through a production whose chaos, for all its inventive variation, requires some patience.”

“But Bader takes such liberties with Arendt’s already incredible account that I find it hard to appreciate as fully as other people have the playwright’s effort to try to turn the incident into a taut, intelligent and resonant work of theater.”

“Jones taps into her ‘very real, multiracial, multi-religious family’ as inspiration for her most entertaining characters.”

“But there are moments in ‘Pre-Existing Condition’ – moments of fury — that transcend any particular performance, and that defeat the playwright’s apparent effort to make this a study, rather than a howl.”

“This makes the core plot of ‘An American Daughter’ feel less than timely.”

“‘Brooklyn's Bridge,’ an earnest and largely workmanlike musical, deserves respect for wanting to give some of the bridge's unsung heroes a chance to sing.”

“But ‘The Pass’ is something of a tease — sexy, twisty, suspenseful, but also downbeat and misleading.”

“But one leaves ‘The Vessel’ with the impression that the playwright felt required to put together a 90-minute play, but didn’t know how to fill it.”

“What’s most exciting about ‘The Saviors,’ a play ostensibly about two altar boys, is the feeling that you are witnessing the literal early stages of several major talents.”

“So, in one of the seven original musical numbers in the show, Cohen sings: ‘Why not let Dr. Love fill the hole where my heart should beIt won’t be the worst thing a man has ever done to me.’ And that’s not all: To avoid opening her chest for the operation, the surgeon accessed her heart through an artery in her groin.”

“But the production at PAC NYC, directed by Mary Zimmerman, appeals far more for its look and its sound than for its language and its story.”

“The five-member cast of ‘The Whoopi Monologues’ is talented in their own right, some famously so.”

“The two smart and witty characters are playful combatants and reluctant soulmates; Heather Agyepong and Daniel Ezra portray them with convincing rapport and an engaging repertoire of precise and revealing gestures and expressions.”

“I found ‘The Potluck’ extraordinary, and devastating.”

“‘Are You Now or Have You Been’ has its moments of drama and outrage, even some humor, within its no-nonsense, just-the-facts sensibility and design.”

“This first play by Barclay reveals a playwright with an ear for authentic-sounding and amusing dialogue.”

“And yet, to my surprise, too much of ‘A Walk on the Moon,’ opening tonight Off-Broadway, strikes me as dated and dull.”

“A terrific seven-member cast puts over Harding’s songs in lively musical numbers that are well-integrated into a coherent (if soapy) work of theater by book writer Peter Zinn.”

“In any case, I think the show deserves my tapping back into my initial youthful enthusiasm.”

“There are signs that O’Hara is indeed trying some new approaches, but the opening night performance offered more signs that the show, to put it charitably, hasn’t quite come together yet.”

“‘A Woman Among Women’ is not just an exercise in transposition; it takes on a life of its own.”

“‘A Woman Among Women’ is not just an exercise in transposition; it takes on a life of its own.”

“On second viewing, the production seems even better.”

“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.”

“‘Masquerade,’ in short, is sensuous and you-are-there in a way that ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’ the earlier version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, was not.”

“It’s these performers who give this show a surprising heft.”

“But ‘Animal Wisdom’ struck me as largely busy, distracting and diffuse.”

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

“Holden’s rocking performance does tend to put the spotlight more on him than the people of Skidmore.”

“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 the staging is witty and inventive enough to allow us to understand why the young artist, when still in his twenties, had been invited to direct ‘The Seagull’ at the Theater, the venerable venue where Konstantin Stanislavski first helmed Chekhov’s masterpiece.”

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

“‘No Singing in the Navy’ turns into something far more surreal, a satirical musical that’s really a scattershot revue that’s really a contemplation in serviceable tunes and idiosyncratic lyrics of identity, unrequited love, dementia, war and death.”

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

“‘Antigone (This Play I Read in High School)’ doesn’t always work.”

“After ‘Best Friend,’ the decadence turns ugly and relentless, and, at the end of the two hours without an intermission, the show has become harder to find entertaining.”

“Just a few feet away from any of us, Rapp shares his character’s yearning, resentments and sense of life’s disappointments in a paradoxically life-affirming and relatable way that we can almost touch.”

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

“If ‘Trash’ is eye-opening for hearing audiences, it is also likely one of the few entertainments that Deaf people can enjoy without compromise.”

“Yet despite its near-legendary creative team, its short running time and some moments of visual invention, ‘Bughouse’ failed to keep my interest, much less convince me of Darger’s greatness in ‘the art brut canon’ or anywhere else.”

“The effect of all this activity by audience and actors and host is deliberate chaos, made all the more so by some fancy, busy video, lighting and sound design.”

“This is a surprise and a disappointment, because so much of ‘Cold War Choir Practice’ is so good, not least its first-rate cast led by Alana Raquel Bowers, an adult who is completely convincing as ten-year-old Meek.”

“That could be the reason why I found the play, presented as part of the International Fringe Encore Series, smarmy and excruciating.”

“They do a fine job with parts that are just not as good as their best material.”

“But I couldn’t help thinking that the kaleidoscopic quality of ‘Night Side Songs’ dilutes its impact, and – to extend Sontag’s metaphor — turns us into tourists.”

“Much of ‘Chinese Republicans’ provides a deepening and ultimately poignant portrait of four distinct characters, made all the more palpable by a first-rate cast.”

“Each of the veteran actors is given at least one substantive scene...But ‘The Reservoir’ is inescapably the Noah Galvin show, and he makes the most of it.”

“But ‘Marcel on the Train,’ which Slater co-wrote with its director Marshall Pailet, works better as a showcase than a drama.”

“What’s missing is an evident sense of anger or resentment, or much more than a nod to anxiety and sorrow.”

“This is a play you can plug into.”

“‘The Other Place’ is at its best an intensely acted exploration of grief and family dynamics.”

“‘The Unknown’ plays masterfully from moment to moment with audience expectations.”

“Okieriete ‘Oak’ Onaodowan and Aigner Mizzelle are every bit as adept in the emotional dance between their characters as they are in their physical interaction, enacted on stage with the aid of a choreographer, a fight director, and an ‘MMA consultant.’”

“There is so much that is compelling about this story, and about Hans Litten himself, that one wishes ‘Hans Litten: The Jew Who Cross-Examined Hitler’ were a less obvious and clunky play.”

“The ultimate result is a surface story whose mechanics are not all that plausible, and frankly not as interesting as the fascinating ethical dilemmas that the play explores.”

“Neither Simons’ lyricism nor producer Todd Eckert’s pioneering mixed reality will work for everybody.”

“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.”

“Leaning more toward this kind of actual history and away from the story of the two couples would have given ‘Dirty Books’ more of the heft that the subject deserves, because this is not just history.”

“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.”

“But ‘Eurydice’ could use a lot more splendor, and a lot more song.”

“‘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.”

“And yet, I'm glad to have seen it. A main reason is Jackman's performance in the relatively intimate space of the Theater; he was indeed engaging.”

“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.”

“The result is a sometimes brain-stretching exercise in physics and family.”

“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.”