Some Like It Hot

A-

How brave the creative team of this musical adaptation of the classic Billy Wilder film were to tinker with a movie that enjoys cult status, especially since it had already been adapted as Sugar, a musical that ran on Broadway for over a year 50 years ago. Luckily for us, Mark Shaiman (music and lyrics; Hairspray), Scott Whitman (lyrics; Hairspray), Matthew Lopez (book; The Inheritance, Amber Ruffin (book), Casey Nicholaw (director/choreographer; The Prom), Scott Pask (scenic design; The Book of Mormon)) and Gregg Barnes (costume design; Mean Girls) have assembled a show that is not only relentlessly entertaining but adds a few interesting new twists to the story. The casting is superb: the ever enjoyable Christian Borle (Something Rotten!) hits all the right notes as Joe; J. Harrison Ghee (Mrs. Doubtfire) perfectly captures the duality of Jerry/Daphne; Adrianna Hicks (Six) makes the most of the less-developed role of Sugar; Kevin Del Aguila (Frozen) is hilarious in the expanded role of Osgood, and Natasha Yvette Williams (Tina) is a force of nature as Sweet Sue. The music is catchy, the choreography which includes lots of tap dancing is terrific, the deco sets are wonderful and the period costumes are splendid. By portraying Sweet Sue, Jerry/Daphne and Sugar as black, the authors have added a new dimension to the plot. By giving Osgood a back story, they strengthen the theme of identity fluidity personified by Jerry/Daphne. By not slavishly following the details of the film, they have created something that both honors the original and opens new doors. The result is a sure crowd-pleaser that should have a very long run. My only complaint is that the sound level at times became uncomfortably loud. Running time: two hours 35 minutes including intermission. 

Socrates

C+

Playwright Tim Blake Nelson (The Grey Zone, Eye of God) is to be admired for attempting to present the Big Three of Greek philosophy as living, breathing, contentious human beings rather than ideas on a page. In a framing device, we first encounter Plato (Teagle F. Bougere; The Crucible; Is God Is) and a boy (Niall Cunningham; TV: “Life in Pieces”), clearly Aristotle, who have just met and are considering whether to begin an ongoing teacher/student relationship. To answer the young man’s question of why he should want to study in the city that killed Socrates, Plato gives an account of the circumstances that led to that outcome. That account, which enlists a cast of fifteen men and one woman, forms the remainder of the play. Nelson cleverly incorporates portions of the Dialogues into the script and uses Socratic method to illustrate how Socrates’s relentless questioning could be as annoying as it was instructive. The play’s strongest suit is Michael Stuhlbarg (The Pillowman, Voysey Inheritance) in the title role; the opportunity to see him in action is reason enough to attend. He is supported by a fine cast that includes David Aaron Baker (Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them) as Anytus, Robert Joy (Girl from the North Country, Side Show) as Crito as well as Meletus the Elder, and Austin Smith (How To Transcend a Happy Marriage) as Alcibiades and Simmius. Director Doug Hughes (Junk, The City of Conversation) skillfully manages the large ensemble. While several scenes are quite effective, others are repetitious and run on too long. I could have done with less shouting too. Xanthippe’s (Miriam A. Hyman; Richard III) extended monologue before her husband’s death is powerful. The death scene itself is excruciatingly lengthy; clearly Nelson does not subscribe to the idea that less is more. The somber set design by Scott Pask (The Book of Mormon, The Band’s Visit) fills the walls of the stage and the auditorium with inscriptions in Greek. The onstage inscribed panels occasionally open to reveal another setting beneath. Catherine Zuber’s (My Fair Lady, The King and I) costumes accurately reflect the period. In my opinion, the first act is greatly in need of a trim. I found my mind wandering and checked my watch more than once. Except for the seemingly endless death scene, the second act was tighter. The occasional attempts to show the play’s relevance to our current situation seemed a bit clumsy. I was grateful for the opportunity to see a play with a serious theme starring a marvelous actor, but I thought it offered too much of a good thing. Running time: three hours including intermission.

The Prom

A-

Director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw once again demonstrates the Midas touch in choosing material. To the three hits (Mean Girls, Aladdin and The Book of Mormon) he already has on Broadway, he has now added a fourth with this delightful, cannily-crafted show that puts the comedy back in musical comedy. It may recall Bye, Bye, Birdie in depicting the invasion of Middle America by show biz celebrities and also Hairspray in its theme of righting an injustice, but the end result is totally original. It is hilarious, generous and touching. When two “aging narcissists,” as the Times review calls them, Dee Dee Allen (Beth Leavel; The Drowsy Chaperone) and Barry Glickman (Brooks Ashmanskas; Something Rotten!, Bullets over Broadway), are brutally panned for their performances as Eleanor Roosevelt and FDR in the hiphop musical Eleanor, they search for a way to burnish their reputations by becoming celebrity activists. When they read on Twitter about Emma (Caitlin Kinnunen; The Bridges of Madison County), a lesbian high school student whose wish to bring her girlfriend to the prom led to the prom’s cancellation, they find their cause. Joined by their friends Angie (Angie Schworer; The Producers), a chorus girl in Chicago for 20 years, Trent Oliver (Christopher Sieber; Shrek, Spamalot), a Juilliard-trained actor/waiter who is between jobs, and their rotund PR man Sheldon Saperstein (Josh Lamon; Groundhog Day), they hitch a ride to Edgewater, Indiana with a non-Equity Godspell bus tour to lend their help to Emma, whether she wants it or not. The campaign against an inclusive prom is led by the adamant Mrs. Greene (Courtenay Collins; Eating Raoul), whose daughter Alyssa (Isabelle McCalla; Aladdin), unbeknownst to her mother, is Emma’s secret girlfriend. The school principal Mr. Hawkins (David Josefsberg; Altar Boyz, u/s for Michael Potts; Jitney) is sympathetic to Emma and is on the verge of finding a solution when the Broadway Five barge into the PTA meeting, thereby managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. There is a cruel trick played on Emma that leads to her breakup with Alyssa. A side plot is that Mr. Hawkins is a big fan of Dee Dee’s and they hit it off. I won’t go into details of the further mayhem that follows. Suffice it to say there is a terrific song for each character, the dance numbers are wonderfully energetic and the ending is touching. The sturdy book by Bob Martin (The Drowsy Chaperone) and Chad Beguelin (Aladdin, The Wedding Singer) includes a slew of insider Broadway musical jokes to make the audience feel smart. The music by Matthew Sklar (Elf, The Wedding Singer) is catchy and the lyrics by Bequelin are often clever. Scott Pask’s (The Book of Mormon, The Band’s Visit) sets are both functional and attractive. The costumes by Ann Roth (The Nance) and Matthew Pachtman (The Book of Mormon) are wonderful. The show has been brilliantly cast. Normally I would be offended at the swishy queen stereotype represented by Barry, but Ashmanskas plays him so well that I didn’t really mind. My only complaint is that, as so often happens these days, the music was overamplified, making the lyrics occasionally hard to hear. The season gets a welcome boost from this thoroughly enjoyable show. Running time: 2 hours 25 minutes including intermission.

A note about color-blind (or alternative) casting: Once again I am puzzled by whether the race of an actor is meant to be significant or not. The actor who normally plays Mr. Hawkins, the school principal, is black. The night I attended, the role was played by his understudy, who is white. If the choice of a black actor was meant to be significant, it would put a certain spin on events in the play. The citizens of Edgewater could not be completely intolerant if they chose someone black as high school principal. Would it then be meaningful that the only one in town who is trying to build bridges is black? It would also add another dimension to the romance between Dee Dee and Mr. Hawkins. On the other hand, if race was not a consideration in the casting and the actor chosen was simply the best actor auditioned, then all my speculation is irrelevant. I wish I knew which. Comments, as always, are welcome.

Waitress

C+

It took me 2 1/2 years, but I finally got around to seeing this slick musical adaptation of Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 film, with music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles and a book by Jessie Nelson. With one exception, the entire cast has changed since the show opened. My reason for seeing it now was to catch the Broadway debut of the delightful Nicolette Robinson (Invisible Thread, Brooklynite) as Jenna. The roles of Jenna’s sidekicks have been recast well with NaTasha Yvette Williams (Chicago) as the brash Becky and Lenne Klingman as the shy Dawn. Benny Elledge is their boss Cal, Ben Thompson (Matilda) is Jenna’s abusive husband Earl and Al Roker (yes, that one) is the owner of Joe’s Pie Diner. Alex Wyse (Spring Awakening) is a scene stealer as Ogie, Dawn’s persistent suitor. Drew Gehling (Jersey Boys), the sole holdover from the original cast, is both goofy and ardent as Dr. Pomatter. The book offers no surprises other than its casual acceptance of adultery. The running pie-baking motif becomes tiresome quickly. The music is pleasant, but it is often difficult to make out the lyrics because the voices are harshly overamplified. The musicians, although only six in number, sound so loud that they occasionally threaten to drown out the singers. With today’s advanced technologies, these problems should not be hard to solve. The scenic design by Scott Pask (The Book of Mormon) is both attractive and flexible and the costumes by Suttirat Anne Larlarb (Of Mice and Men) are appropriate. Diane Paulus’s (Pippin) direction is relatively restrained. The show is only moderately entertaining, but apparently that’s enough to have kept it running this long. Running time: two hours 35 minutes, including intermission.

Carmen Jones

B

In 1943, Oscar Hammerstein II had the bright idea to redo Bizet’s Carmen as a Broadway musical set in World War II with an all-black cast. The production currently at CSC makes a good case for reviving this rarity. Carmen becomes Carmen Jones (Anika Noni Rose; Caroline or Change, A Raisin in the Sun), a sultry worker in a munitions factory. Don Jose is now Joe (Clifton Duncan; The Play That Goes Wrong, Kung-Fu), a soldier who would like to go to flight school. Cindy Lou f/k/a Michaela (Lindsay Roberts; Lost in the Stars) is Joe’s hometown girlfriend. Sergeant Brown (Tramell Tillman; Tis Pity She’s a Whore) sets his sights on Carmen, but she goes after Joe. Escamillo has become big time boxer Husky Miller (David Aron Damane; The Book of Mormon, Big River) who also takes a shine to Carmen. She eventually ditches Joe for Husky Miller and pays for it in spades, specifically the nine of spades, a card foretelling death.The leads all have wonderful voices and are fine actors too. The other members of the cast —Erica Dorfler, Andrea Jones-Sojola, Justin Keyes, Soara-Joye Ross, and Lawrence E. Street — are also outstanding vocal actors. Rarely have I encountered such a concentration of vocal talent on one stage. I am not that fond of Hammerstein’s libretto and lyrics, but Bizet’s music is so well sung that I didn’t mind it that much. Scott Pask’s (Dead Poets Society, The Visit) minimalist set involves a lot of boxes of ammunition that are moved around seemingly at random. Ann Hould-Ward’s (Pacific Overtures, Fire and Air) ’40’s costumes are very good. Adam Honoré’s lighting is evocative. Joseph Joubert’s orchestration for six instruments works well. Bill T. Jones’ (Fela!, Spring Awakening) choreography consisted more of moving the actors around than in staging dance numbers. CSC director John Doyle (Pacific Overtures, Fire and Air) is back in good form; perhaps he should stick to musicals. Running time: one hour 40 minutes; no intermission.

NOTE: The staging is in the round but the director has not been careful to give all sides of the theater a good view. Try to get seats in the 100 section; avoid seats in the 300 section. CSC has gone to digital programs. If you want to look up anything before the play, be sure to bring your cellphone. If you can read the microscopic print on a cellphone, you are fortunate. Otherwise, you can pick up a program in the lobby on your way out of the theater. I hope this idea does not catch on. 

The Band's Visit revisited

I have been eager to attend this show again to see how well it made the transition from off-Broadway to Broadway. I didn’t want to spend a fortune so I have been entering the show’s $40 lottery (thebandsvisitlottery.com) whenever I could and finally got lucky, landing a good seat in the second row of the mezzanine.

Here is what I had to say about the show the first time I saw it:

 Sunday, November 27, 2016

The Band's Visit

B+

Atlantic Theater Company is presenting this musical adaptation of the popular 2007 Israeli film about an Egyptian police band that inadvertently becomes stranded overnight in an isolated town while on a goodwill visit to Israel. The music and lyrics are by David Yazbek (The Full Monty) and the book is by Itamar Moses (Bach at Leipzig). The songs are well-integrated into the story with much of the music being performed by actors playing band members. The book, faithful to the screenplay almost to a fault, incorporates large chunks of dialog from the film. It is virtually impossible to develop 20 characters in any depth in 95 minutes even without making time for a dozen songs. In some cases, we get a bare sketch, but in others, the characterization actually goes deeper than in the film. The show is greatly enhanced by a fine cast and high production values. Katrina Lenk (Indecent) is excellent as Dina, owner of the town cafe. John Cariani (Something Rotten!) brings richness to the role of Itzik. Ari’el Stachel is just right as the band’s young hunk Haled. George Abud and Sam Sadigursky are standouts as actor-musicians. Last but not least, Tony Shalhoub (The Price) brings dignity and compassion to the role of Tewfiq, the bandleader. The evocative scenic design by Scott Pask (Something Rotten!) makes effective use of a revolving stage. Sarah Laux’s (The Humans) costumes fit their characters well. The direction by David Cromer (Tribes, Our Town) is fluid and assured. The result is an intimate, engaging show with an edge of poignancy. I could not suppress a twinge of regret over how badly the situation in Egypt and Israel has deteriorated since 1996, the year in which the story is set. Running time: one hour, 35 minutes; no intermission.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that very little had changed. Except for the replacement of Tony Shalhoub by Dariush Kashani (Oslo, The Invisible Hand), the cast was the same. The beauty of the score remains the highlight for me, along with the strong performance by Katrina Lenk. Kashani is creditable, but lacks Shalhoub’s barely masked sadness. The pacing seemed a bit sluggish, but it clocked in at only five minutes longer than at the Atlantic. Somehow, the various elements did not cohere as well for me this time around. The band’s musical number during the curtain call was enjoyable, but seemed tacked on. I heard considerable grumbling from people around me who were expecting a more traditional Broadway musical. Apparently, it’s not for everyone, but if you enjoy a low-key poignant story with gorgeous music, you will be rewarded. Running time: one hour 40 minutes; no intermission.

On the Shore of the Wide World

D+

2006 must have been a really dismal year for London theater if this tepid family drama by Simon Stephens could win the Olivier award. I will grudgingly express admiration to the Atlantic Theater for their commitment to bringing three of his plays to New York although I wasn’t too impressed with the other two -- Bluebird and Harper Regan — either. However, I liked them better than Punk Rock at MCC or Heisenberg at MTC. Even his Tony-winner The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was an adaptation of someone else’s novel and owed a lot of its success to its brilliant staging. Therefore, I approached the present play with low expectations. They were met.  We meet three generations of the Holmes family of Stockport, the suburb of Manchester where Stephens grew up — grandparents Charlie (Peter Maloney) and Ellen (the always watchable Blair Brown), their son Peter (C.J. Wilson) and his wife Alice (Atlantic stalwart Mary McCann) and their two grandsons Alex (Ben Rosenfield) and Christopher (Wesley Zurick). There is also Alex’s girlfriend Sarah (Tedra Millan), his friend Paul (Odiseas Georgiadis), Peter’s client Susan (Amelia Workman) and Alice’s new friend John (Leroy McClain). We follow the Holmes family over the course of a year that is punctuated by tragedy. The play has a seemingly endless succession of short scenes that generated very little interest for me. I don’t require sympathetic characters, but I expect to feel some involvement which was lacking here. I looked at my watch often. There is lots of regret, missed opportunity and lack of communication. The fine cast, which struggles uncertainly with the accent, deserves better than this. The set design by Scott Park makes efficient use of space. Sarah Laux’s costumes are apt. Director Neil Pepe does his best with material that is basically inert. Running time: two hours 35 minutes including intermission. Seating advice: Avoid Row B at the Linda Gross Theater because it is not elevated above Row A.

The Little Foxes

A-

While the critics never placed Lillian Hellman in the first rank of American playwrights, her work, at least as exemplified by this 1939 family drama, has much to recommend it and is certainly worthy of an occasional revival. She surely knew how to write a tight plot and juicy roles that allow actors to show their mettle. Manhattan Theatre Club has assembled a first-rate cast for this production, led by Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon who alternate the roles of Regina and Birdie. This tale of an avaricious family greedy to progress from rich to filthy rich bears an extra frisson of timeliness today. We meet the Hubbard family in Alabama in 1900. Brothers Ben (Michael McKean) and Oscar (Darren Goldstein) are wooing a Chicago industrialist Mr. Marshall (David Alford) to build a cotton mill on their property. To keep the deal in the family, they need their sister Regina Giddens (Linney at my performance) to raise a third of the investment. Trouble is her husband Horace (Richard Thomas), who controls the pursestrings, is away in Baltimore convalescing from a heart condition and shows no inclination to return or even to respond to their increasingly frantic letters. Regina skillfully uses her leverage to win a better deal from her brothers and persuades her virtuous 17-year-old daughter Alexandra (Francesca Carpanini) to go to Baltimore to fetch Horace. Leo Hubbard (Michael Benz), the unsavory son of Oscar and Birdie, works in Horace’s bank and comes up with a shady plan that allows the brothers to proceed without Regina. When Horace returns, he discovers their plot and, unfortunately for him, reveals it to his wife. There is more scheming, a shocking scene between Horace and Regina and, surprisingly for its time, an ending in which evil is not punished, at least not explicitly. The role of Regina, catnip for such actresses as Tallulah Bankhead and Bette Davis, suits Linney well; she captures both the steeliness and the traces of charm. However, she is almost overshadowed by Cynthia Nixon’s superb performance as her sister-in-law Birdie, a delicate wounded bird driven to drink by her husband’s abuse; her monologue in the final act is absolutely wrenching. Linney and Nixon are so persuasive in these roles that is hard to imagine them in reverse. Even the servants are well-cast — Charles Turner as the butler Cal and Caroline Stefanie Clay as Addie, the housekeeper whose eye rolls and facial expressions speak louder than words. Jane Greenwood’s costumes are marvelous. Scott Pask’s living room set is fine except that the staircase, focus of a crucial scene, looks strangely cramped. Daniel Sullivan directs with a sure hand. The play is far from subtle, but, with such a fine production,  it is very entertaining. Running time: two hours 25 minutes including two intermissions.

Dead Poets Society ** C-

One of the mini-trends of the current season is the adaptation of award-winning films into plays. First there was Terms of Endearment (which I have not seen) and now this Classic Stage Company production based on the 1989 film which starred Robin Williams and included a trio of young actors (Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles) who went on to successful careers. I hope this trend of recycling movies is nipped in the bud. While there have been many films that were turned into successful musicals, adapting a movie for the stage without musicalizing it doesn’t seem to add any value. In this case, even though the adaptation was done by the screenwriter, Tom Schulman himself, who has trimmed over 20 minutes from the film, the result is a Cliff Notes version that came across to me as bland and pointless. Jason Sudeikis is fine as the charismatic English teacher who urges the preppies in his class at Welton Academy to seize the day. The six young men who play the students (Zane Pais, Thomas Mann, Cody Kostro, Bubba Weiler, William Hochman and Yaron Lotan) are also very good. David Garrison is effective as the headmaster, Paul Nolan. Stephen Barker Turner does his best with the one-note role of Mr. Perry, whose demands on his son provoke a crisis, and Francesca Carpanini looks pretty as the love interest of one of the students. Their valiant efforts were largely sunk by the play’s blandness. Even the ending misfires: after disappearing from the stage for several minutes, Sudeikis briefly returns, but his reappearance has little impact. John Doyle’s direction is mostly straightforward, the main quirk being that books pulled off the library shelves are used in place of classroom furniture. Scott Pask’s attractive set features a library wall of books, complete with rolling ladder. Ann Hould-Ward’s costumes looked right for 1959. Japhy Weideman’s lighting and Matt Stine’s sound design are quite effective. All this effort seems misguided as the play itself has so little point to it. Running time: 90 minutes; no intermission.

The Band's Visit

B+

Atlantic Theater Company is presenting this musical adaptation of the popular 2007 Israeli film about an Egyptian police band that inadvertently becomes stranded overnight in an isolated town while on a goodwill visit to Israel. The music and lyrics are by David Yazbek (The Full Monty) and the book is by Itamar Moses (Bach at Leipzig). The songs are well-integrated into the story with much of the music being performed by actors playing band members. The book, faithful to the screenplay almost to a fault, incorporates large chunks of dialog from the film. It is virtually impossible to develop 20 characters in any depth in 95 minutes even without making time for a dozen songs. In some cases, we get a bare sketch, but in others, the characterization actually goes deeper than in the film. The show is greatly enhanced by a fine cast and high production values. Katrina Lenk (Indecent) is excellent as Dina, owner of the town cafe. John Cariani (Something Rotten!) brings richness to the role of Itzik. Ari’el Stachel is just right as the band’s young hunk Haled. George Abud and Sam Sadigursky are standouts as actor-musicians. Last but not least, Tony Shalhoub (The Price) brings dignity and compassion to the role of Tewfiq, the bandleader. The evocative scenic design by Scott Pask (Something Rotten!) makes effective use of a revolving stage. Sarah Laux’s (The Humans) costumes fit their characters well. The direction by David Cromer (Tribes, Our Town) is fluid and assured. The result is an intimate, engaging show with an edge of poignancy. I could not suppress a twinge of regret over how badly the situation in Egypt and Israel has deteriorated since 1996, the year in which the story is set. Running time: one hour, 35 minutes; no intermission.

The Cherry Orchard ** C-

Many consider “The Cherry Orchard” to be Chekhov’s masterpiece. I do not share that opinion. To me, it falls short in many respects. It revisits many themes that Chekhov addressed more artfully in his earlier plays, particularly in “Uncle Vanya.” It has too many characters to develop more than sketchily. Furthermore, most of these characters are insufficiently compelling to merit our attention. The plot has an element that I have never understood: it defies reason that Ranevskaya (Diane Lane) would hold a party on the very day that her estate is to be auctioned. However, the verdict of history is that the play is a major classic, so it was intriguing to see what a promising American playwright, Stephen Karam, would do with it in his “new version” for Roundabout Theatre.

The verdict is mixed. The translation is quite idiomatic, but the central concept of the production did not work for me. Karam tries to draw analogies between the effects of serfdom in Russia and the legacy of slavery in America. Instead of nontradtional (P.C. for colorbiind) casting, we have color-coded casting. Three characters who represent Russia’s future — nouveau riche landowner Lopakhin (Harold Perrineau), proletarian student Trofimov (Kyle Beltran) and the lucky neighbor Simeon-Pischik (Chuck Cooper) — and one who escapes it — manservant Yasha (Maurice Jones) — are all played by black actors. All the others, who are more or less victims of social change, are played by white actors — Ranevskaya, her daughterr Anya (Tavi Gevison), her stepdaughter Vanya (Celia Keenan-Bolger), her brother Gaev (John Glover), governess Charlotta Ivanovna (Tina Benko), clerk Yepikhodov (Quinn Mattfield), maid Dunyasha (Susannah Flood) and servant Firs (Joel Grey). It’s an interesting idea, but I did not think it was a valid analogy. For one thing, serfdom was not based on race. I'm not sure why the tramp who interrupts the picnic scene suddenly begins reciting Emma Lazarus's "The New Colossus."

Most of the actors were creditable, but not memorable; however, they did not seem to be working as an ensemble. The party scene, lively to a fault, seemed to belong to a different play. The incidental music by Nico Muhly did not suggest Russia. A brief melody after the party scene incongruously recalled the “mazel tov” song heard at Jewish celebrations. Scott Pask’s set design was low-key, although I did like the Calderesque mobiles that represented the cherry trees. There’s an area rug in act one that two actors tripped on. Some of Michael Krass's costuming choices were puzzling, especially a particularly garish outfit for Lopakhin. Director Simon Godwin, an import from London, did not seem to have a sure grip on the material. It isn’t a terrible production, just a misguided one. Running time: two hours 20 minutes including intermission.

Incognito ***

Nick Payne’s intriguing play at Manhattan Theatre Club is cerebral both figuratively and literally: it’s brainy and it’s about the brain. Just as quantum physics played an important role in “Constellations,” his last play at MTC, neuroscience is at the center of this one. In an author’s note, Payne says that the play is loosely based on real events and cites ten sources that inspired him. The three main narratives are about Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who took Einstein’s brain and wasted the rest of his career trying to find something special about it; Henry Maison, a young man who, after experimental surgery for epilepsy, was unable to form new memories for the rest of his long life; and Martha Murphy, a fictional middle-aged neuropsychologist with a dim view of human autonomy, trying to reboot her life after a divorce. There are also several subsidiary stories woven into the narrative. The gimmick is that all 20 roles are played by four actors — Geneva Carr, Charlie Cox, Heather Lind and Morgan Spector —who transition between characters with lightning speed. Text on the rear wall identifies the play’s three sections — Encoding, Storing and Retrieving. This segmentation seemed arbitrary and the moment of stylized movement and gestures that introduced each one was an unnecessary distraction. As in any pastiche, some stories are better than others. I wished that some had been prolonged and others had been attenuated or even eliminated. I found Martha’s story not very compelling, but was extremely moved by Henry’s tale. The actors are wonderful, particularly Carr and Cox. Scott Pask’s strikingly simple set consists of a large circular platform with four chairs backed by a semicircular wall, all in charcoal, with a ring of lights above the wall. Catherine Zuber’s costumes are all in various shades of gray. Director Doug Hughes skillfully juggles the many strands so that the audience can usually find its bearings without undue difficulty. I admired Payne’s ambition and intelligence even when an occasional scene misfired. Running time: 90 minutes; no intermission.

The Father ***

The universally extravagant praise from across the pond for French playwright Florian Zeller’s unnerving portrait of a proud man’s descent into dementia set my expectations a bit too high. That is not to say that this Manhattan Theater Club production starring the magnificent Frank Langella is not worth seeing. Quite the contrary. I just felt that his performance was better than the material. Zeller cleverly presents things from the confused point of view of the person with dementia. Andre (Langella), a retired engineer, has once again driven away a caregiver that his daughter Anne (a fine Kathryn Erbe) has hired to help him cope with his increasingly confused state. The audience is forced to feel Andre’s disorientation as we are presented with conflicting sets of facts and even different actors playing the same roles. Anne is either divorced, married to Pierre (Brian Avers) or moving to London with her new lover. Laura (Hannah Cabell), a prospective caregiver, reminds Andre of his mysteriously absent daughter Elise whom he always favored over Anne. Charles Borland (Man) and Kathleen McNenny (Woman) round out the good cast. There’s more than a touch of Pinter lurking here. Even Scott Pask’s set reflects Andre’s confusion as objects disappear from the elegant Parisian apartment between scenes. Catherine Zuber’s costumes are fine. Doug Hughes’s direction is assured. Multiple short scenes are punctuated by flashing lights around the proscenium and loud strings, which becomes tiresome rather quickly. Go for the bravura performance by Langella and you won’t be disappointed. The audience reaction varied widely. The man next to me abruptly left midway through the play. The woman behind me was weeping softly. Running time: 90 minutes; no intermission.

An Act of God ***

David Javerbaum, the winner of 13 Emmy awards for his work as head writer on The Daily Show, has adapted his book The Last Testament: A Memoir by God and his comedic twitter feed @TheTweetOfGod to create a star vehicle for Jim Parsons of The Big Bang Theory fame. If none of these references has awakened at least a tingle of anticipation in you, this is a show you can skip. Nor should you attend if you are arch-conservative, homophobic or anti-Semitic. Parsons portrays the Almighty as a volatile figure with wrath-management issues, who enjoys dropping one liners in profusion. Tired of the existing Ten Commandments, he has come up with a new set that he finds more suitable for our times. As he retells familiar bible stories from his unique point of view, he is assisted by the archangels Gabriel (Tim Kazurinsky), who intones an appropriate passage from his Gutenberg bible from time to time, and Michael (Christopher Fitzgerald), who roams the audience with a mic to take questions for God and asks some difficult ones of his own. Depending on your sensibility, the prevailing spirit is either hilarious irreverence or offensive blasphemy. My own response favored the former, although there were a few times that things crossed the line a bit. The production, at Studio 54, features an elegant white set by Scott Pask beautifully lit by Hugh Vanstone and enhanced by Peter Nigrini’s projections and Gregory Meeh’s special effects. David Zinn’s costumes are droll. Joe Mantello’s direction is assured and uncluttered. It’s not for everyone, but Parsons fans will leave happy. Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

Something Rotten! ***

Emerging out of the blue late in the season comes this dark horse of a musical that is clearly destined for lots of awards and a long run. The creators are an unlikely combo —  Karey Kirkpatrick, a Hollywood based screenwriter/director/songwriter with no theatrical credits; his brother Wayne Kirkpatrick, a Nashville-based songwriter; and John O’Farrell, a British satirist. The brothers are jointly credited with the music, lyrics and concept, while Karey and O’Farrell wrote the book. The only person on the creative side with name recognition is award-winning director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw  The topic and setting are equally unlikely — the invention of the musical in 1595 London. The Bottom brothers, Nick (Brian d’Arcy James) and Nigel (John Cariani) are struggling to keep their theatrical company afloat. To his regret, Nick had previously urged a certain actor whose initials are W.S. to leave the troupe and take up playwriting. Christian Borle plays The Bard as the rock star of his age with a nasty habit of stealing material. Nick, unable to come up with a plot that Shakespeare didn’t get to first, consults soothsayer Nostradamus (Brad Oscar) to find out what will be the “next big thing” and what will be Shakespeare’s best play. Unfortunately Nostradamus never gets things quite right, with the result that Nick sets out to write the world’s first musical — “Omelet.” Nick’s wife Bea (Heidi Blickenstaff) is a proto-feminist.  Nigel falls in love with Portia (Kate Reinders), daughter of leading Puritan Brother Jeremiah (Brad Ashmanskas) who thinks theater and music are the devil’s work. An uncharacteristically restrained Peter Bartlett appears in the dual roles of Lord Clapham and the Minister of Justice. The more familiar you are with the Shakespearean canon and the musicals of the last 60 years, the more you will enjoy the show. Running through the show are snippets from the bard and signature lines from virtually every musical you can think of, each received with delighted recognition by the audience. The music, in a variety of styles, works well within the context of the show. Midway through the first act there’s a show-stopping number (“A Musical”) that brought the loudest, longest applause I have ever witnessed in a theater. The uniformly strong cast seemed to be enjoying themselves.The scenic design by Scott Pask and the costumes by Gregg Barnes are top-notch. The show is entertaining, relentlessly so. I sometimes felt that it was trying too hard to amuse. For me, its clever conceits were stretched beyond their potential. As so often happens, the second act did not live up to the promise of the first. The dance numbers, while lively, were monotonously alike. Despite these reservations, I had a good time. The wildly enthusiastic audience portends a successful run. Running time: 2 hours 25 minutes including intermission.

Airline Highway *

Playwright Lisa D’Amour was a Pulitzer nominee for Detroit. Chicago’s Steppenwolf is a multi-award-winning ensemble theater company with an enviable record of successful transfers to Broadway including August: Osage County. Joe Mantello is a two-time Tony Award-winning director. Julie White is an excellent actress. Putting them all together for this Manhattan Theatre Club import must have seemed like a good idea. It wasn’t. Despite the talented cast of 16, the splendid scenic design (by Scott Pask) and the evocative costumes (by David Zinn), the results are curiously flat. The play takes us through one day at the Hummingbird Hotel, a place that has seen better days and that is now frequented mostly by people who live on the margins of society. We meet a pill-addicted hooker (White), a stripper (Caroline Neff), an unhandy handyman (Tim Edward Rhoze), a wise drag queen (K. Todd Freeman), a poet (Ken Marks) and the hotel manager (Scott Jaeck). At the request of Miss Ruby (Judith Roberts), the dying former strip club owner who serves as materfamilias to the residents and who wants to enjoy her own funeral, they are planning a party for her in the hotel parking lot. Bait Boy (Joe Tippett), a former club employee who was swept off by a wealthy older woman from Atlanta three years before, has returned for the party. In the play’s most unlikely device, he has brought along his gal pal’s teenaged daughter (Carolyn Braver) to interview the denizens of the hotel for a high school report on subcultures. The playwright’s point of view is obscure. The play offers not much heat and very little light. In no way does it provide the emotional payoff of Lanford Wilson’s far-better models, Balm in Gilead and Hot l Baltimore. Surprisingly few people near me failed to return after intermission. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes including intermission.

It's Only a Play ***

This much-revised comedy by Terrrence McNally, which is breaking box office records on Broadway, has a stellar cast including Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Stockard Channing, Megan Mullally, F. Murray Abraham and Rupert Grint (from Harry Potter films), plus promising newcomer Micah Stock. Lane and Channing are at the top of their form, rattling off a nonstop series of bitchy zingers, many of them theatrical insider jokes that flatter the audience by making them feel in the know. Abraham, as an acerbic critic, reveals a manic comic side that I never knew he had. Mullally was out so I can’t comment on her; understudy Isabel Keating seemed flightier than necessary. Rupert Grint, as a hotshot British director who claims to crave failure, has to cope with a poorly written role and a hideous costume. Stock, who resembles a young Jim Parsons, holds his own in a long, hilarious scene with Lane. And then there’s Matthew Broderick as the author of the play whose opening night is being celebrated. He copes reasonably well with difficult material in Act One — a lecture on the depressing state of Broadway theater and a prayer for those involved in the business — but seems to retreat into a shell of blandness in Act Two. The fun is greatly abetted by an over-the-top set design by Scott Pask and hilarious costumes, including the outerwear of unseen celebrities from other Broadway shows, by Ann Roth. Director Jack O’Brien occasionally lets the pace lag. The wisp of a plot is about the anxieties of waiting for reviews on opening night, a somewhat dated concept in the age of instantly accessible reviews on newspapers’ digital sites. The second act fizzles more than it fizzes. McNally would have done well to follow one of the theatrical trends he deplores in the Act One lecture — 90-minute plays without an intermission. A string of one-liners, no matter how funny, does not stay fresh for two hours and forty minutes. It’s too much of a good thing.

Pippin ****

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Seeing Diane Paulus's imaginative revival of Stephen Schwartz's 1972 musical about the coming of age of Charlemagne's son is almost like getting two shows for the price of one. She has cleverly chosen to enhance -- or, in the opinion of some, to distract from -- Roger D. Hirson's book by setting the action in a circus milieu, adding the prodigious talents of Les 7 Doigts de la main, a Montreal-based troupe similar to Cirque de Soleil. The circus sequences are breathtaking and are, for the most part, well-integrated into the book. The dance numbers choreographed by Chet Walker "in the style of Bob Fosse" are terrific, although they sometimes seem unrelated to the action. The cast is strong. Patina Miller has the unenviable job of following in Ben Vereen's footsteps as the Leading Player, but she is up to the task. British actor Matthew James Thomas is excellent in the title role. Charlotte d'Amboise, Terrence Mann and Rachel Bay Jones are all fine, but Andrea Martin steals the show as Berthe, Pippin's spritely grandmother. (She looks so great that it's almost impossible to believe that she's 66.) Scott Pask's set design and Dominique Lemieux's costumes are wonderful. The audience seemed largely composed of avid Pippin fans who burst into wild applause at every opportunity. Most of it was well-deserved. I had a good time. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes including intermission.

Tribes ****

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Director David Cromer, whose production of Our Town at Barrow Street Theatre was so widely acclaimed, is back with an Olivier-nominated family drama by Nina Raine about deafness and language. Billy (Russell Harvard), the deaf youngest child of an intellectual family headed by retired academic Christopher (Jeff Perry) and would-be novelist Beth (Mare Winningham), is a very skilled lip-reader, but was deliberately never taught sign language. His seriously depressed brother Daniel (Will Brill) is writing a dissertation on the inadequacy of language. His sister Ruth (Gayle Rankin) is an unsuccessful opera singer. His self-absorbed parents and siblings may hear, but they don't listen. Billy's feeling of isolation when he is left out of their intellectual battles goes unnoticed. When he falls in love with Sylvia (Susan Pourfar), a young woman active in the deaf community who is herself going deaf and who teaches him sign language, Billy's feelings toward his family change dramatically. A subplot about him working for the court system reading lips from surveillance videos misfires. The cast is uniformly excellent. The set by Scott Pask makes good use of the limited space. Staging the play in the round (in the square, actually) works quite well. The play presents interesting arguments about whether embracing deaf culture is liberating or limiting. It is far from perfect, but it is thought-provoking and deeply felt. It's not for everyone, but I was glad I saw it. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes including intermission.