nytheatre Archive
2000-01 Theatre Season Reviews

There's nothing like the sight and sound of three dozen chorus gypsies tap dancing their hearts out in a Broadway musical. It's certainly not something we get to experience very often these days (Radio City Music Hall doesn't count). So thank the show business gods that we can come and meet the dancing feet of 42nd Street. If this revival of the 1980 musical doesn't extinguish this theatregoer's ecstatic memories of the original, it certainly is filled with pleasures to spare. People are going to have a grand time at 42nd Street; those 72 talented feet should be off the unemployment line for quite a while.

The show, as you probably know, is based on the classic backstage tale from the early days of the Great Depression--a novel that became a very famous Warner Brothers film in 1933. It tells the story of Peggy Sawyer, a nobody from Allentown, Pennsylvania who lucks into a chorus job in a big Broadway musical and winds up filling in at the last minute for its ailing leading lady. Peggy actually is told "You're going out there a youngster, but you've got to come back a star" by the show's hard-driving director, Julian Marsh. (This line gets a huge ovation.) And of course, Peggy does: she becomes the toast of Broadway, and it looks like she's even going to get her fella by the time the curtain comes down.

It's all so familiar that it's engrained in our consciousness, like modern-day mythology: librettists Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble barely took any of it seriously when they concocted their deliberately cliche-filled book. It doesn't matter, of course, because 42nd Street's creators--then and now--know that, in the words of one of the show's many production numbers, the only thing we've come to see are the beautiful dames.

They're delivered, repeatedly, in gorgeous if surprisingly unimaginative costumes by Roger Kirk. We see them lined up, Rockette-style; prone, Busby Berkeley-style (reflected in a huge mirror so that we can watch what they're doing); stacked up on a glittering staircase, Tommy Tune-style (see photo, above); and almost always tapping, tapping, tapping. They're led by Kate Levering, the young lady who plays Peggy Sawyer and seems destined for stardom herself: she's lovely, infectiously youthful, enthusiastic, sweetly appealing, and nearly as fast a tapper as the young Ann Miller.

Also on hand is that formidable dame Mary Testa, whose brassy, big-voiced persona is perfectly melded to the role of Maggie Jones, co-author, co-producer, and co-star of the fictional musical "Pretty Lady" that's the subject of 42nd Street. Testa registers strongly and positively whenever she's on stage, especially at the center of the amusing "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" number in Act Two. Meanwhile, billed-above-the-title Christine Ebersole does a scene-stealing turn as Dorothy Brock, the leading lady whom Peggy Sawyer replaces. Though Ebersole sings a smoky, bluesy "I Only Have Eyes for You" that has very little to do with her role and overdoes the coarseness of her character unnecessarily, she's nevertheless a crowd-pleaser.

Among the men singing and dancing with all these dames are pros like Jonathan Freeman (as Jones's collaborator Bert Barry), Richard Muenz (as Dorothy's boyfriend), and Michael McCarty (as Dorothy's sugar daddy); all are fine, though none has enough to do. David Elder plays the inevitable overconfident tenor with brio and a smile so bright and gleaming that it doesn't need any lighting; Michael Arnold, as dance director Andy Lee, steals the hoofing honors, though, in the show's many production numbers. Michael Cumpsty is convincingly commanding and desperate as director Julian Marsh (but it would be nice if he could carry a tune): he plays an impossible role with conviction.

The score, featuring songs by Harry Warren and Al Dubin culled from various '30s movie musicals, includes "We're in the Money," "Dames," "Lullaby of Broadway," "You're Getting to be a Habit with Me," "Sunny Side to Every Situation," and the title song. Good stuff.

If, like me, you remember with unabashed joy the original 42nd Street, you're likely going to miss the authentically opulent sets and costumes and the dazzlingly elegant Gower Champion choreography in numbers like "Dames" and "Shadow Waltz"; the stunning tap ballet to "42nd Street" that was the sensational climax of that show has been transformed here into a noisy but soulless, glitzy, Vegas-y production number. David Merrick and Gower Champion made sure that their Julian Marsh had incomparable taste; the Dodgers and Mark Bramble (producer and director of the revival) haven't followed suit.

But that crowd of gorgeous chorus girls tap-tap-tapping makes us forget an awful lot of troubles, the show's included. 42nd Street, to quote yet another of its songs, is mostly hidi-hi and hoop-de-doo. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

It's been a very long time since I've seen a musical with as much heart as A Class Act. This bittersweet show, which serves as biography of and tribute to composer-lyricist Edward Kleban, is exactly what its title says it is--pure gold, from start to finish, without a single false note. At its center is a brilliant, lovingly conceived performance by Lonny Price (who also co-wrote and directed A Class Act): his portrayal of this man who loved Broadway musicals but only ever got one produced is nothing short of triumphant. 

The one that got produced, by the way, was A Chorus Line, which pretty much guaranteed Kleban's place in theatrical history. It also brought him, after more than a decade of struggle, a steady income, which he characteristically chose to give back to the theatre community in the form of the Kleban Foundation. Since his death in 1987 (at 48, from cancer), the Foundation has awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to aspiring theatre lyricists and bookwriters.

A Class Act traces Kleban's life straightforwardly, from his first realization, at eighteen, that he wanted to write musicals (in a sanitarium, where he was recovering from his first nervous breakdown), to his memorial service thirty years later, on the stage of the Shubert Theatre (where A Chorus Line was in the thirteenth year of its record-breaking run). We watch as Kleban enrolls in Lehman Engel's Musical Theatre Workshop, gets--and loses--his first important job (writing new lyrics for the Debbie Reynolds revival of Irene), and struggles in relationships with a succession of women (most notably Sophie, his first and longest-lasting love).

Finally, at the top of Act Two, we see Kleban's fateful first meeting with Michael Bennett, the young genius who conceived A Chorus Line. In a superbly crafted scene, we witness the charmed but explosive creation of a musical that eventually became iconic--indeed, so much so that all we need to see are the mirrors at the rear of the stage and all we need to hear is a single bar of music and we are transported to 1975, "At the Ballet." Price and his choreographer Marguerite Derricks follow up with a thrilling chorus of "One," the show-stopping finale of A Chorus Line--half recreation and half allusion, it captures, achingly and unmistakably, the essence of that show and this one. When it's over, you understand why Kleban was the best possible lyricist for that sentimental valentine to the Broadway Gypsy: who else has understood so well the heartbreaking joy of the world of musical theatre?

After Chorus Line, Kleban never got another show on Broadway: there's tragedy in the arc of his life story which gives A Class Act its structure. But Price and his collaborator Linda Kline never let their show get too melancholy, no matter how poorly Kleban's life is going: you get the sense that this is very much the musical autobiography Kleban would have written for himself if only he had the chance. Kleban's bouts with depression, hypochondria, paranoia, and, eventually, serious illness are all here. But they're tempered with the spectacularly original compositions and show ideas that fitfully burst out of Kleban's heart and mind and onto the page: a show that could have been a dour contemplation of what-if becomes a joyous celebration of what-could-have-been.

Which brings me, at last, to the soul of A Class Act, the 20-odd songs culled from a lifetime of composing that comprise the show's score. They're wonderful: lively and clever and tuneful. At their best, they shimmer with genius--numbers like  "Mona," "Gauguin's Shoes," "Under Separate Cover," and "Better" constantly surprise us with their wit and dexterity, while the gorgeous "The Fountain in the Garden" and "Paris Through the Window" astonish us with their originality and touch us deeply with their heartfelt insight. Though all of it was written at least a dozen years ago, this is the loveliest new score of the season--I can't wait to listen to the CD.

I've already told you how good Lonny Price is as Kleban; now let me add that Randy Graff is, as always, luminous and indispensable as Sophie, the love of his life; Sara Ramirez is terrific as his good-natured-but-difficult boss Felicia; David Hibbard is fine as best friend Bobby and better than that in his cameo as Michael Bennett; and Donna Bullock is superb in a deeply-felt performance as unrequited love interest Lucy. Jeff Blumenkrantz gets the evening's biggest laugh when he dons a mane of curly hair and some outlandish '70s duds to transform himself into Kleban's Chorus Line collaborator, Marvin Hamlisch.

There's no way that a rendering of Kleban's life as honest as this one could be anything but wistful--the unfulfilled promise of a long, mostly failed career guarantees it. But A Class Act transcends the facts and figures to find the real measure of the man in his music. Everything we need to know about him is right there.

A modest proposal: let's take all the money that producers plan to spend next year reviving old musical comedies and use it to write some new ones.

It's not that revivals of shows like Bells Are Ringing are inherently bad or even unentertaining; but they're necessarily lame--foolish as well as futile--because they're so insubstantial. Bells Are Ringing is neither an impressive work or art nor an important socio-cultural artifact--no one thought so in 1956 and no one thinks so now. As the movie version attests, it was a pleasant diversion constructed around the very particular talents and personality of Judy Holliday. The current production proves--as if anyone should have doubted it--that Faith Prince is not Judy Holliday; and the requisite reinvention of the piece that might have compensated for that fact has not been undertaken here. Prince is a very capable comedienne and vocalist and, indeed, someone should write her a Broadway musical of her own. But sticking her in a retread like this is a waste of her time and everyone else's.

Which is not to say that Prince doesn't soldier gamely through the thing: she works very hard to claim the role of Ella Peterson as her own and to give us our money's worth while she does it. But Ella's pixilated eccentricity suits Prince as poorly as the ugly capri pants she wears throughout much of the proceedings: Ella (like Holliday) is gossamer and winsome, while anyone who saw Prince's Tony-winning performance as Miss Adelaide in Guys and Dolls knows that she's earthy and inevitable. Prince does well by some of the Styne-Comden-Green standards in the score, such as "The Party's Over" and "Long Before I Knew You," but most of the comic bits fall flat because they're just not her style.

But that's not even the main problem: the whole show, with its '50s attitudes and sensibility, isn't her style. It isn't anybody's style, anymore. (And indeed, director Tina Landau and choreographer Jeff Calhoun have responded to this situation by staging Bells Are Ringing in no style whatsoever.) The show is loaded with topical references that simply fail to parse nowadays: entire songs like "Mu-Cha-Cha" and "The Midas Touch" and "Drop That Name" (which reflected, respectively, the mid-'50s crazes for Latin dances, cheesy floor shows, and name dropping) mean next to nothing to an audience in 2001. More fundamentally, the sweetly earnest naiveté of Bells Are Ringing's story--about how a dizzy blonde switchboard operator meddles in the affairs of her customers and manages to bring them all their hearts' desires even as she wins Prince Charming for herself--feels terribly remote. With nothing substantive inside it, even dressed up in bright colors and loud music, the show is hollow and lifeless.

I won't say that Bells Are Ringing is entirely devoid of charms. There are several quite lovely songs in the score, including, in addition to the aforementioned pair, "Just in Time," "It's a Perfect Relationship," and "I Met a Girl." These are put over with verve by Prince and her leading man, the boundlessly energetic Marc Kudisch. There are also a pair of comedic numbers of genuine wit--"It's a Simple Little System," in which a bookie explains his elaborate plan for taking bets in code, with composers' names substituting for racetracks, symphonies for race numbers, etc.; and "Salzberg" ("Where the schnitzel is high as an elephant's eye/And the skies are not cloudy all day"), the schmaltzy pastiche that the same bookie uses to con his girlfriend out of her life's savings. These are performed with masterful over-the-top panache by David Garrison, whose pure show business savvy goes a long way to boosting Bells Are Ringing's sagging spirit.

But most of the two-and-a-half hours of Bells Are Ringing pass listlessly, if painlessly. It's all too clear that Landau and her actors--good ones, mind you, like Martin Moran as a dentist who wants to be a composer, and Darren Ritchie as a would-be Marlon Brando--have invested nothing in the antiquated values of the show. For them, and us, what ought to be a lark turns out to be chore.

Follies is the King Lear of musicals: unsurpassed in the sheer enormity of its vision; brilliant in spite of its significant structural flaws. Even a less than perfect production is absolutely worth seeing, and so it is with the one currently ensconced at the Belasco Theatre, under the auspices of Roundabout Theatre Company. Stark and lean and lacking a single galvanizing performance among its four leads, this revival is often unsatisfying and peters out rather disappointingly in its second act. But Stephen Sondheim's score is never less than glorious, and there are flashes of genius in Matthew Warchus's staging and Kathleen Marshall's choreography: transcendent moments that illuminate the show's themes with awesome theatricality and insight. I wouldn't have missed seeing it for anything.

To begin, a quick replay of the story: Impresario Dimitri Weismann staged his renowned "Follies" every year between the two World Wars. Now, three decades later (it's 1971), the once-glamorous Weismann Theatre is about to be demolished to make way for a parking lot. But tonight, just before the wrecking ball arrives, Weismann is having a party, a reunion of the stars and chorus girls who appeared in his shows all those years ago. Among those in attendance are Sally Durant Plummer and Phyllis Rogers Stone, who were roommates back in their "Follies" days. Phyllis went on to marry Ben, a rich and famous lawyer and diplomat who now heads a giant foundation in New York; Sally married Buddy, a traveling salesman, and now lives in Arizona. Sally was--perhaps still is--in love with Ben, and has come here in hopes of seeing him again and rekindling their long-ago romance. Phyllis, cynical and detached and entirely disconnected from everything in her life, has come for a less clear purpose: to rediscover--what?--something from the past, once there and now lost.

Against a backdrop of fragmented conversations and remembered and recreated songs and dances from the old Weismann shows, Sally, Phyllis, Ben, and Buddy play out their story, culminating in mini-epiphanies in the form of "Follies" numbers for each one. Meanwhile, ghosts of their younger selves (and the other party-goers) drift on and off-stage, reminding these unhappy middle-aged people of dreams forgotten and forsaken and of lives misspent. 

As I said, it's large--massively so: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Death of a Salesman recast as Ziegfeld Follies pastiche. The book, by the late James Goldman, is probably irremediably flawed, because we never learn enough about the four main characters to fully understand what their problems are; or perhaps midlife crises of successful white people simply aren't as resonant as they were thirty years ago. Sondheim's score, on the other hand, is, if anything, too rich and plenteous to be contained in a single show. Incisive character songs like Ben's "The Road You Didn't Take" and Sally's "In Buddy's Eyes" share the stage with unabashed show stoppers like "Broadway Baby" and "Losing My Mind"; the colossal "I'm Still Here" functions as both. I'm not complaining--but Follies is a lot to take in in a single sitting....and a lot for a director and his collaborators to deal with.

This production deals best with the background. It begins--to the strains of Sondheim's haunting, ineffably melancholy overture wafting from the orchestra pit--with Weismann walking onto the bare, abandoned stage, flashlight in hand, quietly surveying his theatre. As he points his torch here and there, at the boxes and in the rafters, ghosts materialize; we come to understand that what Weismann is really looking at are the shadows of his own past. It's a stunning opening, matched for sheer emotional impact just a few times during the show proper. One such moment comes midway through the first act, when Betty Garrett sings "Broadway Baby." It's a number that her character, Hattie Walker, probably hasn't sung in fifty years; when she's finished, watch her face: the thunderous applause that she's hearing isn't ours, but the memory of an ovation from years ago. 

And then there's the dance sequence called "Danse d'Amour" in which two of the ex-performers, a 70-something couple named Theodore and Emily Whitman, take to the floor in a rendition of one of their old musical numbers. Behind them, another couple--Theodore and Emily of long ago--do the same steps. What's so moving about this juxtaposition of past and present is its utter lack of regret. Today's Theodore and Emily (personified by Donald Saddler and, at the performance attended, Dorothy Stanley) can't move as quickly or kick their legs as high as their younger selves, but their sheer pleasure in dancing--together, still, after all this time--is palpable and unforgettable.

Foreground works less well. Warchus has cast in the four principal roles Blythe Danner (Phyllis), Judith Ivey (Sally), Gregory Harrison (Ben), and Treat Williams (Buddy), actors whose experience in musicals is extremely limited. Though all are undeniably talented, none has the star power or oomph to accomplish the tour de force that the second act necessarily must be. Danner comes closest: her "Story of Lucy and Jessie" is well thought out but suffers from her inexperience as a dancer. But Ivey fares poorly with the show's big ballad, "Losing My Mind." All four ultimately come across as very ordinary people who have been granted a few moments to sing about themselves--realism, maybe, but hardly what's needed to close the second act of a Broadway musical.

Indeed, star power is mostly lacking in this Follies. After the 1985 concert version at Lincoln Center and the recent Paper Mill Playhouse revival, we've become accustomed, rightly or wrongly, to viewing Follies as a showcase for celebrities of yesteryear. Here we get Polly Bergen, whose magnetism is irrefutable even if her interpretation of the show's signature song "I'm Still Here" is less than definitive. (After Ann Miller's at Paper Mill, I'm not sure whose could be.) There's also the aforementioned Betty Garrett, plus Marge Champion (sadly absent the night I saw the show), and, for musical comedy aficionados, Joan Roberts, who was the original Laurey in Oklahoma!  And that's about it. It makes for a bittersweet lineup of "Beautiful Girls" at the show's start; this Follies seems to be as much about the girls who didn't come back for the reunion as it is about those who did.

But what can I say? Fully aware of the show's drawbacks, and certainly disappointed by some of them, I still can't get Follies out of my head. I'd see it again in a heartbeat. 

George Gershwin Alone has mostly gotten lost in the shuffle this spring on Broadway, which is a downright shame: this unassuming biographical one-man play with music is, in its way, every bit as captivating and engaging as its more heralded competitors. What I love most about George Gershwin Alone is the way it evokes an era of boundless energy and optimism--a time when a Jewish kid from New York's Lower East Side could not only dream of conquering the worlds of popular and classical music but could actually do so. Writer-performer Hershey Felder may not have the musical gifts of his subject (who does?), but he cannily projects Gershwin's exuberant and effortless genius. George Gershwin Alone, far from settling for mere imitation or biography, is a joyous celebration of a unique and explosive talent.

It's also, at least to this untrained music lover, an intriguing and adventurous excursion into the mind of a remarkable composer. Felder's Gershwin begins the play by explaining, at the keyboard of the gorgeous Steinway grand piano that dominates the stage of the Helen Hayes Theatre, why the first five notes of "I Loves You, Porgy" are precisely the right five notes, demonstrating the flatness of more predictable alternatives. Later, we get lessons in composition illustrated by such varied works as "S' Wonderful," "Fascinating Rhythm," "An American in Paris," and "Bess, You Is My Woman Now." Felder deconstructs Gershwin's songs and shows us, for example, the pulsing syncopation of an "I Got Rhythm" (which Ethel Merman blithely--and blissfully--transmuted into straightforward brass); or the undeniably Jewishness of a "Swanee" (morphing, with a key change, into that most American of musical styles, jazz).

Each of these demonstrations is peppered with reminiscences about how these hits came to be, by the way, complete with impersonations of Merman and Al Jolson. Felder doesn't get the voices exactly right, but he's dead-on in the phrasing; and this is true of his piano-playing throughout the show, which is always thrillingly true to Gershwin's spirit. George Gershwin Alone concludes with a rendition of "Rhapsody in Blue": after more than an hour of singing, playing, and storytelling, it's spectacularly, audaciously gratifying--and exactly right.

(It's also just great to hear this music--unamplified!--in a theatre: the above-mentioned pieces plus "Our Love Is Here to Stay" and "The Man I Love" and many more. There simply isn't a better score on Broadway right now.)

Felder traces Gershwin's entire career, from his first tentative piano lessons (shrewdly recreated in progressively snappier variations of "Humoresque") to the all-consuming creation (and failure) of Porgy and Bess and his subsequent retreat to Hollywood. The narrative pauses briefly to consider Gershwin's relationships with his proud but distant father, his overbearing mother, and his loving brother and lifelong collaborator Ira, as well as his sad, unfulfilled romance with Kay Swift. But the business of George Gershwin Alone is music, which is as it should be. In a time when more effort is spent categorizing original musical theatre works than actually creating them, the sheer abundance of Gershwin's output is dazzling. Felder gives us this man--who only wanted to write honest American music--and lets us revel in the riches he left us.

The attention-getting way to start this review would be for me to say something like "Jane Eyre is hands-down the finest new Broadway musical of the season." That would accurately state my opinion, but such overheated hyperbole seems beside the point, for it's so rare these days to get a show that

(a) tells a compelling story
(b) passionately
(c) fully integrating the elements of music, lyrics, libretto, dance, staging, and design to
(d) create a unified, cohesive, and coherent show that
(e) is genuinely entertaining (pretty to look at and listen to).

Not so very long ago, one could reasonably expect all five of (a) through (e) when venturing into a Broadway theatre to see a new musical. Nowadays, though, if we find that they all apply, then we're probably watching a revival.

So bravo to Jane Eyre and its creators; and understand that none of the foregoing is intended to diminish it: this is a lovely show, and if it's not as grand as Les Miserables, it's nowhere near as pedestrian as Jekyll and Hyde. Perfect it may not be, but Jane Eyre is captivating, eye-filling, and genuinely involving. I think people are hungry for a show like this--one that lets them lose themselves in a lush romantic reverie for a couple of hours.

Thanks to a deficient education I've not read the Charlotte Bronte novel that is the basis for this musical, which means that the complicated turns of plot were unfamiliar to me. As the show opens, our heroine steps forward and addresses us ("Gentle audience"): she will narrate her story, starting at the beginning, with her banishment, as a 10-year-old orphan, to a harsh and repressive school run by the fearsome Mr. Brocklehurst. In this Dickensian place, Jane makes her first true friend (the virtuous Helen Burns) and learns to endure suffering by placing her faith in God. Eight years later, grown-up Jane sets out to find her fortune, arriving at Thornfield Hall in the Yorkshire Moors, where she is to serve as governess.

The eccentric inhabitants of Thornfield Hall include--in addition to the little French girl Adele who is Jane's charge--the good-natured, slightly deaf, perpetually addled housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax; the kindly butler Robert; and the worryingly mysterious maid Grace Poole. But none is more enigmatic than the master of the place, Edward Fairfax Rochester, a dark, brooding, profane eminence who seems to have as many secrets as the house. Jane and Edward fall in love, of course, but circumstances abound to keep their romance from blossoming, not the least of which being the arrival of Edward's beautiful but vile fiancée Blanche Ingram.

I liked being surprised by how the story plays itself out, so I'll say no more. I'm told, though, that librettist John Caird and composer-lyricist Paul Gordon have stuck to the original novel with remarkable felicity, so if you know and treasure the book you will not be disappointed.

Caird and Gordon tell the story in straightforward dialogue, recitative fragments, and lush, attractive songs; the ones you'll likely remember after the curtain comes down are Jane's "Secret Soul," Rochester's "Sirens," the anthemic "Forgiveness," and the finale "Brave Enough For Love." Caird is also the show's director (with Scott Schwartz) and they have staged it skillfully and sensitively, the non-stop action propelled by Gordon's pretty melodies and John Napier's showy carousel set. Interior and exterior scenic elements fly in and out continuously, making Jane Eyre a visually stunning show: watch for Napier's coup-de-theatre at the end of Act One, depicting Thornfield Hall in all its brilliant splendor. Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer's lighting is gloriously evocative; with Napier and Lisa Podgur Cuscuna, they've created a panorama of projections that are beautiful and invaluable contributors to the mise en scene. Andreane Neofitou's costumes are appropriate and lovely, and include a magnificent wedding gown that you won't soon forget.

The ensemble plays dozens of roles, making you believe that there are many more than just eighteen actors on stage. Standouts in a strong company include Jayne Paterson as noble Helen Burns, Gina Ferrall as Jane's nasty aunt Mrs. Read, Stephen R. Buntrock as Jane's admirer St. John Rivers, and Andrea Bowen as Jane's vivacious young charge Adele. Mary Stout gives a grand, warm performance as Mrs. Fairfax that ought to garner her at least a Tony nomination. In the leads, James Barbour and Marla Schaffel are both excellent--he is a full-voiced, sexy, passionate leading man, and she is a winning, vibrant, utterly appealing heroine.

I think, finally, what I like best about Jane Eyre is the way the audience responded to it--this is not a passive crowd-pleaser but an earnestly involving, captivating show. The standing ovation and cheering at the curtain calls were genuine: people really liked being transported to the romantic Yorkshire Moors for a few hours. You will surely be told, eventually, that Jane Eyre is a flawed, perhaps even clichéd show. My advice, though, is to ignore any naysayers: Jane Eyre's ardent storytelling is blissfully rejuvenating. It reminds you why they invented musical theatre in the first place. 

Even if its subject matter were not so commandingly vital, Judgment at Nuremberg would still qualify as the supreme theatrical event of the Broadway season. Here is a drama of substance and quality, performed by an ensemble of actors of the highest caliber. And here is a production assembled with care and conviction and a strong sense of history, evidenced first and foremost by the galvanizing presence of Maximilian Schell, in a performance so explosively heart-stopping that a Nobel rather than a Tony seems the appropriate accolade. Bravo to the National Actors Theatre for having the courage and the character to bring Judgment at Nuremberg to Broadway; and to Schell and his co-stars for breathing such vivid life into this potent, powerful, and necessary work of theatre.

For necessary it is: in the half century since the War Crimes Tribunals that are the basis of this play were concluded, humankind has demonstrated, over and over again, our failure to grasp its lessons. Listen to the play's final long speech, in which the trial's presiding judge recounts the crimes committed by the Nuremberg defendants--the imprisonment, torture, and genocide of millions of innocent people: images not only of Auschwitz and Dacchau flood the mind nowadays, but also of Bosnia and Rwanda and too many others. Judgment at Nuremberg demands to be seen because it's about every inhumane and irresponsible act, no matter how insignificant or excusable it may seem in context. The play's indelible final image reminds us that we are ultimately, unconditionally, accountable--to ourselves, to our God, and to each other.

The story of Judgment at Nuremberg is the same as the one told in the famous 1961 film. Dan Haywood, an obscure American judge, arrives in Nuremberg in 1947 to preside over the trial of four German judges, who are accused of crimes against humanity for their role in carrying out heinous laws enacted by the Nazi regime. It's a tricky case because the judges didn't make the laws they administered; loyalty to one's government and one's country is being weighed against duty to some greater "good." In addition, as is often the case, the trial is affected by political considerations, as the simmering Cold War with the Soviet Union begins to seem more pressing than meting out justice for some relatively low-level Nazis. Abby Mann's script condenses and focuses the events of this Tribunal into a compelling and wrenching exploration of the nature of justice and the nature of responsibility. In a world of expediency and extremists, can an absolute morality exist?

Arguing for the prosecution is a tightly-wound American military lawyer, Colonel Parker; his opponent is the brilliant, highly logical, horribly conflicted young German Oscar Rolfe. The defendants are led by Ernst Janning, a jurist of international reputation who toed the Nazi line until well into the 1940s, an enigmatic and charismatic figure whose desire for redemption after unspeakable evil propels the drama. Adjudicating are a team of American judges, led by Haywood, who searches the hearts and minds of everyone surrounding him--from Mrs. Habelstadt, the servile woman assigned to be his housekeeper, to Mme. Bertholt, the sad, proud widow of a celebrated German general--to try to understand how such a thing as the Holocaust ever could have happened.

The script sounds a lot like Mann's screenplay, and at first it feels talky and static; but as the play reaches its climax in the second act, we understand that director John Tillinger's choices have been canny and deliberate. The most famous sequences are reinvented here in purely theatrical terms: the screening of archival Nazi footage of conditions in the concentration camps, most notably, is recast here to give new potency to now-familiar images. The arc of the piece is clear, moving inexorably toward three spellbinding dramatic monologues that together argue and decide Mann's theme, delivered, with riveting intensity, by Maximilian Schell (Janning), Michael Hayden (Rolfe), and George Grizzard (Haywood). Schell, in particular, is absolutely electrifying--I can't recall a more viscerally thrilling moment in theatre. The cumulative effect is cathartic, emotionally and intellectually.

Supporting roles feel less like star cameos than they do in the film: Tillinger and his actors masterfully integrate these pivotal characters' explosive scenes within the context of the play. Michael Mastro is pitiable though understated as Rudolf Peterson, the victim of forced sterilization portrayed by Montgomery Clift in the film. And Heather Randall is tender and sensitive as Maria Wallner, the star witness so memorably created by Judy Garland. Marthe Keller (Mme. Burtholt), Patricia Connelly (Mrs. Habelstadt), Fred Burrell (Judge Ives), and especially Joseph Wiseman (Dr. Wickert) are other standouts among the fine ensemble.

James Noone's unit set is splendidly evocative, utilizing projections (by Elaine J. McCarthy) to help focus the audience on the larger issues of the case even as the play proper delves into nuances of law or homely personal matters. That's author Abby Mann's triumph here, as well: to force us to confront, even as they seem so remote from our comfortable lives, the epic questions that Judge Haywood had to confront in 1947. Until they become moot, work like Judgment at Nuremberg is invaluable, indispensable, and imperative. There is no more compelling or significant play in New York right now: this is theatre of the finest, noblest kind.

Critics writing about King Hedley II have compared playwright August Wilson to Arthur Miller and Eugene O'Neill. Though well-intended, neither comparison is exactly fair: Wilson is an original, and this intense and explosive epic play is unlike anything I've ever seen in the theatre. At once spectacularly specific and grandly universal, Hedley is the story of a man's salvation and a family's--and a people's--quest for redemption. Featuring powerhouse performances by Brian Stokes Mitchell, Leslie Uggams, Charles Brown, Viola Davis, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Monte Russell; and with a staging by Marion McClinton that's as simple and natural as walking; King Hedley II is as potent and resonant a drama as any in New York right now. It's certainly the finest new American play on Broadway this season.

King Hedley II takes place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1985, in the Hill District, an African-American ghetto neighborhood. The action occurs in the alley behind the rundown homes of King Hedley and his neighbor Stool Pigeon. On this tiny plot of ground, King is planting a small garden when we first meet him: out of jail following a long incarceration for murder, King is now determined to make things grow in his life.

More tangible plans involve--in collaboration with his buddy Mister--a scheme to sell a batch of almost-certainly-stolen refrigerators and, possibly, a jewelry store robbery. King also is ripe to have a child with his wife Tonya; and he's eager to clear his mother Ruby out of his house (she's waiting for an opening in a senior citizens' building).

Such are the homely, more or less ordinary circumstances of King Hedley's life. Wilson feeds them to us leisurely, even a little sloppily; overlapping, seemingly trivial and enormously important at the same time. He makes us eavesdroppers in the lives of King and his family and friends, dropping names we don't always recognize and references to events we haven't witnessed or even heard about. It's the minutiae and detritus of a man's life that we're watching here; we're as unprepared as he is for the explosions that will shake it so profoundly in the play's second act.

I don't want to reveal them here--I want you to see King Hedley II for yourself. But I will tell you that a visit from Ruby's ex-lover Elmore will serve as catalyst for most of them, and that Stool Pigeon's weirdly mystical connection with the infinite ("God's a mother fucker," he says, more than once, admiringly) will suddenly and sharply come into focus. Wilson's characters talk about what it means to be black and marginalized in Reagan Era America; what it means to watch family, societal, and cultural values diminished and demeaned; what it means to be wife, mother, son, friend, and---most potently--a man. The politics and economics of King Hedley II's time and place are an omnipresent force in the play; yet Wilson makes his characters and their circumstances timeless and universal. There's some of King Hedley in every American man; and some of his mother Ruby and wife Tonya in every woman.

Yet I don't mean to fault Grammer too much: his impulse, in wanting to tackle this difficult role, is commendable, even if his acting chops aren't really up to it. It's an earnest try, though, and I think that if his producers and collaborators hadn't raced to put this package together so swiftly, he and they might have been able to fashion something workable here. I'm speculating, but I suspect that the star's TV schedule (and the producers' eagerness to make some money) curtailed the quantity and quality of preparation time that a play this rich really needs.

There's certainly no evidence of much preparation on the stage of the Music Box Theatre. Director Terry Hands, who has directed lots of Shakespeare, has conceived this production as some sort of dark, brooding examination of the recesses of the human soul. With designer Timothy O'Brien, he has concocted a stark environment for the play, with the actors clad in non-specific black and white costumes, and the set a minimalist arrangement of movable bridges and stairs that suggest the jetway of a 747. Bands or rings of bright light illuminate the actors on an otherwise darkened stage. It's all visually impressive, but it never enhances or informs the action. It does, however, make the audience sleepy, especially when there's no intermission.

Diane Venora, another Shakespeare veteran, plays Lady Macbeth as a shrieking, frustrated harridan: she reminded me (especially with her hair done up in a taut topknot) of Cloris Leachman as Frau Blucher in Young Frankenstein. She and Grammer, whose noble-minded and big-voiced Macbeth I've already talked a little about, seem to be in entirely different plays.

They at least seem to have devised characterizations, though, which alas is more than can be said for most of the rest of this hapless company. Performances range from the misguided (Michael Gross's grandiose Ross, which would be dead-on as Polonius, seems foolish and utterly out-of-place) to the sadly lame (Peter Michael Goetz's Duncan and Bruce A. Young's Macduff, both of them stick figures, the actors going through the motions as if they just got the scripts yesterday). Again, I'm thinking that limited development and rehearsal time have damaged the work that these generally competent actors are doing here.

Lots of weird staging decisions at the detail level only serve to make things worse. Let's have a moratorium on using greatcoats in classic plays (cf. Ian McKellen's Richard III, Zoe Wanamaker's Electra, seemingly dozens of others): the sight of Macbeth and Macduff going at one another clad in these stiflingly restrictive cloaks is ridiculous. The witches don't say "Double, double, toil and trouble" during the apparition scene, which is very distracting; they do, however, say it in the climactic duel scene, when they are brought on, deus-ex-machina-like, to help Macduff defeat Macbeth by, apparently, slapping him in the face. And Lady Macbeth doesn't put down the candle during the sleepwalking scene, which means that she says "Out, out, damn spot" while trying to pantomime hand-washing with only one hand.

It's all so foolishly problematic; and so beside the point in a work as innately bountiful as Macbeth. The last production I saw, off-off-Broadway by a small group called the Independent Shakespeare Company, was captivating: the actors focused on telling the story, which is as exciting and interesting as almost any play I can think of. In contrast, this revival, mired in indifference and ego, seems bent on making us forget the story at practically every turn. Nothing organic or human or compelling happens in it: what a waste!

A considerable amount of hype to the contrary, David Auburn's Proof has about as much to do with higher mathematics as Michael Frayn's Copenhagen has to do with Denmark. Auburn's play, which is more accessible than Frayn's but never comes close to approaching its brilliance, is a mystery-thriller-romance set in the singular--esoteric, even--milieu of professional mathematicians. Auburn relies on his setting, as a good playwright should, for local color; but his affinity for it is clearly lacking: Proof is finally more about manipulating an audience than reasoning with it.

This is not to suggest that Proof is a bad play, just that it's facile. It tells the story of a young woman named Catherine whose father was a renowned mathematical genius before falling victim to serious mental illness. Catherine quit college and stayed in Chicago to care for her dad, while her older sister Claire moved to New York to start a new life (and, not so incidentally, pay all the bills). The father's death is the catalyst for the events in Auburn's play, which revolve first around Claire and Catherine's need to resolve their long-standing differences, and second around the revelation that, during the time she was nursing her father, Catherine may have authored a mathematical proof of apparently astronomical significance.

That assessment comes from Hal, the play's fourth character, a former student of the late genius and, as it develops, a potential mate for the awakening Catherine. Act One skillfully sets up two mysteries that keep us very interested throughout Act Two: Is Catherine the author of the proof? And will Catherine and Hal finally get together?

That the second, rather than the first, is ultimately of more interest to Auburn suggests the general lack of intellectual meat in Proof.  I find this lack personally disappointing; but again, it doesn't take anything away from Proof's craftsmanship.

The whole thing is sharply directed by Daniel Sullivan on a busy, detailed set designed by John Lee Beatty. The acting is superb, from Mary-Louise Parker's mercurial enigma Catherine to Ben Shenkman's earnest and surprisingly romantic Hal to Johanna Day's take-charge Claire. Larry Bryggman is especially moving as the father, particularly in a second act scene where he realizes, probably for the first time, the depth of his mental disability.

Life Cafe, now immortalized as the location of the big celebration that ends the first act of Rent, is a real (and most unassuming) place, across from the northeast corner of Tompkins Square Park. But Rent's creator, Jonathan Larson, didn't select it merely for verisimilitude: Life is Rent's subject, pure and simple, and its theme, and its moral. More than five years after Larson's death, and after nearly the same amount of time at the Nederlander Theatre, Rent remains as potent and profound a celebration of Life as it ever was; a paean "to "people living with, living with, living with/not dying from disease"; to "being an us for once instead of a them"; to "connecting in an isolated age." Heart-filling and heart-felt, it's still one of Broadway's best.

Inspired by the opera La Boheme, Rent tells the story of eight young people living and loving in New York's East Village in the mid-1990s. Roger, who used to lead his own rock band, is a recovering junkie with AIDS; he lives in a squalid, cheap loft with Mark, a would-be filmmaker. On Christmas Eve, Roger falls in love with the dangerous and sexy Mimi, a dancer at a local S&M club. Mimi turns out to be HIV+ too, and in the midst of an affair with Benny, Roger's former friend and current landlord. Mark, meanwhile, spends Christmas Eve fixing sound equipment for his ex-girlfriend Maureen's outdoor performance protesting the closing of a neighborhood arts space; there he meets and becomes pals with Joanne, Maureen's current amour. Mark and Roger's former roommate Tom Collins gets mugged that night, only to be tended to by an open-hearted street drummer/drag queen named Angel; Collins and Angel have AIDS as well. All eight come together at the Life Cafe for a memorable Christmas Eve dinner.

That's Act One: it does sound like the stuff of grand opera, albeit updated. In Act Two the various sets of lovers and ex-lovers deal with betrayal, jealousy, disease, and death; but the particulars of plot are not finally what's essential in Rent. No, what matters is the spirit of community, carved out under difficult circumstances to bind these characters and their comrades together: a show about life is necessarily also about survival, and that comes from people caring about what happens not only to themselves but to each other. Rent's best scene is in the middle of Act One, when its disparate cast sings a song that begins "Will I lose my dignity?/Will someone care?": Roger, alone in his apartment, and Mimi, alone in hers; Angel, Collins, and Mark at an AIDS Support Group meeting; and assorted homeless people, inhabitants of a tent city on a nearby vacant lot--all unite in a single, urgent, profound moment.

Larson, optimist that he was, says that someone will care: Rent is finally an uplifting affirmation of the redemptive power of love. In a way, Rent's message dates it almost as much as its so-specific East Village locale (now gentrifying explosively into the latest upscale Manhattan trendy spot of the moment) or its seemingly quaint view of AIDS as an incurable disease. (It's shocking how much things have changed in just five years.) But Rent's values--and potency--continue to resonate with audiences because they're so timeless.

Also because Rent is so well-crafted: its first act, in particular, is a marvel of construction, delivering complicated exposition with economy and spectacular emotional heft; and somehow never forgetting to be entertaining--show-stoppingly so, over and over again, in numbers like the electrifying title song at the top of the show, the superbly comic (and over-the-top) pastiches "Tango: Maureen" and "Over the Moon," the infectious and thrilling hip-hop-infused "Today 4 You," the irrepressible love duet "I'll Cover You," the white-hot dance solo "Out Tonight," and the jubilant statement of purpose-cum-finaletto "La Vie Boheme." Few scores--ever--can boast this much brilliance or variety; Rent's is golden, from start to finish.

If Act Two flags a bit--and it does, probably because Larson didn't get a chance to finish it--it still gives us the show's signature hit "Seasons of Love" and the wonderful "What You Own," the climactic duet that seals Roger and Mark's futures and is, for me, the emotional high point of the show.

Rent's original cast is long gone, now, but the producers have been conscientious about finding suitable successors. Standouts in the current company are Trey Ellett (Mark), Natalie Venetia Belcon (Joanne), Stu James (Benny), and Myiia Watson-Davis (various roles, including--gloriously--the solo in "Seasons of Love"). Paul Clay's hip, minimalist set is miraculous; so are Angela Wendt's costumes, Blake Burba's lighting, and, indeed, Michael Grief's effervescently in-your-face staging. We didn't appreciate how skillful and necessary these elements are to Rent's success: this really is a masterfully crafted work of musical theatre.

A quibble: the sound, at least at the performance attended, is askew: some voices come through fuzzy and muddled, and almost everything is louder than it needs to be. At times, the raw and aching beauty of Larson's characters' souls threatened to be overwhelmed. The good news is: nothing can overwhelm them. Viva la vie boheme; viva Rent.

Well, it turns out that my subconscious mind likes Seussical a whole lot more than my conscious mind thought it did. It's been a week now since I saw Seussical, dear readers, and I've got to tell you that I'm glad that I didn't rush to put fingers to keyboard sooner. For although I can (and shortly will) enumerate numerous flaws, big and small, that make this show less than perfect, the truth is that Seussical's creativity, tunefulness, and sheer goodwill carry the day. Its bright spots linger happily in memory while the disappointing moments fade away. So maybe Rosie's right; and maybe Broadway does have a new hit family musical after all.

To begin, let me tell you what Seussical is about. The main story line concerns Horton, an elephant who one day hears voices coming from a speck of dust. He discovers that the speck contains the smallest planet in the universe, which is home to the tiny Whos. Though Horton is derided by other animals in the Jungle of Nool, he persists in believing in the Whos even though he cannot see them. Horton goes through various adventures, such as being sold to the Circus McGurkus and eventually going on trial before Judge Yertle the Turtle, before finally proving his innocence. Along the way, the animals in the Jungle come to understand, as Horton has always known, that "a person's a person, no matter how small."

Horton's love interest, so to speak, is Gertrude McFuzz, a sweet-natured bird who thinks, incorrectly of course, that she needs to get a big flashy tail in order to win Horton's heart. And meanwhile, the itty-bitty residents of Whoville are having some wild adventures of their own, including a visit from the now-benign Grinch and a scary war over which side of the bread gets buttered. Narrating the whole shebang is the Cat in the Hat, occasionally accompanied by a team of mischievous but useful helpers (though, disappointingly, not Thing 1 and Thing 2).

As you have probably figured out, denizens and story lines from a whole host of Dr. Seuss books are thrown into the blend in Seussical, mostly with good results. I think that the authors wind up painting themselves into a too-plot-heavy corner by the middle of Act Two, with the result that the show bogs down badly in its last twenty minutes or so; stylistically it goes kind of haywire as well.

But the rest of the time, things actually go as swimmingly as, well, the fish in McElligot's Pool (who, incidentally, are the featured attraction of Seussical's loveliest number, "It's Possible"). Stephen Flaherty is indisputably the hero of the evening, providing what is certainly the prettiest and most tuneful new score heard on Broadway in many a moon. Among the songs that will tantalize you for days after you see the show are "Biggest Blame Fool," an R&B-flavored number put over with gusto by Sharon Wilkins as Sour Kangaroo; "Alone in the Universe," a duet for Horton and Jojo, the littlest of the Whos; "How Lucky You Are," a peppy, slightly ironic song delivered by the Cat in the Hat and chorus; "Solla Sollew," a charmer about a utopian neverland; and of course the insistent and insouciant "Oh, The Thinks You Can Think!," which opens and closes Seussical, and will undoubtedly be echoed by the tiniest theatre patrons endlessly (or at least until parents buy the cast album CD).

That last observation is key, by the way: though some adults may be put off by some or all of Seussical, the small fry clearly love the show. After the performance I attended, I saw two little girls in one of the boxes happily mimicking the delightful Kathleen Marshall moves that accompany "Oh, The Thinks You Can Think!" and I heard another little fellow merrily humming along with the exit music. If you're planning to take the kids to any show on Broadway, friends, by all means let it be Seussical.

And then let yourself enjoy it. Delight in Eugene Lee's sets and Natasha Katz's lighting, both triumphs of primary-color artistry. Drink in the exotic and sometimes gawdy eccentricity of William Ivey Long's costumes. Smile at the witty Seussian rhythm of Lynn Ahrens's lyrics and Ahrens & Flaherty's book. Thrill to the best of Kathleen Marshall's choreography, executed skillfully by a trio of punk monkeys (David Engel, Tom Plotkin, and Eric Jordan Young) and an acrobatic eagle called Vlad Vladikoff (Darren Lee). And lose yourself, when you can, in the reverie of pure imagination when Seussical rises, as it does three or four times during Act One, to the level of honest-to-goodness wonderfulness.

(And try to grin and bear the problems with book, characterization, and flat direction that plague Act Two, as well as the consistently overmiked sound.)

The cast is pretty terrific, by the way. In addition to the aforementioned, let me now praise young Anthony Blair Hall, the singularly self-possessed young man who plays Jojo without an ounce of precocity, and Alice Playten, deliciously deadpan in the small role of Mrs. Mayor (of Whoville). Gleefully anarchic David Shiner is the Cat in the Hat as far as I'm concerned (though many don't share that opinion). But everyone agrees that Kevin Chamberlin, earnest and open-hearted and big-voiced as Horton the Elephant, is the invaluable center of Seussical.

So, there you have it--some of the Thinks that I Think about Seussical. No one's more surprised than me that I ended up writing this review. Give it a try.

Against the rear wall of the stage of the John Golden Theatre are lined up dozens of pairs of shoes. You'll swear, after Stones in His Pockets is over, that you've seen enough different people up there to fill each and every one of them.

But you will only actually have seen Conleth Hill and Sean Campion, who constitute the entire cast of Stones (and who, make no mistake, are about to become the toast of Broadway). They play Charlie and Jake, two Irish blokes working as extras on a big-budget movie. But they also portray--oh so vividly--such personages as Old Micky, the last surviving extra from The Quiet Man; Caroline Giovanni, the movie's leading lady; Simon, the assistant director in charge of the extras; Ashley, Simon's assistant; Clem, the movie's effete British-accented director; John, Caroline's dialect coach; Sean Harkin and his best friend Fenn (as young men and, in a flashback, small children); Caroline's bow-legged macho bodyguard; and several others.

Now here's the really good news about Stones in His Pockets: in addition to being a spectacular tour de force for Hill and Campion, it's also a fine, fine play. It's a portrait of two men who are down but emphatically not out, together finding comradeship and self-respect and hope, even as the collective weight of life in their depressed Irish town and the huge stifling apparatus of the Hollywood filmmaking machine conspire to strip them of their pride and dignity. Playwright Marie Jones has fashioned here a very funny satire of contemporary celebrity culture that also finds time to skewer movie industry stereotypes with panache and gusto; yet also ponders, with authentic profundity, the societal monoliths that produce that culture and those stereotypes. Stones in His Pockets is about the ways that life's nobodies like Charlie and Jake are connected, irrevocably and palpably, with the so-called somebodies. There's a good reason that Jake and Charlie "double" as both the hungry Irish locals and the overfed filmmaking foreigners in Jones's conceit: any of those shoes up there could just as well be on one foot as on another.

So I admire enormously Stones in His Pockets for having real depth instead of just a gimmick; there's heart here, as well as wit. But the wit is without a doubt the play's most noticeable feature: this is a very funny play. It's comprised of  vignettes from several days of shooting crowd scenes and the like, with the several "filmed sequences" all hilarious set pieces. The moment when Jake and Charlie attempt, unsuccessfully, to stifle their own laughter while impersonating impoverished eighteenth century Irish peasants is priceless. And the second act dance segment--a mini Riverdance, almost, performed miraculously by our two heroes all by themselves--is an emotional as well as comic highlight.

The "book" scenes, in which we eavesdrop on Jake's bizarre mini-affair with movie star Caroline Giovanni, are beautifully crafted and performed as well. Hill's total belief in himself as Caroline, particularly, is sublime--not a trace of irony or camp to be found in a comic turn of genuine genius. (Meanwhile watch Campion's perplexed reactions to the seductive Caroline: silent clowning of the highest order.)

Later, when we witness a tragedy and its aftermath--one that ultimately promises some kind of hopeful future for Charlie and Jake--we are touched and moved by the simplicity and truthfulness of Jones's writing and Campion and Hill's work.

Director Ian McElhinney, designer Jack Kirwan, and lighting designer James McFetridge must all be congratulated for work so perfect that we never notice it all. And the team of producers are to be thanked for giving the Broadway season a much-needed lift. Stones in His Pockets deserves to be a smash hit.

Oh, and don't miss the curtain call. It's absolutely delicious. 

As I write these words, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer has already posted its closing notice after a brief three-week Broadway run, so in a way what I have to say is pretty much beside the point. But I'll say it anyway: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is probably this season's least necessary failure: how do so many talented, capable artists go so badly astray?

Consider: here's a musical based on one of the most appealing and delightful stories in all of American literature--a story, not at all incidentally, that sings and dances all by itself. And indeed, Mark Twain's tale of young adventure-loving Tom Sawyer has been faithfully and effectively captured in Ken Ludwig's skillful libretto. But, after seeing the limp and lackluster mishmash of a musical that The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is, I can't help thinking that none of Ludwig's collaborators ever showed up for a production meeting.

Heidi Ettinger, renowned for her thrilling rendering of the mighty Mississippi in Big River some years ago, has provided a series of stylized set designs--Shaker-chic drops that comment coyly and wittily on the story. They're enchanting, and they have nothing to do with Ludwig's (and Twain's) book. Ditto Anthony Powell's weird Munchkinland costumes and Kenneth Posner's moody lighting.

Don Schiltz's score, meanwhile, is barely there at all. Most of it seems to consist of countrified song fragments, each perhaps sixteen bars long.  The most successful attempts at sustained musical storytelling--Aunt Polly's "This Time Tomorrow" and Judge Thatcher's "You Can't Can't Dance"--never achieve much in the way of momentum. And though Linda Purl and John Dossett (who play these two characters) have attractive singing voices, neither is particularly well-suited to the twangy gospel flavor of Schlitz's best stuff. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer winds up, oddly, as a musical comedy with very little music. And because director Scott Ellis emphasizes the story's dramatic moments, it's also a musical comedy with very little comedy.

This is problematic for David Marques, the choreographer, who finally has very little to do in a show that ought to dance at every turn. 

It's also problematic for old pros like Jane Connell (Widow Douglas) and Tom Aldredge (Muff) and new pros like Jim Poulos (a most appealing Huck Finn), none of whom ever gets the opportunity to really shine in roles they were born to play. Newcomers Joshua Park (Tom) and Kristen Bell (Becky) are less luminous in their larger roles; this is probably not, however, their fault.

Someone's firm hand--guiding designers and creators toward some common vision; ensuring that the invaluable talents of experienced actors and other personnel aren't squandered--was sorely needed. As it is, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer feels as carelessly cobbled together as a last minute book report.  

Charles Durning was out the night I attended Gore Vidal's The Best Man at the Virginia Theatre; in the play's showiest role as a plain-talking, Trumanesque former president, he undoubtedly has a field day (his understudy, Ed Dixon, certainly did). But even without Durning on hand there's plenty of talent to appreciate here: Elizabeth Ashley, for one, chewing the scenery with appropriate gusto as a ladylike Southern kingmaker, about as demure as a freight train; and Christine Ebersole, smart and foxy as the attractive wife of a presidential candidate who's nowhere near as dumb--or as harmless--as she pretends to be; and the invaluable Michael Learned, class personified as the opposing candidate's wife, the staunch, do-gooding spouse to a principled philanderer: Eleanor Roosevelt with good teeth.

Spalding Gray, who plays Learned's husband, and Chris Noth (Ebersole's), are less wonderful in their roles. But then, they're stuck with playing the candidates, and as anyone with a TV can tell you, nobody takes them seriously anymore. But Vidal certainly took his candidates seriously back in 1960 when he wrote The Best Man: he pitted a idealistic liberal with a sordid past against an unprincipled bully with, as it turns out, an even more sordid past, and let the two fight it out. There's never any doubt who's side he's on, and his good guy, Bill Russell (the Gray character) eventually sacrifices his own ambition for the good of the country.

Well, a lot has happened in America since 1960. As a result, The Best Man feels, at best, quaint in 2000--an elegant soap opera, like Dynasty with senators. The distance of time makes its roman a clef tendencies both attractive and confusing: Russell maps pretty clearly to Adlai Stevenson and his rival Joe Cantwell feels like Richard Nixon--but look again: a presidential candidate who has affairs with women (lots of them!) reminds us of John Kennedy, or Bill Clinton; and his tenacious, super-serious, squeaky clean rival sure feels at least a little like Al Gore.

No, politicians haven't changed much in forty years, but politics has: the political convention that is The Best Man's setting is about as far-removed from contemporary experience as a blacksmith shop. Cantwell and Russell are in a dead heat, for pete's sake, and the nomination is going to require multiple ballots. Each is in possession of a hot potato that he can use to try to hurt his opponent's chances (this being a time when negative campaigning was less than de rigueur, as well as--more to the point--a time when the media didn't dig up and publish every possible bit of muck about a candidate six months before the Iowa caucuses).

Food for thought; but what really interests me is what lies within The Best Man's heart. What values are being endorsed here? Scary ones, I think. Russell, the "good" candidate, doesn't seem like such a noble fellow to me: he's cheated on his wife rather wantonly for a long time, and has trotted her out following a long separation, purely for political reasons and despite her apparent reluctance to reconcile. His former boss the ex-President reminds us how he once undermined his authority on a serious diplomatic matter. And his final sacrifice (marytrdom?) feels dangerously elitist: how democratic is it, after all, to anoint an unknown candidate when the clear will of the majority is to nominate another man?

So I have to tell you, I had trouble liking The Best Man. Apart from those three ladies I mentioned earlier, few performances struck me as being better than competent (and one, Jonathan Hadary's whiny informer Sheldon Marcus, felt downright offensive). John Arnone's hotel suite setting confused me, with its skewed perspective pushing living room furniture into bedrooms; and Howell Binkley's overuse of the blinding flashbulb bit annoyed me (don't lighting designers ever sit in the audience and realize how hard this is on the eyes?).

The high-profile cast (not to mention the perennially famous author) will attract audiences to The Best Man. But, after the laughs die down for the jokes about presidential girlfriends sleeping in the White House, I wonder how much authentic resonance this leaden political thriller will generate.

The Dinner Party is so different from anything else Neil Simon has written that this at once becomes the most remarkable and noticeable thing about it. It also makes it difficult to write about, except in the negative: there are none of the trademark one-liners here, nor any of the gloriously grand comic set pieces; there's not a neurotic, wisecracking New Yorker in sight.

But what would I write if The Dinner Party were written by anyone else? That it's a melancholy, bittersweet comic drama; an articulate and enormously artificial play about regret and loss and paths not taken and opportunities missed. It's very much the work of a mature and seasoned writer--one who is sad and wise. It's ambitious and interesting though not necessarily satisfying or objectively good.

It's wrought in tiny, careful brushstrokes of subdued pastels, grays, and silvers. This is what sets it apart from the rest of the Simon canon: even his saddest plays, like Broadway Bound and Lost in Yonkers, explode with color and broad, bold characterization: nothing subtle about them. But The Dinner Party is studiedly--if not artfully--small: an intimate, thoughtful, poignant glimpse at six lonely men and women approaching middle age, stung too hard and too close by love that was unforgivingly unconditional. Simon surprises us terribly in this play, which by itself is noteworthy; how well he succeeds, though, I will leave for you to decide for yourself.

The premise of The Dinner Party is simple enough: six people have been invited, unbeknownst to one another, to dine in an elegant private room in an exclusive Parisian restaurant. They arrive one at a time, encountering each other in pairs and trios, until at last they start to detect the pattern that explains why they're there. It turns out that they are all divorced couples. They've been brought together to look backward--and forward--at their damaged relationships. Will--or perhaps more to the point, can--any or all of them reconcile?

A good deal of the pleasure of The Dinner Party is getting to know these very individual people, particularly because they've been cast so richly in this production. The first pair are Claude Pichon, a would-be novelist who runs an antique book business, and Mariette Levieux, the sophisticated novice writer who became a successful author under Claude's tutelage. Claude is played with equal parts bravado and vulnerability by a dapper John Ritter, while Mariette is played with cool detachment by elegant Jan Maxwell: hints of simmering passion are present with this duo, but a feeling of missed connection is perhaps stronger.

The second couple are Albert Donay, a dithery but very well-meaning fellow who runs a car rental agency, and Yvonne Fouchet, the indecisive, tremulously self-aware woman who married and divorced him twice. Henry Winkler, straying as far from his Fonzie image as it's possible to do, is spectacularly good as Albert, embodying the paradoxes of this sensitive and somehow sophisticated schlemiel with ease. Veanne Cox is gently quirky as Yvonne; this is a pairing to route for.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Andre Bouville, a ruthless entrepreneur whose contempt for the world is thoroughly undisguised. His ex-wife Gabrielle Buonocelli is the saddest of Simon's characters because she loves Andre so nakedly and unrequitedly; in Penny Fuller's hands she's gallant and heartbreaking. Len Cariou gets Andre's nastiness with deadly accuracy.

Watching and listening to this talented ensemble interact with one another is undeniably a treat: even The Best Man can't boast quite so stellar an ensemble as this one. The play itself, though, is something else again: there's a sense of strangeness, of distance, that's hard to get past.

But the poignancy, the sense of loss and regret: they're palpable here, achingly so. Dashed expectations, for the author and the audience, are what The Dinner Party may finally be about.

The musicals that I grew up with were generally of two types. First there were the musical comedies--joyously happy shows like Hello, Dolly! or Anything Goes--featuring star turns, glamorous sets and costumes, and glorious songs. And then there were the musical plays--Gypsy and West Side Story and Carousel and Follies and everything in between--in which music, lyrics, libretto, staging, choreography, and design all worked together to tell a dramatically compelling story.

I mention this to provide context for my reaction to The Full Monty, the new musical that looks very likely to become American Musical Theatre's next hit. I've noticed that critics are saying it's not innovative, but I disagree: The Full Monty, it seems to me, has very little in common with either of the traditional models I mentioned a moment ago. It's certainly entertaining, but there's not a whit of glamour or star quality about it; and while it tells a story, it lacks the organic fusion of elements of what used to be called the "integrated" musical. So what we're looking at here may well be the future of musical theatre.

I certainly hope not. To at last come to the point (sorry to keep you waiting): I'm very disappointed by The Full Monty. The music is hip but emotionally empty; the lyrics are either trite or ironically funny (and again, emotionally empty). The production values are skimpy: John Arnone has provided a big steel casing for his set, but he's put very little inside it; the most glamorous of Robert Morgan's costumes is a leather strip ensemble for a minor character. Jerry Mitchell's choreography is often interesting but it's never put in the service of the story--we get it only in the specialty numbers. The performances, with a few exceptions, are competent, but only that: where are the big personalities (and voices) that could really set the stage ablaze with excitement?

Which is not to say that The Full Monty doesn't have its moments. Indeed, the final quarter-hour, during which things move swiftly and deliberately toward the climactic will-they-or-won't-they finish, is a triumph of sheer momentum: not since the heyday of Gypsy Rose Lee has so much energy been expended to reveal (finally) so little. But the showmanship is real, and it pays off.

Earlier in the evening, Andre De Shields gets to strut his considerable loose-limbed stuff in a number called "Big Black Man," and Emily Skinner gives her all to sell a rather tepid song called "Life with Harold." Jason Danieley, who possesses the other really attractive voice among the ensemble, has a nice Act Two ballad in "You Walk With Me." And Romain Fruge is ingratiating and limber in the scene where his character auditions for the male strip act.

But, for me, large portions of The Full Monty are lackluster. Book and songs push forward the story without telling us very much about the people involved; without, indeed, making very much sense. This is a show where the funniest song lyrics describe different ways to kill yourself. More distressingly, this a show where the rampant homophobia of the central character is dismissed, in the middle of Act Two, by having him say "so what" when a pair of budding gay lovers hold hands in public. It's a show, in short, that for all its ability to amuse and divert an audience, has been crafted rather glibly and rather sloppily.

What is the raison d'etre for this show? Darned if I can figure it out. To the extent that The Full Monty is about delivering the goods its title promises, well, it doesn't: the guys take their g-strings off, but the two or three seconds that they're frontally nude on stage they're backlit in silhouette. And to the extent that The Full Monty is about six ordinary fellows who overcome depression and unemployment and low self-esteem by taking off their clothes in front of a thousand women, well--that's just darn silly, isn't it?

So I guess The Full Monty is solely concerned with giving the audience a heckuva good time. Nothing wrong with that; I just wish it did it with a little more brains and a little more heart. 

I'm nowhere near well-educated enough to fully appreciate The Invention of Love. This new play by Tom Stoppard may not be, objectively speaking, any more erudite than Michael Frayn's Copenhagen or Stoppard's own Arcadia; but the concepts of higher mathematics and physics that underlay those two works strike me as far more accessible than the allusions to classical Latin and Greek that pervade this one. I like a play to engage me and challenge me, but I get frustrated when big chunks of it whoosh over my head, uncomprehended.

Which is not to say that I didn't get anything out of The Invention of Love. On the contrary, I found quite a lot of interest: the play is amply dense and rich, perhaps too much so. Stoppard is examining here the nature of knowledge and self-knowledge. His hero, the poet and classical scholar A.E. Housman, is dead when The Invention of Love begins, traversing, as a classical scholar would, the River Styx, Charon wryly at the helm of his small boat. Along the way, he encounters his younger self, at what presumably was a critical juncture in his life, newly arrived at Oxford. The earnest 18-year-old Housman learns to love knowing for its own sake, but fails to know loving for its own sake. That's too pat, but it's close to Stoppard's central thesis: he depicts Housman in a lengthy, entirely one-sided love affair with fellow Oxford student Moses Jackson, one whose inevitable unsatisfactory outcome seems to transform Housman more or less directly into the asexual curmudgeonhood that his older self embodies.

In Act One, Stoppard tantalizes us with the raw beauty of pure knowledge. We meet professors and students who find real delight, nobility even, in contemplating a single miscopied letter of an ancient Greek or Latin text. But in Act Two, Stoppard weirdly trots out Oscar Wilde, of all people, to debunk their position. Stoppard's Wilde is presented--dead, by the way, chatting in Hades with Housman--as a kind of poster boy for the 20th century, declaiming a message that is disturbingly not too different from Auntie Mame's "life is a banquet" speech. Indeed, we may have abandoned the absolutism of the 19th century for more chaotic liberalism nowadays, but was Wilde really the catalyst?

Confusing issues still more are long scenes about the hypocrisy (not to say cruelty) of the London establishment that made sodomy illegal, apparently specifically to ensure Wilde's martyrdom. It's an interesting, if rather too detailed, digression; but seems to have little to do with Housman, who, as far as I can tell, has no sex life at all. There's a scene near the end when a colleague of his who does have sex with men tells him that the word "homosexual" has been coined to describe "us" and Housman protests only that the word is a "barbarity," being half-Greek and half-Latin. But apart from this back-handed acknowledgment, Housman's sexual identity seems shrouded in repression and/or denial; isn't his lack of self-knowledge supposed to be the point?

So The Invention of Love seems to me to trip over itself: I'm not, finally, at all certain what Stoppard is trying to tell us here. I don't think that Jack O'Brien's staging helps matters, by the way--it's rather ponderous and high-flown, organized around large, obviously symbolic set pieces (designed by Bob Crowley) that tend to muddle rather than clarify the play's themes.

Best to content ourselves, then, with the moments of crackling insight, of which there are many. Byron Jennings, as one of the Oxford dons from Housman's early days there, pretty much steals the show with a learned and fascinating discussion of the ways meaning gets distorted by translators down the ages. And David Harbour, as Housman's friend Moses Jackson, shares an interesting scene with Robert Sean Leonard (the young Housman) discussing a theatrical appearance by Oscar Wilde (Jackson, a student of science, is most impressed by the electric lighting system). Other exchanges, on various eclectic topics, keep us engaged and eager for more; but what should be the climactic scene, in which Housman clumsily confesses his feelings for Jackson, falls utterly flat--the emotional resonance that buttressed all the erudition in Arcadia is just absent here.

Leonard turns in the expected accomplished performance as young Housman; he truly is becoming one of our most reliable stage actors. Richard Easton is fine as the dead Housman, journeying down the Styx, though except for a long, somewhat anticlimactic speech at the end of the play, he has little to do. Able support is provided by Jeff Weiss as Charon, Martin Rayner as Walter Pater and Frank Harris, and Daniel Davis, unnuanced but entertaining as Wilde.

You can expect to have a reasonably enjoyable time if you decide to see the Roundabout Theatre's revival of The Man Who Came to Dinner. You'll get to see the lush new AmericanAirlines Theatre, for which this is the inaugural production; and it's worth seeing, from its attractively and smartly appointed lobby to its roomy yet intimate auditorium. You'll get to see Nathan Lane, who is one of the very few actors nowadays who can stake a legitimate claim at being a Theatre Star; doing what he does best, which is to say making an audience laugh. You'll be entertained by the wildly eccentric characters dreamed up by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's in the service of this well-crafted farce, and you'll be delighted by  many of their zesty one-liners. And you'll get to witness a genuine masterpiece of a comic performance in Lewis J. Stadlen's third act turn as Banjo, a Kaufman & Hart creation combining the zaniest qualities of each of the three Marx Brothers.

So, yes, there's diversion and real pleasure to be had at The Man Who Came to Dinner. The plot centers on Sheridan Whiteside (played by Nathan Lane), a roguish baby of a man whose ego is exceeded only by his unflappable self-assurance. Whiteside, modeled on the famous columnist-radio commentator Alexander Woollcott, finds himself trapped against his will in the home of Ernest and Daisy Stanley, a Babbitt-y middle-class Ohio family, when he slips on some ice and fractures his hip. The bombastic Whiteside takes over the household, banishing his host and hostess to their upstairs bedrooms and interfering in the affairs of their servants and their children. He also plays host himself to a stream of exotic guests from all over the world, most notably theatrical wonderboy Beverly Carlton, glamourpuss Lorraine Sheldon, and the aforementioned Banjo. He orders his doctor around shamelessly, abuses his long-suffering nurse Miss Preen, and strives mightily to break up the romance between his sensible secretary, Maggie Cutler, and a local newspaperman named Bert Jefferson. He's the original sacred monster, and we love him for his excess. And of course--with resort to the occasional blackmail--he manages to put everything right before the play's satisfying and hilarious conclusion.

With its melange of glittery wackos and endlessly witty repartee, The Man Who Came to Dinner is one of the funniest plays I know of. Indeed, I found myself laughing--very frequently--about five seconds before the punchlines. Whether a loony professor is waxing poetic about the joys of Cockroach City, or a trio of delivery men are bringing in a crate filled with live penguins (a gift from Admiral Byrd), or Whiteside and Banjo are gleefully considering a way to rid themselves of the meddling Lorraine, the level of silliness is unfailingly wonderful.

All that said, though, I have to admit to feeling more than a tinge of disappointment in this production. The role of Sheridan Whiteside is not a comfortable fit for the estimable Mr. Lane: he's too ingratiating a crowd-pleaser (and about two decades too young) to really inhabit the part. But Lane nevertheless is giving one of the most accomplished performances in this production; miscasting is a serious problem here, in several key roles. Harriet Harris, very funny as Frasier's agent on TV, is too old to be convincing as Maggie, transforming her from the bright young thing she ought to be to a vaguely bitter, Sally Rogers-ish spinster. (This is particularly evident given the bouyant, likeable, eminently youthful Bert Jefferson of Hank Stratton.)

Terry Beaver is too gentle a spirit to convince us of Mr. Stanley's general insufferableness; Mary Catherine Wright too much a cipher to bring Miss Preen into focus; Bryan Jennings too flat and bland to capture the Noel Coward-esque effervescence of Beverly Carlton. Jean Smart is fitfully good as Lorraine: she's superb in showing us the much-alluded-to Kansas City background of this climbing actress, but she falters badly in trying to capture the easy glamour and sophistication of the Broadway star that Lorraine also is. Mary Catherine Garrison, in the play's most misconceived performance, is unpleasantly petulant and pouty as the Stanleys' spunky daughter June.

But there are bright spots: Stadlen, first and foremost, who reminds us not only of Groucho, Chico, and Harpo, but also Jimmy Durante with his anarchic goodwill and energy: the stage lights up with happy chaos when he sweeps the unsuspecting Miss Preen off her feet or indulges in some hoary but time-honored shtick, with or without Lane's Whiteside. Kudos, too, to Ruby Holbrook for her appropriately Twilight Zone-y Harriet Stanley; William Duell for his pleasantly addled Dr. Bradley; and Zach Shaffer for his earnest and sincere Richard (the Stanleys' son).

Tony Walton's set is lovely though rather too opulent, I think; William Ivey Long's costumes are surprisingly unattractive and uninteresting (particularly an unflattering black gown for Miss Smart that the real Lorraine wouldn't have been caught dead in). Jerry Zaks's direction feels half-hearted a lot of the time; the second act, in particular, drags badly. I have a theory about this: The Man Who Came to Dinner is an old play (it was written in 1939), and a very topical one: most of the jokes are dated, virtually indecipherable by a Y2K audience. Laughter begets laughter: when once-riotous dialogue registers nary a chortle, the whole rhythm of the piece is severely damaged.  Why does the Roundabout insist on recycling old material that probably can't withstand the recycling?

Well, I saw The Producers last night, and I'm still glowing this afternoon.

Whatever you've heard about this show is true, probably: The Producers is, indeed, the most entertaining new musical to reach Broadway in a long, long time. On behalf of ecstatic audiences everywhere, I have to say that we deserve it. Grateful hugs and kisses (at least virtual ones) are in order, for all the talented people who made this show happen: Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Gary Beach, Brad Oscar, Cady Huffman, Roger Bart and the rest of the terrific company; Susan Stroman; designers Robin Wagner, William Ivey Long, Peter Kaczorowski, and their collaborators and colleagues; music director Patrick S. Brady; co-librettist Thomas Meehan; and of course Mel Brooks.

Especially Mel Brooks. It was, of course, his 1968 film that introduced The Producers to the world; his still-unbeatable comic idea of staging the worst show ever written—a "gay romp with Adolph and Eva" called "Springtime for Hitler"—remains the indispensable center of this comic fable about a down-on-his-luck producer named Max Bialystock who teams with a nebbishy accountant named Leo Bloom to scam a pack of little old ladies out of two million dollars. Brooks's stamp is everywhere in this show: extravagantly effete Carmen Ghia tells Bialystock and Bloom to "walk this way"—and they do; unrepentant Nazi Franz Liebkind launches into a tirade of protest when he senses danger ("Ve didn't even know there vas a war. Ve lived in ze back."). Zany, outrageous, outlandish, over-the-top—none of these words begin to describe the nonstop hilarity and really broad satire that The Producers is. Everything that made American musical comedy (and vaudeville, and burlesque) great—slapstick, corny jokes, beautiful chorus girls, Borscht Belt shtick, ethnic jokes poking fun at every imaginable constituency, more beautiful chorus girls, unsubtle dirty jokes, hummable melodies, vigorous tap dancing, opulent and entirely unmotivated musical numbers, and some more beautiful chorus girls—it's all here, unabashed, the way that Brooks has celebrated it throughout his career. We just never thought we'd actually get to see it on stage.

That last thought is precisely what went through my mind a couple of times during the show's flawless second act. (Those unfamiliar with the film may not get these next few references; sorry.) Near its beginning, we hear the sound of the familiar Chorus Line audition vamp being pounded on a rehearsal piano; and then the line of Dancing Hitlers appears on stage: now that's funny.  The scene ends with Bialystock's famous declaration "That's our Hitler!" (a different one than you'll expect, by the way); and then after a scene and song that are just the right amount too long, at last the suspense is over. The "Springtime for Hitler" show curtain descends, the chorus line of jolly singing Germans appears, and then the curtain goes up, the SS Lead Tenor is center stage singing "Springtime for Hitler and Germany" and the parade of Nazi beauties starts down the staircase. And you think: I never thought I'd ever really see this musical number on stage. And the audience roars, and keeps roaring. And you're thrilled, and awash in laughter (in part because the costumes and choreography are genuinely hilarious). And The Producers is utterly and absolutely home free.

Most of the famous sequences from the film, like the one just described, are repeated here. But this is a wholly reconceived piece. Leo Bloom gets a delightful production number in Act One called "I Wanna Be A Producer"  featuring luscious chorines popping out of file cabinets; and he gets a love interest in the sexy Swedish secretary Ulla, with whom he shares a blissful duet called "That Face." Max Bialystock gets a lavish opening song bemoaning his diminished status ironically called "The King of Broadway," and an eleven o'clock song of the sort they haven't written in 30 or 40 years called  "Betrayed." Swishy director Roger De Bris and his assistant Carmen Ghia get an ostentatious musical number called "Keep It Gay" that eventually includes what appears to be the remnants of the disco-era group The Village People. Liebkind gets two hysterically funny faux-German songs reminiscent of the foolishness that Brooks used to write for Sid Caesar. There's even a new song written just for the curtain calls.

It's all been directed with joyful zest by Susan Stroman, who wisely takes not one second of the proceedings a bit seriously. Her choreography hits exactly the right note of excitingly tacky tastelessness without ever becoming coarse or vulgar. The design team has done superlative work, but I have to give special mention to William Ivey Long, whose glorious and outrageous costumes make him one of the show's stars. Whether it's a chorus girl dressed in a gauzy creation celebrating the German wiener, or a butch lady lighting designer whose belt is an enormous electrical wire, Long has come up with an outfit that says "laugh." (He's provided some more traditionally glamorous togs, as well; the fashion parade here is honestly eye-popping.)

And then there's the cast. The show's creators and producers have collected a virtuoso bunch of comic actors. Top banana Nathan Lane (Bialystock) is ferocious and lovable and sneaky all at once, and he's got the show-stopper of his career with the aforementioned "Betrayed." Sidekick Matthew Broderick (Bloom) proves once again that he can do just about everything, clowning and singing and dancing with effortless ease. Cady Huffman somehow manages to make the sexy secretary Ulla into the most centered person in the show, and still finds time to perform a couple of tempestuous dances (not to mention repainting the set—and no, I'm not going to explain what I mean by that.) Gary Beach is deliciously over-the-top as uber-queen Roger De Bris, and Roger Bart is equally memorable in the smaller role of "assistant" Carmen Ghia. Brad Oscar is hilarious as Liebkind, particularly when shaking the rafters in a mad rendition of that old Bavarian favorite "Haben Sie Gehoert Das Deutsche Band?" Kathy Fitzgerald, Peter Marinos, Jeffrey Denman, and Ray Wills are terrific in a variety of smaller roles (the latter three are priceless as a trio of hapless actors auditioning for the role of Hitler).

Tickets to The Producers are going to be hard to come by for a while, but don't worry—as someone says about Bialystock & Bloom's flop-gone-right "Springtime for Hitler," this show is going to run for years. For once the hype isn't misplaced; hooray for Broadway's newest hit.

The only question, ultimately, is this: will the legions of fans who kept The Rocky Horror Picture Show alive for twenty-five years in movie theatres plunk down the extra coin to experience a live version of their midnight cult ritual?

The fate of The Rocky Horror Show on Broadway will be determined by the answer to that question. For even to us virgins--i.e., people who haven't yet undergone the Rocky Horror experience--the show surrounding the show is the show: how much fun would we be having without Dick Cavett's sly, self-referential narration; David Rockwell's chic, playful, faux-low-tech set; and--especially--the stalwart anointed ones who sing along with every lyric, call out irreverent and/or witty rejoinders to key lines of dialogue, and happily break into an impromptu rendition of the "Time Warp" in the aisles on cue?

I suspect that the answer to that question is: not that much fun at all. It's hard to intuit what Rocky Horror must have felt like back in 1973, when it premiered in London. Hair was recent history; a rock sci-fi musical about a transvestite hedonist and his scantily-clad creation must have seemed rather daring and shocking. It's difficult to say, in retrospect, whether the high camp quotient was already there or if it got infused with time and clever marketing; which is a polite way of saying that it's hard for me to figure out whether Rocky Horror's second-rate-ness betokens prescient satire or authentic mediocrity.

In any case, the foolish kitschy corniness is the point in 2000. The score, pumped up to full amplification and reasonably well-performed, hardly ranks as classic stuff; the book, blending sophomoric ambisexual shenanigans with over-the-top B-movie parody, is fitfully funny but also disappointingly flat for long stretches. Which, as I say, is the point: if The Rocky Horror Show were actually good, who'd want to laugh at it?

Which, paradoxically, means that The Rocky Horror Show is good, if good means that it delivers the good time that its audience expects. Particularly in its first half, a sufficient number of surprises and a palpable feeling of goodwill make for a highly entertaining experience; and even if Act Two does drag a bit, it's hard to leave the theatre feeling grumpy or dissatisfied. I can quibble that the necessary felicity to the film means that a talented company is mostly doing the theatrical equivalent of slumming: we know that Kevin Cahoon (Hedwig) and Aiko Nakasone (Rent) and Jonathan Sharp (Carousel) are dynamic performers, but there's no way to tell here. I can complain that Alice Ripley's topless nanosecond is demeaning and gratuitous. I can express concern that Lea DeLaria's screaming in "Hot Patootie" seems likely to damage her vocal chords. But in the end, these constructively intended criticisms probably carry little weight: all the aforementioned, and all of their colleagues, are doing exactly what they should to make the spectacle that is Broadway's Rocky Horror Show work.

(Allow me to pause long enough to tell you that Tom Hewitt, in the glitzy role of Frank-n-Furter, absolutely does have license to make as much of his material as he can--and he deservedly steals the show as a result. Ditto Dick Cavett, basking in the limelight with wit and cheer. Kudos to both.)

The success of The Rocky Horror Show will be measured not in artistic terms but economic ones. If fans turn out to be unwilling to spend up to $79.50 to see their favorite midnight movie in person, this revival will go down as an interesting footnote to the history of late 20th century popular culture. But if fans support the show and make it a hit, Rocky Horror could become a must-see tourist attraction, like Las Vegas, or Cats. I say: more power to it.

"All my life I've always wanted to be somebody. But I see now I should have been more specific."

"I have gained and lost the same ten pounds so many times over and over again my cellulite must have deja vu."

"I am sick of being the victims of trends I reflect but don't even understand."

"No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up."

That last one, especially, seems remarkably prescient for 1985: as the Me Generation gave way to post-everything America at the end of the millennium, the cautionary sagacity of The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life got burnished into our collective consciousness. So it's good to have it back, for a reconsideration, at this particular moment. Here's an artifice of popular culture that has transcended into art. From the audience, we can look back--all the way to the sixties, when Lily Tomlin was quietly subverting monoliths as Ernestine the Operator; and we can look forward--with hope and humanity.

At the center of it all is, of course, Tomlin's miraculous performance in this piece. Itself the standard by which all solo performers from Whoopi Goldberg to Eric Bogosian to Danny Hoch must and should aspire, this is acting of the highest order. What Tomlin does in this show is a tour de force, conjuring character and place with vivid clarity without changing costume or makeup. She's not just merely believable as each of the dozen people she creates here, though: she inhabits them--breathes such life in them, in fact, that they become prototypes: signposts of our lives and times: a veritable gallery of humanity.

Indeed, the very conceit of The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life is that  aliens from another world have latched onto the eccentric but very in-tune bag lady Trudy to try to learn something about life here on Earth. The astonishing thing is that the conceit really works: it's not a gimmick, it's the foundation of a play of near-epic reach. Trudy channels for them a sampling of Earthlings: an alienated teenager who calls herself Agnus Angst, an upwardly mobile yuppie named Chrissy, two Manhattan hookers called Brandy and Tina. And what unfolds, for the aliens and the audience, is an organic journey into the hearts and souls of these and several other lives, randomly and inextricably linked. As the play nears its wondrous conclusion, what feel at first like half-a-dozen disparate one-act plays merge into a seamless and inevitable whole.

You won't forget the long, touching saga of Lyn, Edie, and Marge, three women who become friends at the height of the feminist movement of the late sixties; nor are you likely ever to look at a can of Campbell's soup (or an Andy Warhol painting) in quite the same way after you've seen Trudy explain them to her alien friends. And it's just possible that, after you experience the extraordinary ending of The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, you will have a renewed appreciation for the very idea of theatre. Tomlin and Wagner achieve connection to their audience in a visceral, wonderful way. A playwright friend of mine told me he could never imagine writing an ending as good as this one, and, with due respect to his talent, he's probably right.

Tomlin, who is past sixty but defies any regular notion of age, has extended the run of The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life for several weeks already, and if we're lucky she'll agree to go on for many more. Anybody who loves theatre should see this show and this performer--it's genuinely one of those special events that only happens a few times in a decade. 

I enjoyed my second visit to The Tale of the Allergist's Wife far more than I did my initial encounter with this play about two years ago. That's largely because my expectations were already managed: this long-running play by Charles Busch is unadulterated situation comedy, with all the broad good humor and shallow foolishness that that implies. The current stars, TV sitcom veterans Rhea Perlman ("Cheers"), Marilu Henner ("Taxi," "Evening Shade") and Richard Kind ("Mad About You," "Spin City") fit the style of the piece far more comfortably than their predecessors (respectively, Linda Lavin, Michele Lee, and Tony Roberts). The show feels lighter than before—less weighty and less substantial—which in this case is a good thing. I still won't count myself as a fan of The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, but heck, it's fun: this sort of thing—the dopey sex comedy—was a staple on Broadway even as late as the sixties.

The story revolves around Marjorie Taub, the allergist's wife of the title, who, when we first meet her, is deep in a midlife crisis. Her children are grown and have moved away, her husband has retired and now spends much of his time at a free clinic that he founded, and—possibly most disturbing—her therapist has just died. Possessed of an obsessively questing and curious intellect, she suffers from, as she says, "perdu." Her life lacks meaning, direction, and purpose. Her husband Ira, who though amiably neglectful is genuinely in love with his wife, is getting worried. In her way, so is Marjorie's combative mother Frieda, at least when she stops thinking about her bowels long enough to reflect on her daughter's situation.

Everything changes, however, when Lee Green steps into Marjorie's life. Lee turns up unannounced and entirely by accident on Marjorie's doorstep one morning and her life is filled with everything Marjorie misses in her own. She's self-confident, adventurous, and independent; she's been everywhere and seems to have known everyone from Pat Nixon to Andy Warhol.

Well, it turns out that Lee is really Lillian Greenwald from Marjorie's old Bronx neighborhood; the two were best friends as children. Lillian had moved away when she was twelve years old; now, about forty years later, Lee and Marjorie are reunited and quickly renew their close relationship. Soon, Marjorie is back at museums and gallery openings and experimental theatre (such as a four-hour all-male Oresteia from Ireland at the Brooklyn Academy of Music). And Lee becomes a fixture in the Taub household, moving in for an indeterminate stay and charming Ira and even the dour Frieda.

And then, just as suddenly, Lee turns treacherous. She makes the moves on Ira—and Marjorie!—and she cons Frieda into contributing five thousand dollars to the shadowy political organization for which she works as a fundraiser. Will the Taubs be able to restore their world, which Lee has turned upside down, back to normal?

Have no fear; they will. I find The Tale of the Allergist's Wife to be terribly flawed because the events I've just described feel entirely unmotivated, and the ending, which is satisfying in its way, is equally sketchy and tacked-on. Busch seems to want us to believe that Lee is some sort of Mary Poppins for middle-aged Jewish ladies, restoring them to their Mahler concerts and Lincoln Center openings when hope gives out. As if that were actually valuable. As if that actually made any sense.

Sense is the least of it, I'm afraid. But Busch writes funny dialogue and he puts his characters into outrageous, farcical situations that make us smile and giggle. In Kind and Henner, especially, he has actors who are adept at playing the broad, outsized cartoons that the work demands; Perlman, too, has moments, especially when she's yelling at her mother, that remind us of Carla the waitress, the "Cheers" character for which she won four Emmy Awards. Chevi Colton and Charles Daniel Sandoval strike the right tone, too, as Frieda and an Iraqi doorman named Mohammed.

Too often, for my taste at least, Busch resorts to cheap vulgarity to win laughs: Frieda, in particular, is written as a foul-mouthed version of Sophia from "The Golden Girls," saying lines that my late grandmother, may she rest in peace, would never have thought, let alone said out loud.

It would be nice if Busch would write a play that was about real people with real problems; he clearly has the talent and intelligence to do so. But in the present instance, he has not, and there's not really anything wrong with that. The Tale of the Allergist's Wife is a guilty pleasure (albeit an expensive one at Broadway prices) that a lot of people seem to enjoy.