Chris Jones — Theater Critic

I can’t, in all honesty, say that this cut-down tour, notwithstanding an excellent ensemble of actors, comes close to re-creating the huge production values of its New York origins. We are alas past the days when producers like Cameron Mackintosh would pride themselves on exact touring replications of London and Gotham spectacles. But it suffices. Just. Those around me certainly had a good time with Jake David Smith’s brooding Jay and Senzel Ahmady’s rather invulnerable Daisy, not that I saw many sparks of passion between the two of them. I saw more in the row in front. Good for them.

“The Lost Boys” certainly is superior to the notorious “Dance of the Vampires,” which I remember seeing at the Minskoff in 2002, not to mention Elton John’s “Lestat,” in this very theater. Beyond that, non-phantom, non-Dracula vampires aren’t terribly over-exposed in the Broadway genre.

Allen’s production starts gently, as does the play, and it honors the other side of Wilson, which is to write about how Black people found spaces, even in 1911, for humor and community with each other. That’s manifest fabulously well here by Cedric and Santiago-Hudson, with Boyd and Wureh exploring the fate of young women adrift in this landscape and relying on men for an anchor, a rooting that too often proved elusive.

Pinkleton, so masterful with “Oh, Mary!,” just didn’t catch the right vocabulary for “Rocky Horror,” a deceptively tough assignment on a show popping up again to remind us of just how easily people were shocked in the 1970s. O’Brien’s cultural legacy is not as trivial as you might think.

In terms of score and book and mostly digitized set design from James Noone, “Beaches” certainly makes no formative or stylistic waves, and the show feels, at times, like everyone involved here just wanted to be finished and done and get out of all of this in one piece, with a tour and licensing to come. The score is serviceable, with a recurring song called “My Best” (as in friend) its best number.

Clearly, we’re in a moment in the American theater when, after years of caution, writers finally are beginning to find the courage to expose the hypocrisy of our newly sensitive language, tiptoeing toward reminding us that the mercenary, Edward Albee-like characters of the previous generation are still very much with us, only better schooled in progressive buzz words like “holding space” or “I see you.” People desperately holding onto power, or trying to acquire it while pretending otherwise, are a time-honored structure for tragedy and comedy. And even if credible veracity comes and goes, Lindsay-Abaire mines them for plenty of laughs. Including a couple of total howlers.

For those starved of Apple TV (the pour souls also missing “Ted Lasso”), “Schmigadoon,” is a TV series that basically smashed up the plot of “Am American Werewolf in London” with the book to the 1947 Broadway musical “Brigadoon,” best known for its stellar score (“Almost Like Being in Love”) and insanely improbable book, even by the standards of so-called Golden Age musicals. Therein, a contemporary couple, Josh and Melissa, both doctors, try to repair their relationship by going backpacking. As one does.

Not since the glory days of Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley in “Absolutely Fabulous” has there been a funnier pair of women playing drunk as one currently finds at the Todd Haimes Theatre on Broadway.

“Proof” is one of the best American dramas to emerge in the last decade of the 20th century, a script ripe for revival not least for how beautifully it focuses on a little family of imperfect humans, all loving each other in their own flawed ways and better able to deal with monumental thoughts than the thornier challenges of just getting out of bed when grief has overtaken you. It’s a lovely Chicago play, brought thrillingly back to Broadway life.

Ferrentino gave her play the structure of twin narrators, essentially telling the story of two lives from two perspectives, even as she also tries to broaden it all out so this story can represent all of the wrongly convicted on death row and those who love them. That burden, along with the conventions of the true-crime genre, not to mention that of theater in service of a political point, sometimes hampers the interpretive space of the actors and the creative team, who have to spend a lot of their time getting the facts and the history across. The scenes typically are brief and monologic, making it harder to build momentum. And I suspect Brody was worrying a bit too much about being true to Yarris himself.

But as intellectual property goes, never count out our endless fascination with the Titanic, which was the origin story of this show, set in a Titanic museum, presumably the real one in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, where I once dipped my fingers in a tank demonstrating the frigidity of the water that night in the North Atlantic. Nothing chilly for the digits here. Not with Mindelle fending off the ghosts with “I’m Alive!,” clearly a plea for Dion’s immortality.

And as played by Nathan Lane and John Drea in Joe Mantello’s exquisitely directed Broadway revival, which has several Steppenwolf Theatre influences, it will sock you in the gut. Sure did me. And I’ve seen this play countless times. Then again, when you get close to Willy’s age, you also start to see this play differently. Very, very differently.

They’re unleashing quite the Broadway bacchanal in a space that provides a warmer and, surprisingly, far more intimate setting for their Jellicle Ball, now amped up, tuned up and ready to give queer ballroom fans their summer in the sun. At the same time, though, this wildly entertaining show is skillfully and inclusively calibrated to offer Mr. and Ms. America a just-edgy-enough experience while sweetly comforting them with every last note of those catchy Lloyd Webber tunes from, gulp, 45 years ago.

But this nuanced and funny American play — underrated until now — does illuminate the corrosive power of very needy people and their ability to take down others to fill their own voids. It struck me as an interesting choice for a first date in that it should spark immediate conversation as to whether either party wants a second one.

Make no mistake, Bernthal is spirited, lively and quite effective, And although Moss-Bachrach seemed to me to be playing pretty much the same character as he does on “The Bear,” his sardonic introversion is always intriguing to watch, not least because he is so good at suggesting that momentous personal stakes are in play with every minor moment. Jessica Hecht, playing one of the hostages, adds her typically off-beat depth, and I was most amused by John Ortiz as the FBI agent with the standard G-man voice and personality to match.

What we have here is, in essence, a furiously verbose debate play revolving around two very prescient questions. One is the degree to which criticism of the actions or the existence of the State of Israel inevitably slides into antisemitism, a debate that rages daily on the pages of this and other newspapers. The other is the extent to which the work of a great artist should be judged, admired or published without regard to their personal views. We still argue over that, too.

When you think of all the questionable celebrity casting to be found on Broadway, the choice of Radcliffe for this piece really stands apart. That’s not just reflective of his ticket-moving celebrity and engagingly vulnerable stage presence, although both of those things are true.

The touring cast certainly lives up to all the requirements of the piece, from their macho good looks to their inner sensitivity (or so it seems) to the quality of their voices. I suspect many in the audience will have different favorites, but Nolan White is an especially fine Ponyboy Curtis and Bonale Fambrini a most appealing Johnny Cade. If you know the book, you’ll know that Sodapop Curtis, as selfless as the day is long, is the moral conscience of the story, the one who tells the others what actions matter the most and although Corbin Drew Ross does not get to throw himself around the stage as vividly and dramatic as many of his colleagues, he captures what I think mattered most to Hinton when she wrote this story, and also what matters most to this show.

The scariest change, though, is that in an America where guardrails have fallen, tech-sector parasites run amok in our hands and heads, and trust in government is close to nonexistent, what seemed totally implausible in 1996 now feels like reasonable societal comment. At one point, there is worry about whether one of the characters is some kind of robot. Thirty years ago, I vividly recall laughing that off as a device of plotting and one of Letts’ signature, genre-driven games with many more yet to come. This time around? Not at all. Felt perfectly plausible.

Isaiah Bailey is a moving “Phantom,” fully able to inhabit the, well, operatic requirements of the role while offering some gentleness at the same time and Jordan Lee Gilbert’s more accessible Christine is no pushover, even as Gilbert beautifully hits all comers and goers within the part’s famous vocal range. Midori Marsh adds an uncommon note or two of humanity to the trampled-upon role of Carlotta.

Nixon’s Tess is vulnerable enough for you to sense the fear in her eyes, but this is an actress with a steely core and, indeed, Nixon turns on a dime when her character realizes, as I think many of us have or will, that this brave new world is short on both guardrails and moral principles. Burstein is equally effective as husband Jon, his warm eyes dancing with empathy, although we are not always so sure about that, given his programming skills. “Am I supposed not to notice she is being nicer to that thing than me?” Tess snaps at one point, bringing up another salient A.I. issue.

Stories with odd couples on the edge of Eros, so to speak, can be very effective (see the movie “Lost in Translation” or the musical “The Band’s Visit“) but if writers choose to have their couple get naked and hit the sheets, in this case at the Plaza Hotel, since we’re all about New York aspiration here, they struggle to know where to go. So while this show held me for Act One with its considerable charm, by Act Two, it was hitting turbulence. 90 minutes and out would have been a better plan.

Diaz and Keys were also smart enough to know that the show couldn’t all rest on that one character, given her age, and, unlike many jukebox shows, they spread out the music over a broader range of performers. In the case of this tour, this clearly attracted middle-career singers to these roles. Kennedy, a recording artist in her own right, just kills it, like really kills it, on “Pawn it All,” and the silky-smooth sounds of Ellington, a “Hamilton” alum, sent the woman across the aisle from me into convulsions of pleasure during his several numbers. Which is kind of the point of the character.

And, as one always obsessed by the road not travelled, I enjoyed those themes, too. “This World of Tomorrow” clearly wants to avoid sentimentality but let’s be real. It trafficks in nostalgia, not least because there is so much now not to like.

This is the Broadway show of the fall that some will claim to dislike and yet most everyone will enjoy, even if that has to be in secret. Happily, that’s a match for one of the main themes of a 1980s musical that always saw geopolitics, even the dangers of nuclear proliferation, as games played by those who enjoyed the strategizing.