Joe Dziemianowicz — Theater Critic

Author Adam Bock takes a similar playful and mischievous approach in this work, in which ambiguity and complicity are just facts of life. Over and done in 80 minutes, the play is slight in scope, yet slyly and carefully crafted. It seeks to make your brain buzz about the world and, importantly, your interconnected place in it. It gets the job done.

As scripted, the two women are dramatically lopsided. Cee Cee is far more dynamic, and Vosk gamely and aptly pours forth enough brass to fill a horn section and enlists her mighty belt. As the passive Bertie, who forgoes law school because of a guy in this version, Barrett brings vulnerability and an endearing quality to her songs and scenes. As co-directed by Lonny Price and Matt Cowart, the production moves in fits and starts between periodic blackouts. You’d expect a show called Beaches to have more flow and fluidity — and hope it would make a bigger splash.

It’s altogether a pleasure to watch the play unfold, as it makes room for hope. Mathematicians seek to eliminate ambiguity, but life’s not like that. But there are zero debates about the cast stepping up. As Claire, Young, a four-time Tony nominee who’s won for Purlie Victorious and Purpose, hits all her notes as the acerbic and bossy but loving sister. Ha brings heaps of dorky appeal as Hal, who’s drawn to Catherine — and to a shot at advancing his career. Cheadle fills the addled dad with heart and raw vulnerability.

There are exceptions: An arresting moment comes when two inmates use music to express their love and rebel against the brutalizing prison system, and a final scene with Nick succeeds at tugging the heartstrings. Too often, however, the play leans into gravity-sapping laugh lines. Case in point: Nick calling a cop’s false testimony an Oscar-worthy performance — “Fuckin’ Daniel Day-Lewis over here” — is a needless knee-slapper.

Bernthal ably anchors the production. With just a slight trace of Pacino’s cadence and voice, he’s alternately intense and likable. Moss-Bachrach is convincing as a depressed loose cannon. Jessica Hecht, per usual, lends fine support as head teller Colleen, who, in a twist to an iconic scene from the movie, instructs Sonny to scream “Attica!”

Through it all, two-time Tony Award winner Lithgow ascends in a calculated performance. He’s charming, chilling, snarling, and reprehensible until he finally, intentionally, digs himself a into a deeper hole in a phone interview. Reveling in his true self, Lithgow’s Dahl looks like a kid contentedly sucking an Everlasting Gobstopper.

The onstage conductor is, of course, Slater, who’s known as a SpongeBob SquarePants Tony Award nominee and Boq in the Wicked movies. With expressive eyes and liquid limbs, he embodies his role with physical and emotional chops alike. He summons our full attention whether speaking or deftly going through the motions.

Thematically, however, the play is too diffuse for its own good. Over its 75 minutes, it skims over juicy ideas about identity, creativity, desire (“I Wish You’d Wanted Me,” a fictional song from a show Elliott wrote, is a recurring motif), rejection, isolation, and friendship without diving deep.

Amid crafty scenic metamorphoses, blood, violence, and pyrotechnics, the show’s most special effects are performances by Coon and Smallwood. They’ve etched their forsaken characters with impressive ache and intensity that sets off sparks as bright as any bug zapper.

But for all its clairvoyance and foresight about technology, Marjorie Prime’s most potent superpowers are its sensitivity and tenderness. Harrison’s spare, gently gripping script is a model of eloquent economy as the characters grapple with grief and what it means to truly love and remember someone.

Listen up for the word “syzygy” in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. It’s defined as an out-of-this-world alignment. Off Broadway at New World Stages, all the elements have stacked up splendidly in a revival of the show that arrives 20 years after the Broadway premiere and captures every drop of the original charm. The endearing misfit characters, upbeat and thoughtful songs, and consistently laugh-out-loud humor add up to pure joy.

As delicious as warm, buttery brioche is the feeling of savoring a blue-ribbon musical. That’s the experience at Classic Stage Company’s beautifully performed, deeply emotional take on The Baker’s Wife featuring Ariana DeBose, Scott Bakula, and a pastry case of theatre aces. Call it “The Great CSC Baking Show.”

Make no mistake, diminutive Tony-winning dynamo Chenoweth works overtime. In short skirts and plunging tops, she showcases her comic chops while fully deploying her voice: big belt, soaring soprano, and warm, mellow middle tones. Like a timeshare broker, she’s up there selling her character and the show. (It's a contrast from the documentary, where the real Jackie appears more low-key, not exaggerated or overtly performing.)

Uncanny screen chemistry between Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow is a main reason the movie clicks. As directed by Kristin Hanggi (Rock of Ages), the musical’s stars don’t stray far from their film templates. Bundy (Legally Blonde, Hairspray) leans hard into a Valley Girl accent, while Lindsay (Newsies), delivers lines in deft clueless fashion. They bring likable BFF energy to this buddy comedy, and while they won’t make anyone forget the onscreen duo, they give it their all — just like Romy and Michele.

The bare-bones staging keeps the focus squarely where it counts: on the cast of nearly 40, who are uniformly topflight and in sync when it comes to sparking emotional electricity. The simplicity of the production provides breathing room in a megamusical that often exhilarates, but also drains because of its tendency to always think bigger.

Three powerful performances under the direction of David Cromer (Dead Outlaw) make up for the script's shortcomings. Stylish and steely, Landecker recalls the detached mom in Ordinary People. Lipe-Smith’s work feels natural, never forced. Moretz shines from start to finish as she summons a deep well of anxiety and hurt.

While the stars bring marquee magnetism, the production design lends mystery. The script’s stage directions call for “A country road. A tree. Evening.” Soutra Gilmour’s set features only a huge wood-paneled tube. Is it a hollow redwood? Arty tunnel to nowhere? Crafty storm drain? Who knows. But the circular shape squares with the play’s cyclical nature. Didi and Gogo gab and grouse. They wait for no-show Godot. Repeat.

Between bicycles, bongs, beatboxing, and buffoonery cranked to the max, playfulness rules in director Saheem Ali’s contemporary staging. That’s a viable approach to this 400-plus-year-old play — it’s a romantic comedy, after all. Nonetheless, like the richest rom-coms, Twelfth Night can cut deep when it matters most. Separated siblings get a life-and-death wake-up call. A melancholy woman gets her groove back. Here, though, the heavy emphasis on lightheartedness mutes the more serious edges of the play that can summon deeper emotions around these key elements.

Running a snappy 70 minutes from start to finish, Emmanuelle Mattana’s sly dark comedy Trophy Boys is a small play that thinks big — and, to its credit, out of the box.

Waiting to see what develops goes with the art of photography — and theatre. But audiences anticipating something persuasive or perceptive to surface in Five Models in Ruins, 1981 will be kept waiting. Insights stay elusive in this uneventful fashion-forward play that’s not sharp or funny enough to snap as satire or deep enough, despite 11th-hour primal howling, to click as drama.

The score, as ever, is jammed with gems. But like a troubled couple, the production has issues. Under the direction of Whitney White, Warren and Jonas overdo their performances, pushing too hard too often.

At the Winter Garden Theatre, the production directed by David Cromer (The Band’s Visit) is earnest and movie-star handsome (thanks to great work by set designer Scott Pask), but unexciting. It simply fails to catch fire, save for all the cigarettes.

Unapologetically sentimental, the slender story gets the job done. Choreography by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck is explosive. Director Saheem Ali’s production mambos across time, all while showcasing the BVSC music.

Director Phylicia Rashad has assembled an A-plus cast and lays on thunderous sound effects for gravity. To quibble, Naz works overtime to narrate the goings-on — mileage varies on that device — and his final speech, though beautiful, comes a bit out of the blue.

There may be an art to living amid crushing struggles, a theme underscored by Arnold’s career. His breakthrough works are three-dimensional models inspired by memories of places he left behind in Grangeville: a Dairy Queen, a pawn shop, a tattoo parlor. Brace yourself for an ingenious scene that bridges past and present and blurs the line between real life and a diorama that hits close to home.