Melissa Rose Bernardo — Theater Critic

It’s only fitting that Ruben Santiago-Hudson is playing a conjurer in the current revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. What he’s doing on stage at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre (also home to original 1988 Broadway production) is nothing short of magical.

Speaking of aesthetic curation, we must discuss Derek McLane’s Architectural Digest–ready set. From the floor-to-ceiling drapes to the turquoise tiled fireplace to the burnt-orange and olive walls through the parlor doorways, every detail is stunning, right down to the artwork and the throw pillows (two of which I have already tracked down and purchased). Top-notch comedy and covetable home decor—all in a tidy 100-minute package.

Even a single drunk scene can grow tiresome quickly, so an entire play built around an extended display of upper-middle-class BFFs behaving badly could easily become extremely irritating. Thankfully, O’Hara and Byrne are so wonderful—and so wonderfully matched—that there’s no getting annoyed with either of them. They can take out the audience with one look, the flick of a cigarette lighter, or the toss of a scarf (Byrne using her napkin as a neckerchief to accessorize Jeff Mahshie’s stunning green dinner dress, a wonderful nod to Keira Knightley’s Atonement gown, is a stroke of genius). And there’s a hysterical bit involving O’Hara, the telephone, an armchair, and a very slow head-first dive that must be seen to be believed.

If Broadway was a ballroom competition, Cats: The Jellicle Ball would sashay away with the grand-prize trophy. Because there’s simply no topping the sheer euphoria onstage at the Broadhurst Theatre. It’s an open-invitation, come-as-you-are party—in the seats, in the aisles, and on West 44th Street afterward. And who couldn’t use a party right now?

A few of director Jesse Berger’s choices are inspired—e.g., portraying Chiron and Demetrius as beer-pounding, tracksuit-wearing, back-slapping frat bros who are so odious that you’ll be counting the minutes until their well-deserved murder and mutilation. You might be surprised to discover that Titus has a sister, Marcia (a wonderful Enid Graham); usually it’s a brother named Marcus. It’s a smart, sympathetic switch, especially considering that Marcia is the one who discovers the bruised, bloodied Lavinia and brings her to her father. And when it comes to Shakespeare’s villains (or heroes), it’s tough to do better than Page, who’s played just about every Shakespeare villain and hero there is to play, not to mention the devil himself in Hadestown.

In a recent interview, Yee said she’d been “subconsciously writing a cycle of plays about communism in Asia over the 20th century,” referring to Cambodian Rock Band (Cambodia in the 1970s), The Great Leap (China, the 1980s), and now Mother Russia (the 1990s). I can’t wait to see where—and to what decade—she’ll travel next.

Choreographer Ellenore Scott (Ragtime) adds a few more flourishes—“Go Into Your Trance” is a fantastic nod to Sweet Charity’s “Rich Man’s Frug”; her terrific ensemble of dancers will make you want to go home and do the Watusi. Afterward, mix yourself a very dry martini and raise a glass to Noël Coward, Encores!, and, as they say in another classic, “the two most glorious words in the English language”: musical comedy.

Director Thomas Kail—best known for large-scale Broadway musicals such as Hamilton and the recent Sweeney Todd—doesn’t seem to have a fully formed vision for the production. (Perhaps it’s lost in the fog. Seriously…enough with the dry ice.) What he does have is a wonderful showcase for his wife, Williams, whose stage appearances—dating back to her daring 1999 turn in Tracy Letts’ trailer-trash Texas comedy Killer Joe—are far too infrequent for theater fans’ taste. She might not match O’Neill’s description of Anna (“a…girl of twenty, handsome after a large, Viking-daughter fashion”), but she’s got the grit. Her “nobody owns me” speech to Mat and Chris—“I’ll do what I please and no man, I don’t give a hoot who he is, can tell me what to do!”—is staggeringly good.

After debuting in 2014 at the Mark Taper Forum, Marjorie Prime had its New York premiere at Playwrights Horizons in 2015; a 2017 film featured Jon Hamm as Walter and Lois Smith reprising her stage role as Marjorie. A decade ago, the play seemed like a fascinating experiment. This remarkable revival, once again directed by Anne Kauffman, feels so much more potent. Perhaps it’s because we’re so much more conversant with AI today. We’re that much closer to achieving this concept that Harrison imagined. Or perhaps it’s because the technology is less important than the humanity of it all. The Walter onstage is first and foremost Marjorie’s late husband; the fact that he’s not flesh and blood is almost immaterial.

Braun, who acquits himself well, may be a stage novice, but he’s smart enough to know that the way to raise his game is by going toe-to-toe with one of the best in the business: back-to-back Tony winner (Purpose, Purlie Victorious) and consecutive four-year nominee Kara Young. Playing Kayleen at age 8, bouncing on the bed in her pigtails and school uniform, sighing overdramatically, swinging her feet, calling Doug ‘stupid’ and telling him to ‘shut up’—basic 8-year-old things—she wins our hearts immediately.

Hanks, who starred in Nora Ephron’s play Lucky Guy on Broadway in 2013, is very comfortable onstage. Still, we can’t shake the feeling that This World of Tomorrow would be better off as a movie. (Groundhog Day, Time and Again—you get the drift.) Or as a book, where the characters could get more attention. That’s where it all started: Hanks and Glossman based the play on three short stories from Hanks’ 2017 collection Uncommon Type. We leave the show wanting more of Bert and Carmen’s story…where do they go from here?

In the 1925 court case United States v. Cartozian, the U.S. government sued to revoke the citizenship of a man named Tatos Cartozian, on the grounds that Armenians like him weren’t white. The Armenian-American playwright Talene Monahon has now worked that story into Meet the Cartozians, a sprawling, fascinating work of historical fiction that examines ethnicity, history and family legacy.

Icke—whose last Broadway outing in 2017 was an adaptation of Orwell’s 1984, which he cowrote and codirected with Duncan Macmillan—has retained the characters’ names and the core of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, but otherwise, he has completely rebuilt the centuries-old tragedy from the ground up. And when a play has endured for nearly 2,500 years, it can withstand an extreme home makeover. Even the merch is up-to-the-minute: The T-shirt, coffee mug, and even direct mailings are emblazoned with the grabby tagline “Truth is a mother**ker.

Traitors abound in Richard II, and in this production, it’s not always clear who’s on whose side. Unfortunately, double-casting only makes matters more confusing. Though I’m not sure more actors could even fit on the Astor Place stage. The only time this production really breathes is when Urie is alone in that giant glass box.

When Bess Wohl’s Liberation began performances off-Broadway at the Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre earlier this year, it was just after Trump’s second inauguration. The time-hopping memory play—which looks at a multigenerational group of second-wave feminists through a world-weary modern-day lens—registered as capital-I Important. Though not in a didactic, dullsville way. In a Heidi Chronicles kind of way.

The fact that Kim tells the story of her upbringing not with rancor and resentment, but rather with acceptance and understanding, seems almost unfathomable. But she does, and she tells it with her whole body, moving nearly the entire time. (The intricate, sometimes balletic, sometimes aerobic, choreography is by Iris McCloughan.) It’s as if she’s processing her emotions through with each carefully controlled step, turn, twist, and sweep.

Classism, systemic racism, the immigrant experience—none of that screams “musical!” But Ahrens, Flaherty, and McNally managed to work it all in without preaching or lecturing (all three won Tonys for their efforts). You could argue that the characters are one-dimensional, but that’s on E.L. Doctorow, whose 1974 novel Ragtime is almost a collection of snapshots to memorialize historic moments—for instance, the creation of the assembly line. And for those who say the show moves too slowly (it clocks in at 2 hours 50 minutes), composer and pianist Scott Joplin, aka the King of Ragtime, says this in a preface to Doctorow’s book: “It is never right to play Ragtime fast.”

You’ll find none of that negativity at The Least Problematic Woman in the World, Mulvaney’s ironically titled and joyful autobiographical solo show at the Lortel Theatre. The audience is full of Mulvaney fans, supporters, and trans allies, and they’re sending nothing but heart emojis back to the actress/influencer.

One 90-minute act is just the right length for Caroline, and thanks to David Cromer’s zoom-lens direction, we develop an instant attachment to these characters. Allen doesn’t tie anything up neatly, but somehow we know that Caroline will be just fine. She’s the smartest, most clearheaded one of them all.

The extra minutes also should help illuminate the not insignificant subplot about her mom’s paranormal ability to make water appear out of thin air—a gift that Stacey has inherited but can’t summon as easily. Her mom describes the power as “a primal kinda thing, a verdant little creature tucked up near your crotch.” Perhaps we have to see it to believe it. And let’s hope that McDermott continues playing the prosecco-swilling Stacey. Watkins (Epiphany) wrote the part for her, and it fits like a glove—or, to use an analogy Stacey would appreciate, a pair of sweaty Spanx.

Chronologically, The Brothers Size is the second play in the trilogy, but McCraney wrote it first. That probably explains why the 90-minute-play stands on its own so well. But don’t be surprised if, at the end, you find yourself wanting to know more about these men. Fortunately, you can pick up The Brother/Sister Plays and read Elegba’s, Ogun’s, and Oshoosi’s stories from the beginning.

The biggest strength of this current production—beyond its general jubilant mood—is its central casting: a real-life brother-sister duo, Junior Nyong’o and Lupita Nyong’o, as the play’s shipwrecked siblings, Sebastian and Viola, respectively.

Is Can I Be Frank? derivative? Perhaps. But it’s also an ingenious way to pay homage to an underappreciated artist.

Trophy Boys, Emmanuelle Mattana’s slash-and-burn send-up and takedown of toxic masculinity at MCC Theater, meets a quartet of seniors from a boys’ private high school—perhaps the peak of privilege. The twist: All the guys are played by female-identifying, gender nonconforming, or nonbinary performers… That should tell you something about the tone that she, Tony-winning director Danya Taymor, and the four actors...are aiming for: lightness and laughter as they cut into the core of a serious issue.

There’s also a somewhat confusing subplot concerning Roya and a prisoner named Behrouz that neither Randolph-Wright nor director Warren Adams manage to make work. Then again, the course of true love never did run smooth.