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Recently noted:
BAREFOOT IN THE PARK Neil Simon’s plays have not aged well. Worse yet, Scott Elliott has directed the show as if it was a “Method” class at the Actor’s Studio. It has a leaden seriousness that takes whatever sparkle there might have been right out of the show. The actors try valiantly, but Tony Roberts, as the artistic neighbor, and Amanda Peet seem lost. Jill Clayburgh as Corie’s mother is charming and does a funny drunk—but not funny enough. Only Patrick Wilson comes close to achieving the paper heart of the script with a rampant physicality and an inherent timing. Cort Theatre, 138 W. 48th St. $26.25-$96.25 at 212-239-6200. Through May 21. (Christopher Byrne)
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Based on a Totally True Story In an age where writers are publicly flogged for stretching the truth, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has a faultless strategy—distend it beyond recognition and call it fictional comedy. The playwright’s exuberant, albeit frothy effort certainly lives up to its clever title. It’s the semi-autobiographical saga of Ethan Keene (Carson Elrod), an incidentally gay playwright whose work gets optioned for a movie. Just as his lifelong dream is about to become a reality, his relationships with his boyfriend, Michael (Pedro Pascal), and his father (Michael Tucker) verge on nightmare. Ethan’s day job creating new adventures for “The Flash” mirrors Aguirre-Sacasa’s real-life vocation penning “Spider-man” for Marvel Comics. Perhaps he swapped characters because “The Flash” is lesser known and boasts a superpower the hyper-achiever Ethan admires—with the power to run at speeds so swift he can be in two places at once. NY City Center Stage II, 131 W. 55th St. Through May 28. $48; 212-581-1212. (David Kennerley).
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Bridge and Tunnel In putting together “Bridge and Tunnel,” poet/playwright Sarah Jones demonstrates that she is an accomplished technician and mimic—and not very much more. Her ability to assume accents and to do them consistently is impressive. However, like any mechanical trick, it quickly loses its power to fascinate. Jones portrays a variety of characters who have come to a poetry slam in South Queens—all immigrants who have somehow come together through the Internet—the force of poetry being sufficient to eradicate all preconceptions, racial or religious stereotypes. Would that it were true. Helen Hayes Theatre, 240 W. 44th St. Through Jul. 9. $26.25-$86.25 at 212-239-6200. (Christopher Byrne)
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The Color Purple Spousal abuse. Rape. Incest. Murder. Not exactly the stuff of which Broadway musicals are made. At least not musicals that expect to recoup their investment. But in bringing “The Color Purple” to the stage, at a cost of $10 million, lead producer Scott Sanders knew better. He assembled a crack creative team that was able to amplify the uplifting themes from the landmark 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker—faith, overcoming adversity, finding self-love—and turn the doleful epic into a toe-tapping, knee-slapping feel-good fest. Broadway Theatre, 1681 Broadway. $26.25 – $101.25 at 212-239-6200. (David Kennerley)
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FESTEN Dark secrets abound in the dismal comedy “Festen” now at the Music Box. It comes to New York on a wave of publicity, but don’t buy the hype. A Danish family gathers to celebrate the patriarch’s birthday and dark secrets are revealed. Chaos ensues. Perhaps if this weren’t the stuff of Dr. Phil or Oprah, it would be more engaging. If the play went somewhere beyond something’s rotten in the state of Daddy’s Denmark country house and everyone is in denial, it would be more satisfying as theater. As the family is Hamletting it up with childhood trauma and resentment as the ghosts of the past keep showing up. The audience, on the other hand, simply yawns. The Music Box, 239 W. 45th St. $30-$95 at 212-239-6200. (Christopher Byrne)
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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST Is there any phrase more freighted than “a classic of the international stage?” Doubtful. Oscar Wilde’s iconic comedy, “The Importance of Being Earnest” is exactly that. Predictable in every way and entertaining enough, director Peter Hall and his company The Theater Royal Bath have given Wilde’s play the kind of “Earnest” production that would be right at home in any repertory theater and that would make the ideal field trip for a high school class. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that; perhaps it’s unavoidable with this play. Part of the pleasure is hearing Wilde’s familiar and famously incisive social commentary and deliciously mannered comedy. You could do a lot worse than spend your time and money on this show. BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St. near Flatbush Ave. Through May 14. $30-$85 at 718-636-4100. (Christopher Byrne).
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Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris The song cycle takes Brel’s prolific work and boils it down to about 20 numbers that show his emotional and musical range. It is decidedly French. The highs border on the manic, the lows are quite bleak, but through it all there is an unmistakable spirit and adult sensibility that takes life on its own terms and confronts it with an honesty that gives actor/singers something to really sink their teeth into as they sing of love, live, anguish, angst. The compelling and artful production staged by Gordon Greenberg features four very talented singers. The Zipper, 336 W. 37th St. $65 at 212-239-6200. (Christopher Byrne)
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LOS BIG NAMES They say you can never go home, and when openly lesbian comedian Marga Gomez returned from L.A. to discover the house she grew up in was gone, this idiom became literal. Gomez was the only child of Willy Chevalier and Margarita Estremera, two big stars in New York’s Latin scene in the ‘60s, and she worked to become a successful lesbian comedian B.E.—before Ellen. In her new one-woman show “Los Big Names”—the first off-Broadway solo show by a Latina lesbian—she charts her tumultuous life and career, pays homage to her parents, and finally finds a place for herself. The 47th Street Theater, 304 W. 47th St. Through May 14. $30-45 at 212-239-6200. (Winnie McCroy).
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THE ODD COUPLE Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick give command performances in this classic comedy. Expect no surprises as the stars fight it out as two cohabitating, very different characters, the anal-retentive versus the common slob. It is charming though—particularly in the performances by Brad Garrett as Murray the Cop, Lee Wilkof as Vinnie, and Olivia d’Abo and Jessica Stone as the Pigeon sisters. Brooks Atkinson Theatre 256 W. 47th St. Through Jun. 4. $60-$100 at 212-307-4100. (Christopher Byrne)
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THE PAJAMA GAME Kathleen Marshall’s bold, bright and exuberant revival of “The Pajama Game” is the perfect antidote to the midwinter blues. This classic show from 1954 that generally inspires groans when people talk about it—conjuring as it does images of bad high school and summer stock productions—is much more likely to inspire awe in the energetic and carefree production. Don’t ask for anything but to be entertained. The Roundabout Theater Company, American Airlines Theater, 227 W. 42nd St. Through Jun. 11. $66.25-$111.25 at 212-719-1300. (Christopher Byrne)
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RED LIGHT WINTER When sex is commodified, is love possible? Does anyone care? These are the questions that haunt one long after the end of Adam Rapp’s most mature drama to date. What makes the play so amazing is that Rapp, who also directed beautifully, has balanced the simplicity of a love triangle with the complexity of the emotions and the larger-scale sense of a world that has spun out of control. There is no happy ending for any of the characters, and the tragedies have an almost classic purity brought down to a paltry human scale. Barrow Street Theater, 27 Barrow St. at Seventh Ave. So. $65 at 212-239-6200. (Christopher Byrne)
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RING OF FIRE. The so-called tribute to the music of Johnny Cash is an almost intolerably tedious jukebox musical, rattling around with “Good Vibrations” at the bottom of the cracker barrel. Richard Maltby Jr., who rustled up this mess, has strung a lot of Cash songs together and pretended it was a show. He assembled a talented cast of singers, but by the end of the first act, it’s apparent that Johnny Cash recorded the same song over and over and over. Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th St. $86.25-$101.25 at 212-239-6200. (Christopher Byrne)
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STUFF HAPPENS “Stuff Happens” has the scope and energy of Shakespeare’s history plays. Using their own words and artfully orchestrated events, it tells the tale of a group of repellant people who fashion themselves as Henry V—the warrior king who whipped his nation into a great victory on the force of words and belief. The brilliance of Hare’s play is the darkly poetic structure that shows that they are not taking Agincourt against all odds. We are actually in the world of Henry VI, in which a young, feckless, and inexperienced king loses all by his impractical faith and a bevy of craven advisors. Hare casts Colin Powell, beautifully played by Peter Francis James, as the tragic figure in this—the voice of reason in a world spinning out of control. The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street. $50; 212-239-6200. Through May 28. (Christopher Byrne).
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SWEENEY TODD Rich in storytelling, gripping in intellectual scope, and performed by a superlative cast, this quintessential 20th century musical, with book by Hugh Wheeler and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, has been reconceived for today’s world. Intimate, gripping, and more darkly disturbing than previous productions, it is political theater of the first order in the guise of a seat-edge storytelling experience. The Eugene O’Neill Theater, 230 W. 49th St. $35-$100 at 212-239-6200. (Christopher Byrne)
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The Threepenny Opera Roundabout’s production of “The Threepenny Opera” is, ironically, perfect for the world of reality television. Harsh, mean, focused almost entirely on presentation and overly and superficially sexualized, the production is quite something to look at and has isolated moments of brilliance. At the same time, largely due to Wallace Shawn’s clumsy new translation, the world of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill lacks any of the focus needed to convey the satire of a corrupt and bourgeois society on the brink of self-destruction. Nonetheless, theater demands to be seen and interpreted in the context of the present, and the notion that vanity, sex, and selfish pleasure are rending the fabric of human society is intriguing. If our ability to communicate has become so debased that all we have left is vulgarity and animalistic urges, order and perhaps even civilization are on their last legs, indeed. 254 W. 54th St. Through Jun. 18. $36.25-$111.25 at 212-719-1300. (Christopher Byrne)
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WELL “Why can’t you make yourself well?” the tearful, exasperated Lisa Kron asks her mother towards the climax of “Well,” her comic bio-play that she initially denies is about herself, or her mother. She declares the work a “multi-character theatrical exploration of issues of health and illness both in the individual and in a community.” By offering glimpses from her childhood, the 45 year-old Kron hopes to elucidate why some people get sick and then get better, while others spend their entire lives in a chronic miasma of unwellness, dragging down everyone around them. Longacre Theatre, 220 W. 48th St. $26.25-$86.25 at 212-239-6200. (David Kennerley)
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