Broadway Reviews

'Diana: The Musical' review — 'a vacant and vapid royal rehash'

An enduring global icon nearly 25 years after her death, Princess Diana's fractured fairytale story has been mined extensively and spun into books, TV shows, and movies. It was only a matter of time before it was churned into a Broadway bio-musical. Too bad what awaits for subjects of the Great White Way is Diana: The Musical, a vacant and vapid royal rehash.Besides lacking a compelling point of view to make this familiar tale fresh, the slick musical retread tends to take a campy approach as it...

‘Caroline, or Change’ review — Sharon D Clarke shines in an updated revival

Some performances tell an entire story unto themselves. Sharon D Clarke delivers one such stunning star turn in this revival of Caroline, or Change, propelled onto Broadway by her acclaim in its previous London run. With an earth- and rafter-trembling embodiment of the title character, Clarke animates a curious — and at times troubling — musical with undeniable life.When Caroline, or Change first premiered at The Public Theater in 2003, a white creative team spinning a narrative that purportedly...

'Dana H.' review - an affecting, 'spectacularly executed' work

According to the burlesque dancers in the musical Gypsy, the secret to success is having a gimmick. But entertaining as their words are, one wonders if a coup de théâtre can sustain an evening-length performance, particularly when the one-trick pony involves lip-syncing? The answer is absolutely if you're the legendary drag artist Lypsinka ― who uses lines from classic Hollywood films to scintillating campy effect. That said, lip-synching lends itself well to bizarre and comedic entertainment;...

'David Byrne's American Utopia' review - an unmissable encore run sparks joy

Pricking up your ears — and your peepers — in a state of streaming delight goes with the territory at American Utopia, David Byrne's dazzling concert production back on Broadway for an encore joy jolt.The show returns with triumphant signs of its success, including a shiny special Tony Award for its four-month sold-out run that wrapped in February 2020. There's also a filmed live-capture performance directed by Spike Lee, who was in the audience (doing research, perhaps?) when I sat rapt at the...

‘The Lehman Trilogy’ review — two centuries are condensed into a slick and selective history

The origin story of American capitalism has everything: enterprise, greed, delusion, recurring and precipitous falls from grace. The Lehman Trilogy delivers all this and more in a stunning feat of information. That director Sam Mendes manages to spin nearly two centuries of facts and figures into a handsome and engrossing spectacle is its own kind of historic achievement.But lacking from this otherwise exhaustive cataloguing of our national folly is what's too often been perniciously glossed...

'Thoughts of a Colored Man' review - timely new play shows the universe in Black men

Shakespeare once wrote, "What a piece of work is a man!" In that famous monologue from Hamlet, Shakespeare was writing about, in part, the varied beauty and contradictions within humanity. Granted, Shakespeare was talking about white men, who for centuries have been given the gift of being seen as fully formed human beings. Unfortunately, while this benefit was extended to white men, it has not been extended to Black men. That sense of humanity, virtues, and flaws in Black men is what Keenan...

‘Lackawanna Blues’ review – Ruben Santiago-Hudson delivers an explosive, unmissable performance

Setting off fireworks may be illegal in Broadway theatres, but Ruben Santiago-Hudson unleashes them continually in the Manhattan Theatre Club production at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, as he seamlessly transforms into 24 individuals from his childhood as a ward in a rooming house in Lackawanna, New York ― all this while meticulously embodying their every hope and disaster.Each character in the play is sensational and original, but the show's heartbeat resides in the pillar of the community:...

'Is This A Room' review - a 'boundary-breaking' thriller of a play

What if you were interrogated by the FBI? You might think it would be like something out of The X Files, with a dimly lit room and intimidating agents in suits relentlessly questioning you with dramatic exclamations. But in Is This A Room, which is based on the transcript of a real-life FBI interrogation, being questioned by federal agents is seemingly more low-key than you expect — though no less anxiety-inducing. The subject being questioned in Is This A Room is Reality Winner, a 25-year-old...

‘Chicken & Biscuits’ review – a funny, familial feast of a show

All families have their secrets, but few handle them as entertainingly as the Mabry family in Douglas Lyon's Chicken & Biscuits. The crew have ostensibly gathered at Circle in the Square Theatre on Broadway to send off their beloved patriarch. Despite that dour premise, over the course of this life-affirming play, they rehash old beefs and put to rest long-simmering prejudices.Confronting differences in response to death is nothing new in theatre. Refreshingly, in this laughter-rich script,...

'Six' Broadway review - a ‘one of a kind, no category’ musical

There is nothing I enjoy more than discovering a show and then going back to see it again (and again) with someone who has never seen it before. As someone who goes to the theatre for work, I view every night as a treasure hunt for the next theatrical crown jewel, and I love revisiting these gems time and again with friends and family. So when I saw a little show called Six for the first time in London's West End in 2019, I couldn't wait to evangelize about it and take everyone I know. When the...