Broadway Reviews

'The Kite Runner' review — stage adaptation of bestselling book is faithful to a fault

In The Kite Runner, kite flying factors in two pivotal scenes. In the first, the actors come out waving gauzy white fabric hanging from springy wire rods, giving the illusion of kites flying in the air. At my performance, one of the kites failed to sufficiently lift off above the actor's head. It hovered slightly, then dipped toward the ground. The actor valiantly tried to pull it up, but the kite refused to take flight, seemingly comfortable bobbing along at shoulder height. This can be a...

'Into the Woods' review — Sara Bareilles, Brian d'Arcy James, and more lead a giant triumph of a revival

Find someone who looks at you the way the carb-loving Little Red Ridinghood locks eyes on a loaf of bread in the opening moments of the bewitchingly beautiful and impeccably performed Into the Woods at the St. James Theatre.Her besotted eyeballs all but scream, "More, please!" Turns out, the same expression was plastered on my face for almost three hours during this take on the late-1980s fairytale musical by composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim and writer James Lapine.Direct from a deservedly...

'Macbeth' review — Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga lead a 'star-enhanced hodgepodge'

Knives out. In the opening moment of Broadway's Macbeth starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga, a soldier is hoisted heavenward by his feet. He dangles there briefly before he's stabbed and bleeds out.Gore goes with Shakespeare's bloody tragedy in which "fair is foul and foul is fair" — or, in other words, where the world is turned upside down. The striking topsy-turvy image speaks plainly in a revival packing more puzzles than bracing urgency. For starters, what's up with the pre-show public...

'POTUS' review — star-studded cast girlbosses their way through the White House

There's a moment in the new Broadway play POTUS that made me cackle so loud, I surprised myself. It's a blink-and-you-miss-it moment. It occurs as the revolving set for POTUS is turning to a new scene in a woman's restroom. There's a tampon dispenser, and as the lights are still down, you can see the price for tampons: $2.79. Oof. The pink tax weighs heavy on the women of the play, both literally and figuratively. If only the rest of POTUS was as subtle or as smart.POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great...

'Mr. Saturday Night' review — Billy Crystal brings the comedy to a bloated musical

Summer, or at least a feel of summer stock, comes early with the arrival of the new but tired Broadway musical Mr. Saturday Night starring Billy Crystal.Based on a 1992 big-screen box-office dud that Crystal co-wrote, directed, and starred in, the fitfully amusing story spins around Buddy Young Jr., a has-been comic who lost his lucrative network gig but has never shed his self-sabotaging ways. Then, by fluke, he gets a second chance for professional and personal growth.It's the 1990s when we...

'A Strange Loop' review — a near-perfect marriage of art and activism

"WOW!" I thought to myself as my body leapt to its feet on its own volition to applaud A Strange Loop. "This must be how people who saw the first performances of Show Boat, Oklahoma!, Company, Rent, or Hamilton felt." Though I've witnessed and studied the innovations in each of those musicals, none of them are as revolutionary as what Michael R. Jackson has accomplished with his Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, now making its Broadway debut.That is thanks to his splendid writing and...

'The Skin of Our Teeth' review — showy revival puts style over substance

The dinosaur earned its entrance applause. Thornton Wilder's play The Skin of Our Teeth, a fantastical tragicomedy about the end of the world, calls for a dinosaur and a woolly mammoth. Typical productions have actors donning animal costumes. But the new Broadway revival of The Skin of Our Teeth goes full Jurassic Park (with the budget to match), with a gigantic brontosaurus, puppeteered by three people, lumbering onto the stage. A one-person-controlled woolly mammoth follows closely behind....

'Funny Girl' review — Beanie Feldstein-led revival is a comedy promise unfulfilled

Theatregoers seeking thrills at the revival of Funny Girl aren't kept waiting. The musical about the real-life comedian Fanny Brice, back on Broadway for the first time since its 1964 premiere, instantly delivers delights in its exhilarating overture. Melodies glide from one instrumental earworm to the next: the rousing "I'm the Greatest Star" to the tender "People" to the defiantly upbeat "Don't Rain On My Parade." Whistle-wetters don't come much better. And when all is said and sung, it's as...

'Hangmen' review — dark comedy play should be hung out to dry

"If they've got to go, they've got to go by the quickest, the most dignified, and the least painful way of going as possible," says Harry (David Threlfall), the former hangman determined to make the horrificness of capital punishment sound honorable.Martin McDonagh's dark comedy Hangmen, directed by Matthew Dunster at Broadway's Golden Theatre, tries to do too many things. The play, which first premiered in London in 2015 ahead of a sold-out Off-Broadway run in 2018, attempts to battle with, and...

'for colored girls' review — individual colors don't make a cohesive rainbow

Ntozake Shange's powerful paean to Black women, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, returns to Broadway in a bold revival that burns intensely, though with little nuance. As directed and choreographed by the much-lauded dancemaker Camille A. Brown, this production places an exclamation point at the end of its title, as if to claim that it will punch through every moment of grief until all that is left is celebratory victory. While that approach serves as a...