Broadway Reviews

‘Paradise Square’ review: An ambitious yet overdrawn historic epic

Paradise Square, the new Broadway musical, is blessed with a cast of powerhouse singers, Jason Howland's lovely score, and enough action for three separate shows. Unfortunately, that's part of the show's problem. Written by Larry Kirwan, Christina Anderson, and Craig Lucas, the show's book is saddled with so many characters with so many ambitions that three hours is not enough time to resolve their issues.From racism to immigrant rights, murder, capitalism, and worker's rights, the plethora of...

'Plaza Suite' review — Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick shine in this well-aged comedy

Two years after its original planned run, the new Broadway production of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite, led by Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, is finally in residence at the Hudson Theatre. Happily, it was worth the wait. The show packs moments that are gleefully LOL, is deeper than you might expect, and the real-life married stars co-piloting this vintage vehicle are in fine form.A 1968 Best Play Tony Award nominee, the show consists of three one-acts about marriage. Each playlet, set in...

'The Music Man' review — Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster lead a mollifying nostalgia trip

When Hugh Jackman's Harold Hill whispers into the impressionable ears of River City whippersnappers, their minds and feet alight. The Music Man, which arrives on Broadway following a two-year delay, likewise hopes to entice an especially receptive crowd, still sating pent-up appetite for seduction, spectacle, and bodies in motion.The big-ticket production from director Jerry Zaks heaps its wagon with comely and persuasive wares: Marquee stars Jackman and Sutton Foster, whose individual magnetism...

'MJ The Musical' review — a flawless tribute to a flawed icon

Michael Jackson, one of the most beloved and influential musicians of all time, chased perfection his entire existence. It's unfortunate he is not alive to witness the flawless production of MJ the Musical, a model biographical musical now open at the Neil Simon Theatre on Broadway. Under the exemplary direction and choreography of Christopher Wheeldon, the production gives context to Jackson's inherited demons and zooms in on his daunting creative process and peerless genius. MJ is the platinum...

'Skeleton Crew' review — a moving portrait of the true essential workers of America

You might think a play set in a factory would be dank and depressing. But when you have Dominique Morisseau as the playwright, the factory doesn't just come alive; it literally dances.Morisseau's play Skeleton Crew is set in a car parts factory. And instead of showing the whirring and grinding of an assembly line, Morisseau does something more ingenious: She has a dancer (a dynamic Adesola Osakalumi) pop and lock to a soundtrack of machinery. Osakalumi's movements are sometimes fluid, other...

'Flying Over Sunset' Broadway review — the high-concept musical doesn't take off

What were they on when they cleared this show for take-off? That cloudy thought pops up regularly during Flying Over Sunset, the movie-star handsome but exasperating Lincoln Center musical that imagines celebrated writer Aldous Huxley, actor Cary Grant, and author Clare Boothe Luce uniting to drop acid together in the 1950s. Sure, it's original, but that goes just so far. Waiting for an insightful takeaway is akin to sitting on the tarmac for 2 3/4 hours only to be deplaned. The trippy spectacle...

'Company' review — a welcome reinvention of the classic musical

The traditional Broadway revival is dead, and good riddance. Over the last few years, classic musicals like Oklahoma and West Side Story have been reimagined for the Broadway stage to critical acclaim in order to engage new audiences and add current nuance and perspective to the shows' original books. Company, now at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, is the latest production to reinvent a classic musical. The late Stephen Sondheim's bold musical is about Bobby, a single man who tussles with the...

'Mrs. Doubtfire' review — bigger is not always better, poppets

What it lacks in fresh laugh-out-loud moments, honest-to-goodness heart, and sonic earworms you can't wait to hear again, the new Broadway musical Mrs. Doubtfire tries hard to make up for with cranked-up performances and a busy, busy, busy tone. No such luck. For all of the calories burned, it's still low-impact. The show retraces a 1993 Robin Williams big-screen blockbuster, and that iconic star turn inevitably looms large at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. As musical comedies go, there's little...

'Clyde's' review — Uzo Aduba is devilishly good in Lynn Nottage's dark comedy

Food for thought is on the menu, along with lots of laughs and a few tears in Lynn Nottage's Clyde's, a richly entertaining and timely play set in a truck stop sandwich shop along a nowhere stretch of Berks County, Pennsylvania. It's roughly the same GPS of the author's Sweat, which focused on grim aftershocks of a factory lockout and won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017. Eight years earlier, she won the same award for Ruined, about women in the Congo scarred by war.Clyde's, commissioned by the Guthrie...

'Trouble in Mind' review — the kind of good trouble Broadway needs

I once asked a famed Tony-winning Broadway director, what is the point of a revival? Is it to tell us how far we've come or to tell us how far we have to go? The answer that the director gave me was a simple yes. If the same question was asked about the glorious revival, and belated Broadway debut, of Alice Childress's play Trouble in Mind, the answer would definitely be a resounding yes. Though the play was written in 1955, it pulsates with such vitality that it feels like it was written...