Lawrence Harbison, our The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. In this column, Larry reports on PIPPIN. THE BIG KNIFE, I’LL EAT YOU LAST, THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL, ORPHANS, SCRAMBLED EGGS and MOOSE MURDERED.

Roger O. Hirson’s book for Pippin (back on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre) always gets short shrift, as do most musical books, so I have decided to start my comments with it. Pippin is supposed to be about the son of Charlemagne; but, really, it’s a contemporary tale of a confused 20-something trying to find something to believe in, and to make his way in the world. When the show first came out, in 1972 (71?), its context was very much the Vietnam War. This time around, I saw in Pippin’s story a parable about young people cast adrift from a world which does not value them, who somehow must navigate the tricky path to adulthood, all too often a slippery slope.

Diane Paulus has reconceived the show as a circus, complete with phenomenal acrobatics. Amazingly, many of the acrobats she has hired are also terrific dancers, and they execute Chet Walker’s Fosse-inspired choreography with wonderful aplomb. Pippin is no longer a goofy hippie – he’s an archetypal contemporary 20-something – and Matthew James Thomas is terrific in the role. Andrea Martin (Berthe) and Charlotte D’Amboise (Fastrada) both stop the show, Martin with her feisty rendition of “No Time at All,” which she finishes hanging upside down on a trapeze, and D’Amboise with “Spread a Little Sunshine,” wherein she demonstrates that she’s still got it as one of the best dancers on Broadway.

Don’t miss Pippin. You’ll have a great time. Expect multiple Tony Awards.

As for The Big Knife, at the American Airlines Theatre, director Doug Hughes does the best he can with Odets’ creaky drama, a poison pen letter to Hollywood, but in the end the play just collapses under the weight of contrivance. Bobby Cannavale seems at sea in the pivotal role of a movie star who tries to take on the insidious studio system and loses. Marin Ireland, as his wife, seems at sea too. Both actors have been much better elsewhere. The best performance comes from Richard Kind as a malevolent studio boss, but it’s not enough to save this turkey of a play.

Bette Midler is giving quite a star turn at the Booth Theatre in John Logan’s I’ll Eat You Last, wherein she plays the late super-agent Sue Mengers. She sits on a sofa the whole time, and manages to hold the audience in the palm of her hand as she regales us with tales of how she became one of the top Hollywood power brokers. Mengers was a ruthless, indefatigable woman, but with a wonderful catty wit which is on full display here.

Midler’s snub from the Tony nominating committee is inexplicable. Puh-lease … Bette wuz robbed.

A different kind of star turn is on display at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, in the revival of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful. Cicely Tyson has come out of retirement to play Carrie Watts, the old lady who just wants to go home to the town of her youth. Tyson is heartbreaking as Carrie. Even if Midler had gotten a Tony nomination, Tyson would still be a shoo-in. Director Michael Wilson’s production is haunting, and there is wonderful work here from Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Carrie’s son Ludie, from Vanessa Williams as his catty wife Jessie Mae, and from Condola Rashad as a young woman Carrie meets on the bus on her way home.

Bring plenty of Kleenex.

It’s just been announced that Lyle Kessler’s Orphans, at the Schoenfeld Theatre is closing in a couple of weeks, a victim of the Tony Roulette. Had it opened earlier in the season it might have had a shot at finding an audience, but there is just too much competition this time of year, even with the presence in the cast of Alec Baldwin, who is terrific as Harold, the gangster on the lam who because a strange father figure to two childlike young men. Ben Foster is terrific as Treat, the thuggish older brother, but the performance being given by Tom Sturridge as Philip, is seared in my memory. Sturridge plays Philip as if he were a feral cat, jumping all over John Lee Beatty’s dilapidated set. He’s phemonenal.

Orphans deserved better. It’s a great play, being given a great production by A-list director Daniel Sullivan. See it before it closes.

I also enjoyed Scrambled Eggs, at the Beckett Theatre, a comedy by Robin Amos Kahn and Gary Richards about a menopausal woman who tells us the story of her trials and travails. Amy Van Nostrand is wonderful as Our Heroine, and is ably supported by Anne O’Sullivan, Mary Catherine Wright, Jim Frangione, Candace Brecker and Michael Dean Morgan as a Cast of Thousands.

Scrambled Eggs will have particular resonance for 50-something women; but I’m not of their number and I found it quite amusing.

Finally, I read Arthur Bicknell’s Moose Murdered, his self-published memoir of how the most famous bomb in Broadway history happened. You know the one I mean. It’s a cautionary tale, told quite wittily, about how the best laid plans of mice, men and playwrights oft can go astray. It would have been easy for Bicknell to seek revenge for what happened to him and his play; but this is a man with great good humor and a philosophical outlook on life. He’s probably been kinder to the culprits than they deserved.

Anyway, I recommend his book. You can get in on Amazon.

PIPPIN. Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200

THE BIG KNIFE. American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St.
TICKETS: www.roundabouttheatre.org or 212-719-1300
I’LL EAT YOU LAST. Booth Theatre, 222 W. 45th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL. Stephen Sondheim Theatre, 124 W. 43rd ST.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
ORPHANS. Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 W. 45th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
SCRAMBLED EGGS. Beckett Theatre, 410 W. 42nd St.
TICKETS: 800-447-7400
MOOSE MURDERED. Available at www.amazon.com

For discount tickets for groups of ten or more, contact Carol Ostrow Productions & Group Sales. Phone: 212-265-8500. E-Mail: ostrow1776@aol.com.

“It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry.”

– George F. Will

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually does strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

“On the Aisle with Larry”

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. In this column, Larry reports on THE TESTAMENT OF MARY, MATILDA, MOTOWN, JEKYLL AND HYDE, THE NANCE, THE ASSEMBLED PARTIES, F#%KING UP EVERYTHING, THE DANCE OF DEATH, GOLDOR $ MYTHYKA, COLLAPSE, FINKS and SLEEPING ROUGH.

The Testament of Mary, Colm Torbin’s monodrama starring Fiona Shaw, posits that Jesus’ mom was a bitter, frightened, angry woman, appalled that her son grew up to be a crank and a leader of other cranks. Torbin does not pay much attention to Gospel chronology. Here, Lazarus is raised from the dead in Cana (instead of Bethany, where the Bible says this happened), dug up from his grave, which displays an astounding ignorance of Jewish burial practices at the time, then Mom’s son (she refuses to utter his name for some reason) maybe changes water into wine at the wedding. Or maybe not. His Mom thinks this is highly spurious. The miracle at Cana was Christ’s first miracle: Lazarus, one of his last. At Cana, Mary’s son tells her he’s the son of God – which is news to her. Finally, it turns out the Resurrection was a bad dream Mary had. She told it to some other people, and the rest is history. Lord, have mercy.

Deborah Warner’s staging has Fiona Shaw staggering around the stage, overturning tables and chairs willy-nilly, taking out cigarettes which she doesn’t smoke, swigging from what appears to be a bottle of vodka and – holy moly! – even stripping butt-naked at one point to splash around in a small pool. Occasionally, the back wall of the stage opens up slowly, for no discernible reason, while faint, eerie, almost inaudible music plays.

As a Christian, I found this appalling, one of the worst things I have ever seen. If you’re an atheist or an agnostic, I expect you’ll merely find it boring.

The reviews are in, and Matilda, at the Shubert Theatre, appears to be this season’s Big One. The book, by Dennis Kelly, is based on a children’s book by Roald Dahl about an indefatigable little girl who won’t be deterred by the Parents and Schoolmistress From Hell from getting an education. Everyone great in the show – most especially, Bertie Carvel as the horrible schoolmistress.

My problem with the show: many of the songs are very fast in tempo. When they’re sung by the kids (much of the time), in thick English working class accents, they’re pretty much unintelligible. I thought it was just me – but everyone sitting around me had the same problem. They should project the lyrics above the proscenium, like the New York City Opera.

Matilda is an overblown kiddie show. It’s OK – but I’ve seen better this season, including a few which did not find favor with most critics.

Motown, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, is a jukebox musical which employs at least 50 Motown hits as it tells the story of the company’s founder, Berry Gordy, Jr. Since the book is written by Gordy, it’s pretty much a hagiographic portrait of the man. All the performers do terrific impersonations of the Real Thing. Charl Brown sounds exactly like Smokey Robinson, and Raymond Luke, Jr. stops the show as young Michael Jackson.

I grew up loving Motown songs, so for me it was a wonderful trip down memory lane, somewhat rueful, though, when I thought about the crap that passes for pop music nowadays.

Jekyll and Hyde is back, at the Marquis Theatre, and has gotten predictably terrible reviews. For some reason I can’t fathom, the critics loathe Frank Wildhorn, its composer, and are determined to prevent him from stinking up Broadway. As for me, I think his score is magnificent, full of soaring melodies, and it’s beautifully sung by the likes of Constantine Maroulis, in the title role, and Deborah Cox as the doomed whore, Lucy.

Jekyll and Hyde is not the dog you’ve read about.

Douglas Carter Beane’s The Nance, at the Lyceum Theatre, stars Nathan Lane as a two-bit burlesque performer named Chauncey Miles who specializes in “Nance” characters – flamboyant homosexuals spewing out outrageous double entendres. When not performing, Chauncey hangs out in an automat in the Village, a popular gay hangout, where he meets a young man from Buffalo and takes him in. Meanwhile, Mayor LaGuardia is cracking down on lewd entertainments – but Chauncey, a staunch Republican, refuses to see the handwriting on the wall until it’s too late.

Lane is magnificent as Chauncey, but there is also wonderful work from the likes of Lewis J. Stadlen as his baggy-pants partner in comedy and from Jonny Orsini as the young drifter who makes the mistake of falling for Chauncey.

The Nance is one of the best plays of the season, and not to be missed.

I also liked Richard Greenberg’s The Assembled Parties, at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Friedman Theatre, a drama about a well-to-do woman named Julie who loses her husband, her son but not her grace and charm. Lynne Meadow has done a fine job of directing, and Judith Light steals the show as Julie’s bitter sister in law, Faye. Jessica Hecht has received praise for her portrayal of Julie, but I felt she was just a little too affected, too perfect. She hardly seemed human.

Still, The Assembled Parties is a solid, well-written, well-acted play – definitely worth your time.

F#%King Up Everything at the Elektra Theatre, is a musical by David Eric Davis and Sam Forman about young Brooklyn hipsters, a little like Avenue Q but not as good. The central characters are two buddies. One’s the studly lead singer in a rock band; the other’s a kiddie-show puppeteer. All the performers are very engaging, though not exactly the best of singers. But the show won me over, and I wound up having a good time.

I have to admit I wasn’t looking forward to the Red Bull Theatre’s production of Strindberg’s The Dance of Death, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, as I usually find Strindberg rather wearisome; but director Joseph Hardy has mined every ounce of humor in the dour Scandinavian’s play, finding in its two central characters, Edgar and Alice, a married couple who enjoy tormenting each other, prototypes of George and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Daniel Davis and Laila Robins are sensational.

Even if your first thought is, “Oh God, not Strindberg,” check this one out.

Lynn Rosen’s Goldor $ Mythyka, which has just closed at the New Ohio Theatre, was classic New Georges, a women’s theatre company which likes to produce “the weirder the better” kinds of plays. Cohen’s was about a man and a woman who go on a crime spree dressed as video-game-type characters, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. Shana Gold’s direction was just-right, and Garret Neergaard and Jenny Seastone Stern were great as Our Two Anti-Heroes.

Keep an eye out for New Georges. They do fascinating, challenging work – and they do it well.

Allison Moore’s Collapse, produced by the Women’s Project at City Center Stage II, is a fascinating play about a woman named Susan whose marriage is collapsing due to the PTSD her husband is experiencing as a result of almost dying in the Minnesota bridge collapse. Nadia Bowers is terrific as Susan. Also wonderful are Hannah Cabell as Susan’s basket-case of a sister and Elliot Vilar as a sexaholic Susan meets.

I loved this play!

Also good is Joe Gilford’s Finks, at Ensemble Studio Theatre, which has just received a Drama Desk nomination for Best Play, a dark comedy about the dark days of the black llist which focuses on a nightclub comic named Mickey Dobbs who’s essentially apolitical but who falls for an actress/lefty named Natalie who drags him into pinko-ism.
Giovanna Sardelli, the director, has done an astounding job of making Gilford’s play work in EST’s tiny black box of a space, and Aaron Serofsky and Miriam Silverman are outstanding as Mickey and Natalie.

This one’s a don’t-miss.

As was Page 73’s production of Kara Manning’s Sleeping Rough at the Wild Project, which has just closed, wherein the always-excellent Kellie Overbey played a woman whose son has been killed in Afghanistan. Overbey was terrific, as was Quentin Maré as her ex-husband and Renate Friedman as her daughter.

Much of Sleeping Rough is comprised of narrative monologues. Ordinarily, I am not a fan of this kind of playwriting, but Manning’s writing is so touching and all the performances so engaging that I was won over.

THE TESTAMENT OF MARY. Walter Kerr Theatre, 219 W. 48th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
MATILDA. Shubert Theatre, 225 W. 44th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
MOTOWN. Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 W. 46th St.
TICKETS: www.ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000
JEKYLL AND HYDE Marquis Theatre, 1535 Broadway
TICKETS: www.ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000
THE NANCE. Lyceum Theatre, 149 W. 45th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
THE ASSEMBLED PARTIES. Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
F#%KING UP EVERYTHING. Elekta Theatre, 673 8th Ave.
TICKETS: www.ovationtix.com
THE DANCE OF DEATH. Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher St.
TICKETS: 212-352-3101
GOLDOR $ MYTHYKA. New Ohio Theatre. Alas, closed.
COLLAPSE. City Center Stage II, 424 W. 55th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
FINKS. Ensemble Studio Theatre, 549 W. 52nd St.
TICKETS: www.ovationtix.com
SLEEPING ROUGH. Wild Project. Alas, closed.

For discount tickets for groups of ten or more, contact Carol Ostrow Productions & Group Sales. Phone: 212-265-8500. E-Mail: ostrow1776@aol.com.

“It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry.”

– George F. Will

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually does strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. In this column, Larry reports on HANDS ON A HARDBODY, KINKY BOOTS, LUCKY GUY, HIT THE WALL, OLD HATS, RIDE THE TIGER, and the HUMANA FESTIVAL.

As I write this, Hands on a Hardbody has just closed at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, an official floperoo. This musical, with a book by Doug Wright and country-inflected songs by Trey Anastasio (of Phish) and Amanda Green, was based on a documentary film about a contest held by a struggling Texas car dealership which required the contestants to stand for days beside a brand new truck with at least one hand on it. The last one left gets the truck.

This was a static concept which was comprised mostly of exposition, as we learn about the hopes and dreams of each contestant. There was nothing much that director Neil Pepe or choreographer could do about this. But it featured terrific performances by a cast which included Hunter Foster and Keith Carradine, and several wonderful songs. What did it in? Well, a lot of it has to do with the mad rush to the Tony Awards, as shows were opening seemingly every day, and Hands on a Hardbody just had too much competition. And, the reviews were not good enough to entice enough Broadway theatregoers into buying tickets – and the ones who did apparently didn’t generate sufficient word-or-mouth the keep it going. Here’s why the critics and audiences were lukewarm, I think: every one of the characters voted for George W. Bush, Rick Perry and Ted Cruz. Probably, many of them signed the petition for Texas to secede from the United States after President Obama was reelected. In other words, here’s a show about red state morons which was trying to make it in the bluest city in the bluest of blue states, singing the soul music of the Tea Party, country music. Hands on a Hardbody was doomed before it ever opened; which is a shame because there was a lot that was good about it. It’s now the latest in a long line of country music shows which have flopped on Broadway.

Kinky Boots at the Hirschfeld Theatre, on the other hand, appears to be a huge hit. Drag queens go over much better in NYC than country bumpkins, I guess. It, too, is based on a film, this one about a British shoe manufacturer whose factory is going under until he meets a drag performer who gives him the idea that there might be a market niche for shoes for drag queens. He hires the drag performer to design a line of gaudy boots, and then the question is, will he pull off this daring new business strategy?

Harvey Fierstein’s book is, as you might expect, equal parts camp and cheery sentiment, and Cyndi Lauper’s songs are theatrical and wonderful. Jerry Mitchell does double duty as both director and choreographer, and both direction and choreography are terrific.

Billy Sands stands out as the drag queen, Lola, but there are fabulous performances as well from Stark Sands, as the reluctant young factory owner, and Annaleigh Ashford, as a young factory worker who has a crush on her boss.

I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t like Kinky Boots – unless he’s from Texas and thinks the country is going to Hell in a handbasket.

The late Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy, at the Broadhurst Theatre, is also a hot ticket, largely because of the presence in the cast of Tom Hanks. It’s about tabloid journalist Mike McLary, who broke the Abner Louima case, won the Pulitzer Prize and then died of cancer. It is largely comprised of stories about McLary (the play’s original title), given theatrical zing by one of the great directorial geniuses in the American Theatre, George C. Wolfe.

How is Tom Hanks? Well, he’s a great actor – and his performance here demonstrates that. I think, though, that for the play to be optimally effective you have to care about the world of tabloid journalism. You have to think that these scoop-hungry ink-stained wretches are heroes. You have to be a Post or Daily News reader who would be bored out of his gourd if he ever read the times. Lucky Guy is ultimately more than just about a “heroic” journalist – it’s about the coarsening of American culture. Which it takes to be a good thing. Not me.

Ike Holter’s Hit the Wall, which is closing soon at the Barrow Street Theatre, is an import from Steppenwolf about gay culture in New York at the time of the Stonewall riot which culminates in the riot itself. It is touching and intensely theatrical, inventively directed by Eric Hoff, and features several superb performances. Sadly, it hasn’t been able to catch on, but definitely try to see it before it closes.

Ten years or so ago, the great clown Bill Irwin announced that he was retiring from physical clowning. Fortunately, he has had a change of heart, and has reunited with his partner in foolery, David Shiner, for one last evening of shtick, Old Hats, at Signature. The show is hilarious. Between bits, there are goofy songs written and sung by the very babealicious Nellie McKay, which add considerably to the fun. Go. Irwin and Shiner are unlikely to pass this way again.

I travelled up to the Long Wharf Theatre to see a new play by William Mastrosimone called Ride the Tiger, which offers an alternative history to the official story of the Kennedy assassination. Apparently, Mastrosimone, who was writing a mini-series for CBS about rank Sinatra, hung out with Frank Sinatra shortly before he died. Sinatra. who knew he was at the end of the line and no longer cared who he pissed off, told Mastrosimone that the Kennedy assassination was mob hit. Ride the Tiger is about the why and how. It’s absolutely fascinating, and highly credible; and Gordon Edelstein’s production is brilliant.

I know you’re probably not going to mission up to New Haven; but if live in the area check this one out. If there’s any justice (which all too often there isn’t) this one should “come in.” It certainly deserves to – just in time for the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.

Finally, I also journeyed afield to attend this year’s Humana Festival at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, the first festival whose lineup was chosen by new Artistic Director Les Waters. Waters is best known for his brilliant staging of plays by Sarah Ruhl and Caryl Chruchill, so I expected him to take the Festival in their direction. Imagine my surprise when the first two plays I saw, The Delling Shore by Sam Marks and Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, turned out to be classic examples of American realism such as used to be ubiquitous at ATL but which have been rarely seen in recent Festivals. The Delling Shore was about two writers, friends since college. One’s successful; one’s not. Appropriate was about an Arkansas family’s fight over who gets what (if there’s anything left) from the sale of the family manse. Very August: Osage County and just about as compelling. This seemed to be the Big One at this year’s festival, and I wouldn’t be surprised if New York theatregoers get to see it in the near future. Jeff Augustin’s Cry Old Country was set in Haiti during the Duvalier dictatorship and was about an artist struggling to stay under the government’s radar, and a young man determined to build a boat in order to escape the repression and horrible poverty in his country.

Finally, there was Will Eno’s Gnit, the last play I saw, directed by Waters, a loose adaptation of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, which was clever in an annoying sort of way. Eno’s the sort of writer who impresses literary managers, dramaturgs and The Times’ The Ish, because his work is so unique and different; but everyone else sits through his plays scratching the heads and going “what?” I found the play impossibly precious and, ultimately just silly, though well-acted and directed, as were all the Humana plays.

All in all, I was impressed by Waters’ stewardship of the Humana Festival, and look forward to next year’s edition.

HANDS ON A HARDBODY. Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Alas, closed
KINKY BOOTS. Hirschfeld Theatre, 302 W. 45th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
LUCKY GUY. Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
HIT THE WALL. Barrow St. Theatre, 27 Barrow St.
TICKETS: 212-868-4444
OLD HATS. Signature Theatre Center, 480 W. 42nd St.
TICKETS: 212-244-7529
RIDE THE TIGER. Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven, CT.
TICKETS: www.longwharf.org
HUMANA FESTIVAL. Go to www.actorstheatre.org in the fall for information about
next year’s Festival.

For discount tickets for groups of ten or more, contact Carol Ostrow Productions & Group Sales. Phone: 212-265-8500. E-Mail: ostrow1776@aol.com.

“It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry.”

– George F. Will

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually does strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

Lawrence Harbison brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. In this column, Larry reports on CINDERELLA, REALLY REALLY, THE REVISIONIST, BELLEVILLE, THE NORWEGIANS, BEARS, GOOD WITH PEOPLE, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, HONKY, SAGA and ANN.

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, at the Broadway Theatre, is a charming if somewhat old fashioned musical for those of you who like charming and old fashioned and are looking for something to take your kid to, now that Mary Poppins has closed.

Douglas Carter Beane has provided a new book, which is quite witty, in the gay humor sorta way that Beane is cherished for. Cinderella’s prince, played with aplomb by Santino Fontana (who knew this gifted dramatic actor could sing so well?), is now a rather hapless weenie, dominated by his chief counselor, played with wonderfully swishy flair by Peter Bartlett as if he were still Mr. Charles, currently of Palm Beach. He’s the Dick Cheney of the kingdom. Laura Osnes is charming in the title role, and Harriet Harris is delightful, even though at times she appears to be doing a Peter Bartlett impersonation (come to think of it, she’s been doing that for years …). Director Mark Brokaw has made the show a lot of fun.

Paul Downs Colaizzo’s Really Really, which has unfortunately closed after an extended run at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, was a sensational debut by a gifted new playwright about soulless college students and featured an impressive turn by David Mamet’s daughter, Zosia, as the most soulless of them all. David Cromer’s direction was, as you might expect, brilliant. This should have had a commercial transfer, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s produced many times all over the country and made into a film.

Jesse Eisenberg’s The Revisionist, produced by Rattlestick at the Cherry Lane Theatre, is a huge hit, primarily because Vanessa Redgrave’s in the cast, playing an elderly Polish woman. A young writer, played by Eisenberg, comes to Poland to stay with a distant relative (Redgrave), in order to revise his second book. This is basically just a contrivance, but Eisenberg is excellent, though he’s basically playing only a slight variation on his character in The Social Network and in his own play Asuncion, and Redgrave is, as you might expect, great. The play, though, is No Great Shakes. Why this young man has chosen to come to Poland to hang out with a distant relative he hardly knows is never really explained, and Eisenberg has no concept about how to build an effective dramatic arc. It’s just a series of scenes until the old lady boots the kid out, For No Apparent Reason. Reportedly, this is transferring to a commercial house. You could skip it, unless you absolutely can’t miss seeing Vanessa Redgrave or you’re a Jesse Eisenberg fan.

Amy Herzog’s Belleville, at New York Theatre Workshop, is a largely effective drama about a young couple living in Paris. He’s a research scientist. There’s a Big Surprise in the end, having to do with who he really is, and the couple has to vacate their flat – after which their landlords spend about 5 or 6 silent minutes removing the couple’s belongings. The play is effectively over by this time, so you sit there going, “What could the playwright and director have been thinking?” Still, it’s a good production with fine actors.

C. Denby Swanson’s The Norwegians, at the Drilling Co., is probably the biggest hit that theatre has had. It’s received great reviews (for the most part justified), and is about a young  woman who wants to hire two hit men, Minnesotans of Norwegian descent, to bump off her ex-boyfriend, who’s dumped her. The acting and direction were a little broad for my tastes; but there’s no denying that the play, which is loaded with great Norwegian jokes, is hilarious.

Bears, at 59 E 59, which has now closed, was an offbeat comedy by Mark Rigney about three bears struggling to survive after the world has gone to hell in a hand basket. Two of the bears are complacent zoo bears, whose equilibrium is upset upon the arrival of a wild wild bear named Susie. The actors were terrific, but I especially enjoyed Jenna Panther (what a name!) as Susie. This was worth seeing – I’m sorry if you missed it.

Also at 59 E 59, you can still catch Scottish playwright David Harrower’s brief Good With People, about a middle aged woman who runs a bed and breakfast in a small Scottish town and a mysterious young man who stays at her establishment for one night. The play is rather slight, but both actors, Blythe Duff and Andrew Scott-Ramsay, are really excellent.

Anita Loos’ odd comedy Happy Birthday has been revived by the excellent T.A.C.T. at the Samuel Beckett Theatre (at the Theatre Row multiplex) and features a large cast of superb character actors, headed by the always-terrific Mary Bacon as a shy librarian who comes into a bar in New Jersey looking to find a man who hangs out there, and to escape her abusive drunk of a father. The director, Scott Alan Evans, has given this rather old-fashioned play a somewhat expressionist spin, which I found most effective.

As for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Richard Greenberg’s adaptation of the Truman Capote novella at the Cort Theatre, the less said the better. Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke plays Holly Golightly. She does the best she can; but I found the character insufferable, so Clarke is too. And the play seems endless. This is definitely miss-able, and I expect will be gone soon.

Greg Kalleres, Honky (at Urban Stages) on the other hand, is terrific and has been extended. It’s a pithy comedy about a company which makes sneakers for the “urban market;” i.e., black teenagers, featuring terrific performances from the likes of Anthony Gaskins as a shoe designer appalled by the company’s ad campaign, which seems to encourage black kids to shoot each other for the company’s product, and Dave Droxler as the copywriter who wrote the ad. Honky is funny, and says a lot who we are as a country, in terms of racial attitudes. It’s a don’t-miss.

Another don’t-miss: Wakka Wakka’s amazing Saga, at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. For those of you who don’t know about Wakka Wakka, they are sort of a gonzo puppet theatre. Saga is about the economic crisis in Iceland, and how it affects one hapless man and his family. All the characters are puppets, manipulated by gifted onstage puppeteers. Wakka Wakka is that rarity, a company which does weird theatre but which does it well, with a truly amazing theatricality. They are totally unique, and not to be missed.

Also a don’t-miss: Holland Taylor as Ann Richards in Ann, at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, which Taylor also wrote. Taylor plays the feisty Texas Governor to a T, and her script has a lot of trenchant observations about the Great Political Divide in this country.

Ann is one of the best one-person plays I have seen in quite some time. It’s vastly entertaining, and Taylor is amazing.

CINDERELLA. Broadway Theatre, 1681 Broadway
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
REALLY REALLY. Lucille Lortel Theatre. Alas, closed.
THE REVISIONIST. Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce Street
TICKETS: 212-989-2020
BELLEVILLE. New York Theatre Workshop, 79 E. 4^th St.
TICKETS: 212-460-5475
THE NORWEGIANS. Drilling Company, 236 W. 78^th St.
TICKETS: www.smartix.com
BEARS. 59 E 59. Alas, closed.
GOOD WITH PEOPLE. 59 E. 59
TICKETS: www.ticketcentral.com or 212-279-4200
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Samuel Beckett Theatre, 410 W. 42^nd St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S. Cort Theatre, 138 W. 48^th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
HONKY. Urban Stages, 259 W. 30^th St.
TICKETS: www.smartix.com
SAGA. Baruch Performing Arts Center, 150 E. 25^th St.
TICKETS: 626-312-4085
ANN. Vivian Beaumont Theatre, Lincoln Center
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200

For discount tickets for groups of ten or more, contact Carol Ostrow Productions & Group Sales. Phone: 212-265-8500. E-Mail: ostrow1776@aol.com.

“It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry.”

                                                                                      — George F. Will

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually does strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

                                                                                    — Theodore Roosevelt

“On the Aisle with Larry”

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. In this column, Larry reports on PICNIC, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, BETHANY, THE VANDAL, FOODACTS and CLIVE.

In the Good Old Days, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama went to a play with a strong story and compelling characters. You know, like Picnic or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, plays which subsequently became honored members of our national dramatic repertory, both of which are back on Broadway. I wonder if future audience in New York will see revivals of plays like Topdog/Underdog, Anna in the Tropics or the most recent winner, Water by the Spoonful. I tend to doubt it. I suspect that these plays won the award for reasons other than their strengths as drama, or their likelihood of standing the test of time; but I’ll just let that drop. Suffice it to say that I consider it a disgrace that truly major playwrights such as A.R. Gurney and Terrence McNally have never won the Pulitzer. Gurney’s The Dining Room, Indian Blood and Big Bill were truly worthy of the award; as were McNally’s Lips Together, Teeth Apart, Some Men and Love! Valor! Compassion! Anyway, put the Pulitzer Jury in your “Go Figure” file …

I don’t think William Inge’s Picnic, produced by the Roundabout at their American Airlines Theatre, is a Deathless Classic, but it’s a strong, well-made play with characters you care about. Sam Gold’s production is mostly just OK, though – it’s weakness being the two leads, not because they are all that bad as individuals but because I just didn’t see real sexual chemistry between them. Sebastian Stan, who plays the drifter who whirls into town and wins the love of Our Heroine is a buffed hunk, but he’s wearing some weird kind of body makeup, it appears, which makes him look like he’s made of wax. The best performances come from, predictably, Elizabeth Marvel and Reed Birney, as a desperately lonely spinster schoolteacher and the businessman she’s been dating forever who just can’t bring himself to commit. Marvels’ anguished plea, “Marry me, Howard!” will long sear your heart.

Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, on the other hand, is a Deathless Classic. It’s been back on Broadway several times since I’ve been in NYC. This time around, it appears It’s here (at the Richard Rodgers Theatre) because Scarlett Johansson wanted to play Maggie. While Rob Ashford’s direction has its flaws, these don’t include Our Scarlett or her co-star, Benjamin Walker, who manages to make the ever-sullen Brick rather sympathetic. Johansson makes a heartbreaking Maggie, one of the finest I have ever seen. Also good is Irish actor Ciarán Hinds, whose Big Daddy is a different take on the role, more dark and seething with anger, than one usually sees. Debra Monk is fine as Big Mama, though my quibble about her is that Big Mama is supposed to be fat (it’s in the script), whereas Monk just looks sort of matronly. Another quibble, and this is with the director and the set designer: More than once, mention is made that Brick no longer sleeps in the same bed with Maggie, but on the sofa. Where’s the sofa??? Nowhere to be found on Christopher Oram’s set, that’s for sure. Did he and Ashford not notice this in the text?

Anyway, both these former Pulitzer Prize-winners are worth seeing. As for Water by the Spoonful? Eminently missable …

Julia Marks’ Bethany, a Women’s Project production in their new home at City Center Stage II, features “Ugly Betty” star America Ferrara as a woman named Crystal who’s at the end of her rope. She’s lost her house and custody of her daughter, Bethany, and if she doesn’t make a sale soon at the Saturn dealership where she works, she’s not going to get Bethany back. She has a possible customer, though, a motivational speaker who may or may not keep coming in to buy a car. Maybe, he’s just a weirdo; maybe he’s looking to leverage the saleswoman’s desperation into an easy lay. Meanwhile, Crystal is squatting in a foreclosed house which still has electrical power, sharing it with a very strange man who’s homeless too.

Ferrera is terrific in the play, strongly supported by a first-rate cast directed superbly by Gaye Taylor Upchurch. My faves were Ken Marks as her strange potential customer and Tobias Segal as her weird housemate.

Marks’ play is a haunting portrait of America’s middle class in steep free fall. It’s the sort of play which should win the Pulitzer …

Who knew that the wonderful actor Hamish Linklater was also a gifted playwright? Proof of this is on view at the Flea Theatre, where his The Vandal has been extended. This is a haunting three-hander. Late at night, a middle aged woman waiting at a bus stop is approached by a loquacious teenaged boy. He wants her to buy him some beer. Eventually, she caves – and learns that the kid is the beer store owner’s son. He’s a lonely widower – she’s a lonely widow.

This is one of those All Is Not What It Seems sorta plays. It’s very touching, beautifully directed by Jim Simpson and featuring three of the finest performances currently on the New York stage, from Noah Robbins (as the kid), Zach Grenier (as the store owner) and, most especially, from the always phenomenal Deirdre O’Connell.

This one’s a don’t-miss.

Foodacts, at the Lion Theatre, is an anthology of scenes from literature all having to do with food, conceived and directed by Barbara Bosch. Her direction is witty and inventive, and the acting is surprisingly strong. The intermission-less evening’s a little long, but still this is great fun.

And now, to Jonathan Marc Sherman’s Clive, at the Acorn Theatre, produced by the New Group, directed by and starring Ethan Hawke. This is a contemporary adaptation of Brecht’s Baal. Here, the central character is a singer-guitarist, the kind who turns up in East Village bars. He’s a vile man who sings like he’s parodying early Bob Dylan. Actually, he makes Dylan sound like Andrea Bocelli. He spends most of the play getting drunk, snorting coke and bedding various emo chicks, all easy lays and all played by Zoe Kazan. What this fine young actress is doing in this piece of crap mystifies me. Hawke is terrible in the title role. The other actors, playing multiple roles, struggle valiantly against the text and Hawke’s formless direction, but it’s a Lost Cause.

Clive has rocketed to the top of my Bomb of the Year list.

PICNIC. American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St.
TICKETS: www.roundabouttheatre.org or 212-719-1300
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF. Richard Rodgers Theatre, 226 W. 46th St.
TICKETS: www.ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000
BETHANY. City Center Stage II, 131 W. 55th St.
TICKETS: 212-581-1212
THE VANDAL. Flea Theatre, 41 White St.
TICKETS: www.ovationtix.com
FOODACTS. Lion Theatre, 410 W. 42nd St.
TICKETS: www.foodacts.com, www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
CLIVE. Acorn Theatre. Fuhgeddaboudit.

For discount tickets for groups of ten or more, contact Carol Ostrow Productions & Group Sales. Phone: 212-265-8500. E-Mail: ostrow1776@aol.com.

“It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry.”

– George F. Will

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually does strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. In this column, Larry reports on GOLDEN BOY, GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, THE OTHER PLACE, THE GREAT GOD PAN, GOLDEN AGE, MY NAME IS ASHER LEV, TAR BABY and WATER BY THE SPOONFUL.

Clifford Odets is having quite a year. Currently on the boards is an exemplary production of Golden Boy, and later this season we’ll have The Big Knife. Golden Boy, at the Belasco Theatre, is a Famous Play you may have read but have never seen. This is not surprising, as it has a large cast and multiple sets. Only an organization with the resources of Lincoln Center Theatre could have managed it, and kudos to them for doing do.

Set during the Depression, the play’s about a young Italian American man named Joe Bonaparte who dreams of success as a prizefighter, much to the dismay of his father, who knows his son is a gifted violinist and wants him to pursue that. Slowly but surely, Joe works his way up the ladder, knowing full well that the damage he is incurring to his hands will mean he’ll never play the violin again. Along the way, he falls in love with the girlfriend of his hard-boiled manager.

Bartlett Sher’s production is, in a word, magnificent. Look for this to be nominated for many awards come spring. His cast is astounding. At the top of the Astounding List is Seth Numrich as Joe, a Star is Born performance. Also outstanding are Tony Shalhoub as Joe’s father, Danny Mastrogiorgio as his manager and Yvonne Strahovski as Lorna, the girl who falls for Joe.

Don’t miss this wonderful production.

Daniel Sullivan’s production of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross. At the Schoefeld Theatre, has been much maligned. It doesn’t deserve it. This is a fine production of a great American play, featuring an ensemble cast of superb actors, led by Bobby Cannavale as Ricky Roma and Al Pacino as Shelly Levine. Pacino has been slammed for his performance. He doesn’t deserve it.

Another don’t-miss.

And speaking of don’t-miss, don’t miss Sharr White’s The Other Place, which Manhattan Theatre Club has put into their Broadway venue, the Friedman Theatre, it having first run two seasons ago at the Lucille Lortel. Laurie Metcalfe again stars as a brilliant scientist who has developed a drug to prevent the onset of dementia – ironic, as she herself has the disease. Metcalfe is brilliant. The Broadway cast is new, excerpt for her. Daniel Stern now plays the husband, and he is a marked improvement over his predecessor. And Metcalfe’s daughter, Zoe Perry, shines in several different roles.

Even if you saw the play Off Broadway, see it again. It’s been magnified from a good play into a Great Play.

Amy Herzog’s The Great God Pan, at Playwrights Horizons, is not as strong as After the Revolution and 4000 Years, which established her as one of the most exciting new playwriting voices of her generation, but there’s enough here to make it worth seeing. It’s about a man who’s contacted by a childhood friend whom he hasn’t seen in years. The friend has a demon — his father sexually molested him when he was a young boy – and he wants to know is his dad did the same thing to Our Hero. Great scene after great scene don’t, alas, add up to much that’s compelling; but the cast is good.

Terrence McNally’s Golden Age, which has alas closed at Manhattan Theatre Club, was a fascinating play about the opera composer Bellini, taking place backstage during the opening night performance of his I Puritani. Bellini spends the whole performance in the green room, interacting with the performers as they enter and exit. Walter Bobbie’s production was mighty fine, featuring several fine performances, most notably by Lee Pace as Bellini and Reg Rogers as his patron/lover.

I’m glad I saw it. I’m sorry if you didn’t.

Also good is Aaron Posner’s My Name is Asher Lev, at the Westside Theatre, a dramatization of Chaim Potok’s novel about a young Orthodox Jewish man with dreams of becoming a famous painter, much to the consternation of his parents – particularly, his father. Ari Brand is wonderful as Asher – but the real standout performances come from Mark Nelson – who plays several roles including Asher’s father – and Jenny Bacon, who plays the mother.

My Name is Asher Lev is funny, and poignant, and absolutely entrancing.

I also liked Tar Baby at the DR2 Theatre, written by (with Dan Kitrosser) and staring Desiree Burch, a solo show about racism, done in the style of a carny show, which culminates in an incredible angry rant of Black Rage which knocked me out. Unfortunately, after this Burch has about 15 minutes of “just-kidding” material, which undercuts what we’ve just heard, no doubt in an attempt to make the play more palatable to white audiences. She should have ended with the rant.

Still, this is very worth seeing – even if you are not a Person of Color.

Finally, Quira Alegría Hudes’ 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winner, Water by the Spoonful, has arrived in New York, at Second Stage. It’s an odd, two for the price of one, play. Half of it is about a young vet who works in a Subway and his cousin. The other half takes place in an internet chat room for crack addicts. Neither half melds very well.

If this play had not won the Pulitzer, it would be just another here today, gone tomorrow Off Broadway play, interesting and well produced but ultimately forgettable. But because of the award, you sit there watching it thinking, “This won the Pulitzer???” It’s particularly grating when you know that it beat out Jon Robin Baitz’ brilliant Other Desert Cities. What could the Pulitzer jury have been thinking?

GOLDEN BOY. Belasco Theatre, 111 w. 44TH St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS. Schoefeld Theatre, 236 W. 45th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
THE OTHER PLACE. Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
THE GREAT GOD PAN. Playwrights Horizons, 416 W. 42nd St.
TICKETS: www.ticketcentral.com or 212-279-4200
GOLDEN AGE. Manhattan Theatre Club. Alas, closed
MY NAME IS ASHER LEV Westside Theatre, 407 W. 43rd St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
TAR BABY. DR2 Theatre, 103 E. 15th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
WATER BY THE SPOONFUL. Second Stage, 305 W. 43rd St.
TICKETS, 212-246-4422

For discount tickets for groups of ten or more, contact Carol Ostrow Productions & Group Sales. Phone: 212-265-8500. E-Mail: ostrow1776@aol.com.

“It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry.”

— George F. Will

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually does strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

“On the Aisle with Larry”

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. This week, Larry reports on GIANT, DEAD ACCOUNTS, THE GOOD MOTHER, THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, GOLDEN CHILD, THE PIANO LESSON, THE LAST SEDER, THE ANARCHIST, CHECKERS and FIGARO.

Giant, the new musical at the Public Theater, is set to close this weekend. What a shame, because this is hands down the best new musical of the season.

The book, by Sybille Pearson, based on the novel by Edna Ferber, is gripping as it tells the story of Texas rancher Bick Bickford, his headstrong Virginian wife Leslie, and his surly ranch hand Jett (the James Dean role in the movie), spanning two decades as Texas moves from a ranching to an oil economy. Michael John LaChiusa’s score is magnificent.

Michael Greif’s direction is first rate and all the performances are superb. Brian D’Arcy James is wonderful as the complex Bick, as is Kate Baldwin as Leslie, but my two favorite performances were by Michelle Pawk, who I didn’t even recognize, as Bick’s tough-as-nails sister Luz and PJ Griffith, who somehow managed to take the iconic Dean role, Jett Rink, and make it uniquely his own.

It’s a durn shame that a work of this quality has to close.

Dead Accounts, Theresa Rebeck’s new play at the Music Box Theatre, has been much – and unfairly – maligned by the press. It’s a wonderfully-written play about a refugee from New York named Jack, a banker who has come home to Cincinnati to visit his sister and mother. Turns out, he has embezzled $27,000,000 by siphoning off inactive accounts. It’s uncertain as to whether or not his bank even knows he has done this – but his wife Jenny knows, which is why she is divorcing him.

Norbert Leo Butz is tearing up the stage as Jack, so much so that he overshadows Katie Holmes as his sister Lorna. She’s no slouch, though, and is quite good. Rounding out the cast are the always-excellent Jane Houdyshell is Jack’s mother, Josh Hamilton as a hometown friend who has had a long-time crush on Lorna, and Jane Greer, who plays Jack’s rich-bitch wife to a tee.

I’m not sure I got the ending – but up until then I was vastly entertained.

Francine Volpe’s The Good Mother, produced by the New Group at the Acorn Theatre, left me cold. Gretchen Moll plays a single mother with an autistic child. You keep thinking something dramatic is going to happen any minute, but it never does. The cast is excellent, though – particularly Ms. Moll. I just wish she was in a better play.

Roundabout’s revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, at Studio 54, is great fun. Rupert Holmes has set his musicalization of Dicken’s last – unfinished – novel as if it were being presented in and old time English music hall. After the eponymous character disappears the novel ended, so here the audience gets to vote on who done him in.

Holmes’ music is lovely, and there are several terrific performances, most notably by Jim Norton as the Master of Ceremonies, Chita Rivera as the exotic proprietress of an opium den and Stephanie J. Block as Drood. The night I saw the show, Will Chase was out, so I saw his understudy, Spencer Plachy, as the suspicious John Jasper. He was terrific – yet another proof of the incredible depth of the acting talent pool in New York.

David Henry Hwang is Signature’s playwright honoree this season, and they have mounted a terrific revival of his play Golden Child, about China on the cusp of the modern world.

The play begins with a Chinese American man interviewing his extremely elderly grandmother about the family’s history. We then travel back in time to the point when Granny was a little girl, living in a household with her successful business father, her mother and her father’s other two wives, who me she calls “aunties.” While the father is becoming modern by embracing Christianity, the wives vie against each other for power. Wife #2, played with wonderfully slick deviousness by Jennifer Lim, emerges triumphant.

Leigh Silverman’s beautiful production of this fascinating play will long live in my memory. Next up in the Hwang season: a new musical about Bruce Lee. Can’t wait!

Also at Signature, you can see a wonderful new production of the late August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Piano Lesson, featuring a titanic performance by Brandon J. Dirden as Boy Willie, who has the chance to buy some land down South – but only if he can persuade his sister, who lives in Pittsburgh, to sell the family heirloom piano. Ruben Santiago Hudson’s production is flawless.

Like Golden Child, this one’s a don’t-miss.

Jennifer Maisel’s The Last Seder, at Theatre Three (the space usually occupied by the Mint Theatre Co.), is a compelling drama about three sisters who return home for what may be a last Passover seder with their father, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and is on his last legs.

While the acting is impressive, director Jessica Bauman’s production is, well, eccentric. The roof of the family house dominates the stage, and many scenes are staged on it. This concept just doesn’t work.

David Mamet’s The Anarchist, on its last legs at the Golden Theatre, is a short two-hander about a woman named Cathy, imprisoned for 35 years for murdering two police officers when her radical group robbed a bank. Cathy has become a born-again Christian in prison, and please with her parole office to recommend that she be released. Patti Lupone (as Cathy) and Debra Winger, as the cynical parole office, struggle gamely with Mamet’s highly obtuse script, but the whole evening feels like 20 minutes of play about 55 minutes of wheel-spinning.

Douglas McGrath’s Checkers, at the Vineyard, at Pearl Theatre Co.’s production of Figaro, an adaptation by Charles Morey of Beaumarchais’ The Marriage of Figaro, have, sadly both closed. I was scheduled to see them both around Sandy-time, but had to postpone until the end of their runs. Checkers was a brilliant play about none other than Richard Nixon, focusing on his desperate attempt to avoid being dumped from the Republican presidential ticket in 1952 when he was accused of having a slush fund, money donated by wealthy businessmen, which he had used for his personal expenses. Terry Kinney’s production was amazing, as were Anthony LaPaglia as Nixon and Kathryn Erbe as his wife Pat. This is one of the best plays I have seen this season. Figaro was a delightful goof, directed wittily by Hal Brooks and featuring Pearl’s outstanding acting company.

I hope you saw both these productions; I’m sorry if you missed them.

GIANT. Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St.
TICKETS: 212-967-7555 or www.publictheater.org
DEAD ACCOUNTS. Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
THE GOOD MOTHER. Acorn Theatre, 410 W. 42nd St.
TICKETS: 212-244-3380 or www.thenewgroup.org
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St.
TICKETS: 212-719-1300 or www.roundabouttheatre.org
GOLDEN CHILD. Signature Theatre Center, 480 W. 42nd St.
TICKETS: 212-244-7529
THE PIANO LESSON. Signature Theatre Center, 480 W. 42nd St.
TICKETS: 212-244-7529
THE LAST SEDER. Theatre Three, 311 W. 43rd St.
TICKETS: 212-868-4444
THE ANARCHIST. Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
CHECKERS. Vineyard Theatre. Alas, closed.
FIGARO. Pearl Theatre Co. Alas, closed

For discount tickets for groups of ten or more, contact Carol Ostrow Productions & Group Sales. Phone: 212-265-8500. E-Mail: ostrow1776@aol.com.

“It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry.”

— George F. Will

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually does strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

“On the Aisle with Larry”

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. This week, Larry reports on SCANDALOUS, A CHRISTMAS STORY, FOREVER DUSTY, VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE, EMOTIONAL CREATURE, ANNIE, RADIANCE, FALLING, THE HEIRESS, MODERN TERRORISM, FOREVER DUSTY, A TWIST OF WATER, THE WHALE, THE TWENTY-SEVENTH MAN and SORRY.

Scandalous, the new musical at the Neil Simon Theatre, with book, lyrics and some music by Kathie Lee Gifford and most of the music by David Pomeranz and David Friedman, tells the story of America’s first superstar media evangelist, Aimee Semple McPherson, who rose from humble beginnings to world fame in the 20s and 30s before facing a scandal which almost brought her down.

For a show like this to work, the audience has to believe that Our Heroine is the real deal, and it has to believe in her message. This is an impossible uphill climb in a place like New York, but Gifford attempts it anyway. Instead of an evangelist, McPherspon is portrayed as a proto-self-help guru. Nobody seems to have noticed this, but there is little or no mention of Christ and Christianity. McPherson stages elaborate Biblical pageants at her church in Los Angeles (all rather silly in order to remind audiences of how much fun they had at The Book of Mormon), but these are all from the Old Testament, I guess so as not to piss off Jews and atheists, two of the larger Broadway demographics. Walt Spangler’s unit set is meant to suggest McPherson’s Angelus Church in Los Angeles. There is no Christian iconography. It looks like rows of ice pillars, which brought me in mind more than once of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.

The music affords the star, Carolee Carmello, ample opportunity to crank up her amazing belt voice. She’s the main reason to go see Scandalous, though mention must also be made of Edward Watts, who plays Husbands #1 and 3 (one a good guy, one a louse). Watts has great charisma, sings wonderfully in a rich baritone and is the most beautiful man I have seen on a Broadway stage since the first time I saw Cheyenne Jackson. Whether you’re gay or straight: hubba-hubba!

I expected A Christmas Story, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, to be another cloying holiday entertainment. Boy, was I wrong! Joseph Robinette’s book is wonderfully inventive, and the songs are all a delight. In case you don’t know the movie, it’s about a little kid named Ralphie who somehow must convince his parents that a BB gun would be a great gift for him this Christmas. The intrusive voice-over narration in the movie has been replaced with an onstage narrator, played with great charm by Dan Lauria.

John Rando is one of our finest directors of comedy, and he’s pulled out all the stops here, aided by Warren Carlyle’s witty choreography. Johnny Rabe is perfect as the geeky Raphie, as are John Bolton and Erin Dilly as the parents. Stop-the-show moments are provided by Caroline O’Connor and pint-sized dynamo Luke Spring in a hilarious number in the second act about why Raphie shouldn’t get his gun, “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out,” in which Spring has an astonishing featured tap sequence which brought the house down.

A Christmas Story rivals Chaplin as the best new musical of the season. It has a limited run, closing on 30 December, so you better get going.

Christopher Durang’s new comedy, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, is this comic master’s funniest play in years. It’s about three siblings, all named by their academic parents for Chekhov characters. Vanya, played with wonderful aplomb by David Hyde Pierce and Sonia, played to dotty perfection by Durang veteran Kristine Nielsen, live together in the family house in Buck’s Country, which for some reason is owned solely by their older sister Masha, a famous movie star not unlike Sigourney Weaver, who plays her, who rarely visits. She’s come for a visit, in tow with her studly boyfriend Spike, a vapid hunk who’s half her age, for a costume party at a famous neighbor’s house. She’s going to go as Snow White, and she’s invited her brother and sister to come along as drawfs. Sonia stands up for herself for once in her life and decided instead to go as the Wicked Queen, whom she interprets with a very stagy, hilarious Maggie Smith accent. Vanya dresses up as Grumpy. Masha basically supports Vanya and Sonia, and she announces that she plans to sell the house. Will she or won’t she?

Nicholas Martin, not particularly known for comedy, delivers a Rando-class production.

This one’s a don’t-miss.

I also enjoyed Eve Ensler’s Emotional Creature, at the Signature Center, an evening of songs and monologues about worldwide girldom. It’s funny and poignant, and beautifully acted by an ensemble of 6 young women, under the fine directorial hand of Jo Bonney.

As for Annie, at the Palace Theatre, this was something of a disappointment. I found James Lapine’s direction to be surprisingly uninventive. I did enjoy Lilla Crawford in the title role, but was amazed to see the usually-wonderful Katie Finneran screeching her way through the role of Miss Hannigan, and she wasn’t funny – she was just mean. Still, Annie has some wonderful songs and when Annie manages to persuade Oliver Warbucks to join with FDR to do something about the Depression by introducing the New Deal, the show has whimsical contemporary topicality, because basically Warbucks is the Koch brothers pleading with the President for massive government intervention in the economy. One can only wish.

I did enjoy Cusi Cram’s Radiance, at the Labyrinth Theatre Co. We are in a dive bar in Hollywood, on an afternoon, peopled by the manager and a floozy who doubles as cocktail waitress and bookkeeper, when in walks a mysterious man in need of a drink. Turns out, he was the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, the plane used to drop the bomb in Hiroshima. He’s in turn to appear on “This is Your Life,” but he fled the set when learned that the Hiroshima Maidens, women horribly disfigured by the blast, are also to appear. Suzanne Agins has done a fine job of directing and all her actors are terrific. My faves were Ana Reeder as the floozy and Kyle Sudduth as the tormented flier.

The critics have been laying into Labyrinth lately, pretty much ever since they moved into their new home at Westbeth. Some of this has been justified, as a couple of their play choices have been most questionable, but the carping about Radiance is not. Labyrinth has extended the run of the play, so fortunately people must not be paying any mind to the critical negativity.

Deanna Jent’s Falling, at the Minetta Lane Theatre amazed me – not so much because the play’s all that great but more because it’s a rather conventional realistic family drama which not only got produced off Broadway but actually got some pretty good reviews. Usually, they hate this kind of play. Go figure. Anyway, it’s about parents dealing with the chaos caused by their autistic teenaged son. Jent’s writing is assured but uninspired, and the same thing can be said of Lori Adams’ direction. Falling is the sort of play best seen by people whose lives have been affected by autism.

Roundabout has revived Ruth and Augustus Goetz’ The Heiress, at the Walter Kerr Theatre, largely as a vehicle for Jessica Chastain, who plays the title role, and Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens, who plays the fickle man Our Heroine pins her hopes on. The play itself is the sort that the Mint Theatre regularly revives, though it is far less obscure than most of their offerings. I only mention this because if it was seen at the Mint it would seem far stronger than it appears on Broadway. When Cherry Jones played the central role several years ago, she made the play seem more memorable than it was. Jessica Chastain, while perfectly fine, is no Cherry Jones.

Is this worth seeing? Sure, particularly if you’re a Downton Abbey fan, as Stevens is excellent as the false suitor. Also good is David Strathairn as the strait-laced, stern father.

About Second Stage’s Modern Terrorism, the less said the better. This was an attempted comedy about a terrorist cell in New York plotting a suicide bombing on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. A comedy? Really?? Sorry – Not Funny. The actors were good, but not enough to redeem this misguided play.

Forever Dusty, at New World Stages, is a biographical musical about British pop singer Dusty Springfield, written rather clunkily by Kirsten Holly Smith and Jonathan Vankin, and directed clunkily as well by Randall Myler. Smith is terrific as Dusty Springfield, though, as is Christina Sajous, who plays a journalist who becomes Dusty’s lover.

Forever Dusty is not as bad as you’ve heard. I recommend it.

I would also have recommended Caitlin Parrish’s A Twist of Water had I gotten it together before it closed last weekend at 59 E 59. This was an import from Chicago and was about a gay man struggling to maintain his relationship with his surly adopted teenaged daughter and to rebuild his life after the death of his partner. It was also about the history of Chicago, which probably worked better in Chi-town than it did here. But the acting was first-rate. I hope you saw this. If you didn’t, I’m sorry.

Also good is Samuel D. Hunter’s The Whale, at Playwrights Horizons, a drama about a 600-pound man who’s been eating himself to death since the death of his partner, even as he tries to reconnect with his estranged teenaged daughter, a horrible girl who’s mean to everybody. Shuler Hensley is very strong as the big fat guy. All the actors are good, in fact.

The Twenty-Seventh Man, at the Public Theater, is a drama by Nathan Englander set in Stalinist Russia about a group of Jewish writers who have been rounded up for eventual execution as part of Stalin’s desire to eradicate Yiddish. We are in a cell with four of them – three famous writers and one young teenaged nobody. One of the writers is a Stalinist toady who believes he’s been arrested mistakenly. Some of Englander’s dialogue is a bit clunky, but the play is a riveting examination of the Russian part of the Holocaust and is quite moving. Chip Zien is particularly impressive as the toady who is asked by the man responsible for arresting him (chillingly played by Byron Jennings) to denounce the unpublished writings of the kid.

I highly recommend The Twenty-Seventh Man.

As for Richard Nelson’s Sorry, also at the Public Theater – what a disappointment. This play is the third in a series of plays about a family which gets together from time to time to talk politics. The first two were engaging, but by the time Nelson got around to this one he had nothing left to say. Sorry is almost two hours, sans interval, of uninteresting talk and is incredibly boring.

SCANDALOUS. Neil Simon Theatre, 250 W. 52nd St.
TICKETS: www.ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000 or 877-250-2929
A CHRISTMAS STORY. Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 W. 46th St.
TICKETS: www.ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000 or 877-250-2929
FOREVER DUSTY. New World Stages (Stage 5), 340 W. 50th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE. Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, Lincoln
Center
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
EMOTIONAL CREATURE. Pershing Square Signature Center/Romulus Linney
Courtyard Theatre, 480 West 42nd Street
TICKETS: 212-244-7529
ANNIE. Palace Theatre, 1564 Broadway
TICKETS: www.ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000 or 877-250-2929
RADIANCE. Labyrinth Theatre Co., Bank St. Theatre, 155 Bank St.
TICKETS: www.labtheatre.org
FALLING. Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane.
TICKETS: 800-982-2787
THE HEIRESS. American Airlines Theatre, 219 W. 48th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
MODERN TERRORISM. Second Stage. Closed.
A TWIST OF WATER 59 E 59. Closed
THE WHALE. Playwrights Horizons, 416 W. 42nd St.
TICKETS: www.ticketcentral.com or 212-279-4200
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH MAN. Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St.
TICKETS: 212-967-7555
SORRY. Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St.
TICKETS: 212-967-7555

For discount tickets for groups of ten or more, contact Carol Ostrow Productions & Group Sales. Phone: 212-265-8500. E-Mail: ostrow1776@aol.com.

“It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry.”

– George F. Will

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually does strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. This week, Larry reports on BRING IT ON, CHAPLIN, FORBIDDEN BROADWAY: ALIVE AND KICKING, COUGAR , THE ANDERSON TWINS PLAY THE FABULOUS DORSEYS, MARY BROOME, RED-HANDED OTTER, HEARTLESS and THE TRAIN DRIVER. 

Bring It On! At the St. James Theatre, this season’s first Broadway musical, has started the season off with a bang. High school cheerleading has sure progressed since the long ago days of yesteryear when I was a teen; although, to be honest, the teen I was once is still part of me – which may be one of the reasons why I enjoyed this show so much. 

Apparently, cheerleading now involves gymnastics, acrobatics and high-pressure competitions. Our heroine, Campbell, has dreams of winning the national championship; until, that is, she is mysteriously transferred from her suburban school to an inner city one. Turns out, book writer Jeff Whitty has provided an Eve Harrington-like villain (her name is even Eva), who has connived so that Campbell is out of the way so she can become captain of the cheerleading squad, while Campbell finds herself stuck, one of the few white kids, in a school with no squad. Will Campbell manage to fit in? Will she manage to persuade her rowdy new classmates to form a squad and take on her former school? 

Whitty’s book is snappy and clever, and the songs (Music: Tom Kitt/Lin Manuel Miranda; Lyrics: Miranda and Amanda Green) are terrific. Andy Blankenbuehler’s direction and choreography are great as well. Taylor Louderman is delightful as Campbell, as is Adrienne Warren as Danielle, her nemesis at her new school who finally agrees to help Campbell in her glorious quest to form a top-notch cheerleading squad. In fact, all the young performers in the show are great. 

The plan is to run this for a while on Broadway and then take it out on a national tour. Once high school kids and drama directors get a load of it, I expect it will become one of the most-produced shows in schools. 

Chaplin, at the Barrymore Theatre, has gotten rather dismissive reviews. It deserves better. The book, by Christopher Curtis and Thomas Meehan, is brilliant, and Christopher Curtis’ songs are wonderful. Director/choreographer Warren Carlyle has fashioned a very cinematic production, almost all in black, white and gray. You’d think this would get tiresome, but the costume designs by Amy Clark and the late Martin Pakledinaz are endlessly inventive. 

But the main reason to see this show is the simply astonishing performance by Rob McClure as Charlie Chaplin. You won’t believe what you’re seeing. 

Chaplin looks to be this season’s Bonnie & Clyde – a terrific crowd-pleaser which may not run very long because a handful of cultural ayatollahs scorned it. Don’t pay any attention to them. 

After a three-year hiatus, Gerard Alessandrini’s back with a new edition of Forbidden Broadway at the 47^th St. Theatre, Forbidden Broadway: Alive and Kicking, which is one of the best FBs I have seen in many a year. One can always count on Alessandrini for brilliantly witty skewers of current and recent Broadway shows, and you’ll get a lot of these here; but what really carries the show is his brilliant cast, in hilarious costumes by Philip Heckman. Nothing is sacred for Alessandrini, even Broadway darlings like Sutton Foster and Patti Lupone. Alessandrini, in the tradition of many great theatrical satirists going back to Aristophanes, makes fun of the present, which he feels is a pale imitation of the Good Old Days. That may or may not be true; but even if you loved some of the shows and performances he lampoons, or even if you haven’t seen them, you’ll have a rollicking good time. 

While not as across-the-board fun as Forbidden Broadway, Cougar, at Theatre at St. Luke’s, is surprisingly good. I say “surprisingly” because a musical about 40-ish woman in pursuit of sex with young men sounds, well, tacky. Sometimes it is; but it won me over anyway with its fun mix of amusing lyrics by Donna Moore (with several different composers), its witty staging by Lynne Taylor-Corbett and the winning performances by Catherine Porter, Brenda Braxton and Babs Winn as the three cougars and Danny Bernhardy, who plays various male roles as well as a chatty nails lady. 

Probably, this show will prove most appealing to older women – but I’m not an old broad and I had a good time. 

The Anderson Twins, identical twin jazz musicians who regularly gig in the lounge of 59 E 59, have moved into the smallest of the three theatres there with The Anderson Twins Play the Fabulous Dorseys, an homage to the music of big band era band leaders Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, which consists of chamber arrangements of various Dorsey hits, interspersed with scenes from a terrible film about the Dorsey brothers. The Andersons also make a half-hearted attempt at the sort of sibling rivalry which drove the Dorseys apart for many years. This is even worse than having to watch scenes from the movie, not only because it’s silly and unnecessary but because the Andersons are terrible actors. 

When the Andersons and their side men just stick to the music, though, the show is great. 

Mary Broome, the current offering at the Mint, is like all Mint productions – good acting, good direction and inventive design. The play itself, by Allan Monkhouse, is minor Mint. It’s a well-constructed well-made play about a ne’re-do-well younger son of a well to do English family who gets the maid preggers and is forced by his stern father to marry her. Director Jonathan Bank’s production doesn’t make the case that Mary Broome is an unjustly forgotten classic, like many of Mint’s productions have. But it’s a solid production with fine performances by the ensemble. Is it worth seeing? Absolutely – as is everything at the Mint. 

Ethan Lipton’s Red-Handed Otter, at the Cherry Lane Studio, is a quirky play about a security crew at an unnamed big company, the kind of people who have to sit their shifts watching a wall of TV screens showing every room in the building. A lot of it seemed to me to be wheel-spinning, but Mike Donahue’s direction covers up a lot of the play’s weaknesses and makes them feel like strengths. 

Sam Shepard’s Heartless has just finished its all-too-brief run at Signature Theatre Center. I hope you had a chance to see it, because it was Classic Shepard – weird, Western and mythic. A young woman has hooked up with a much older man, who is sort of on the lam from his life. They are staying at the family home in the hills above Los Angeles. Also on hand are the woman’s spinsterish sister, her disabled and demented mother, and the mother’s mysterious nurse. Lois Smith was riveting as the mother, and everyone in the cast was fine as well in this very complex play. 

Athol Fugard’s The Train Driver, which also ran at Signature, has also closed. It took place in a potter’s field in an impoverished township in South Africa and was about a guilt-wracked man whose train struck and killed a woman and her baby. He is trying to find her grave with the help of an elderly grave digger who lives in a shack in the midst of the graves. The play was rather talky, but Fugard’s wonderful language and the performances by Ritchie Coster, in the title role, and Leon Addison Brown as the gravedigger made this a powerful evening. 

BRING IT ON. St. James Theatre, 246 W. 44^th St.

            Tickets: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200.

CHAPLIN. Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47^th St.

            Tickets: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200.

FORBIDDEN BROADWAY: ALIVE AND KICKING. 47^th St. Theatre, 304 W. 47^th St.

            Tickets: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200.

COUGAR. Theatre at St. Luke’s, 308 W. 46^th St.

            Tickets: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200.

THE ANDERSON TWINS PLAY THE FABULOUS DORSEYS. 59 E 59

            Tickets: www.ticketcentral.com or 2121-279-4200.

MARY BROOME. Mint Theatre, 311 W. 43^rd St.

            Tickets: 866-811-4111 or www.minttheater.org

RED-HANDED OTTER. Cherry Lane Studio, 38 Commerce St.

            Tickets: 866-811-4111

HEARTLESS. Signature Theatre. Alas, closed.

THE TRAIN DRIVER. Signature Theatre. Alas, closed.

For discount tickets for groups of ten or more, contact Carol Ostrow Productions & Group Sales. Phone: 212-265-8500. E-Mail: ostrow1776@aol.com.

“It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry.”

                                                                                      — George F. Will

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually does strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

                                                                                    — Theodore Roosevelt

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. This week, Larry reports on COCK, 3C, SLOWGIRL, CHIMICHANGAS AND ZOLOFT, LOVE GOES TO PRESS, HARVEY, THIS IS FICTION, POTTED POTTER, CLOSER THAN EVER, I AM A TREE, RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURN and JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR.

The seating configuration for Cock, Mike Bartlett’s brilliant new drama at the Duke Theatre, consists of bleachers on all sides of the stage, as if we were at a cock fight – which, it turns out, we are. The play begins with two male lovers breaking up. Things haven’t been going well for them lately. It turns out that this is because one of them, John, has been having a relationship with a woman, much to the mortification of his boyfriend. What ensues is a fascinating tug of rope between the boyfriend and the woman, with John as the rope.

James MacDonald, the director, has staged this cockfight with no set and no props, and the result is Pure Theatre. The scene in which John and the woman make love for the first time (she does a lot of instructing) is done as a kind of dance and is incredibly erotic. We don’t have to watch them having sex, thank God – it’s all in the words.

Cory Michael Smith is brilliant as the confused John, and there is wonderful work as well from Amanda Quaid as John’s lady love, Jason Butler Harner as his angry boyfriend and the always-terrific Cotter Smith as the boyfriend’s dad, who gives his son as much help as he can in this tug of war.

This one’s a don’t-miss.

David Adjmi’s 3C, at Rattlestick, appears to be a send-up of a silly 1970’s TV comedy. It’s about 2 girls, roommates, who invite a guy who passed out in their kitchen the night before to move in as they have just lost their other roommate and need help with the rent. He’s a somewhat addled gay Vietnam vet. Also in the mix are the vet’s best bud, a vilely homophobic landlord and his daffy wife. Admji has structured his play like a series of sitcom scenes. There is not much in the way of plot.

3C has gotten some good reviews, including one from the usually-reliable Elizabeth Vincentelli of the NY Post; but I thought it was just terrible. Where’s the beef? The acting is good for the most part, although the actor playing the landlord is dreadful. Jackson Gay’s direction is an odd mix of styles. The actors start out speaking in that mile-a-minute style which I used to see in Broadway comedies, which is eventually dropped.

This makes three bombs in a row from Rattlestick. What’s going on over there?

LCT3, Lincoln Center Theatre’s program for new playwrights, has a new home, a lovely little space called the Claire Tow Theatre atop the Vivian Beaumont. Their inaugural production in this new space is a beautiful play by Greg Pierce called Slowgirl, a two-hander featuring the always brilliant Željko Ivanek and an exciting newcomer, Sarah Steele. Ivanek plays Sterling, who lives in a shack in the Costa Rican jungle. His teenaged niece Becky arrives for a visit. She may or may not have been involved in an incident at a party in which a slowwitted girl, teased by the other kids, fell out of a window. She’s now in a coma. Becky claims she didn’t have anything to do with it; but is she telling the truth? And what is Sterling doing out there in the jungle, living as a hermit?

Anne Kauffman’s direction is absolutely wonderful, as are her two actors. This is another don’t-miss.

Fernanda Coppel’s Chimichangas and Zoloft, at Atlantic Stage II, is about a mother who suffers from depression. She has taken off for parts unknown, much to the dismay of her teenaged daughter, who thinks she’s gay. Another plot thread involves her husband, who is having a torrid affair with the father of his daughter’s best friend. The play seems improbable at times, but the acting is good.

Love Goes to Press is another winner from the exemplary Mint Theatre Co., which specializes digging up unjustly-forgotten plays and giving them first rate productions. This one’s a comedy by Martha Gellhorn and Virginia Cowles based on their experiences as journalists during World War II. Jane Mason and Annabelle Jones are a pair of hard-driving journalists torn between their desire for scoops and their desire for Love and Marriage. Guess which they both wind up choosing.

Jerry Ruiz’ production is Mighty Fine, as are Angela Pierce and Heidi Armbruster as Our Heroines, Jane and Annabelle. All the acting is terrific. Don’t miss this one.

Roundabout’s revival of Mary Chase’s Harvey, at Studio 54, featuring Jim Parsons as Elwood P. Dowd, is great fun. Parsons is both hilarious and touching as the daffy Elwood, whose best friend is a 6-foot tall invisible white rabbit; and Jessica Hecht, heretofore best known for her performances in dramas, turns in a delightful comic gem of a perforomance as Elwood’s at-her-wit’s-end sister Veta. Scott Ellis’ direction is perfect.

Harvey is considered something of an Old Chestnut, a staple for years in community theatre; but is has a lot to say about civility and decency as it gently decries the modern obsession with “reality.” I loved it. My invisible friend loved it too.

Megan Hart’s This is Fiction, as the Cherry Lane Studio, is about a young woman, a novelist, who comes home to New Jersey to tell her father and her sister that her book is about Dear Old Mom, an alcoholic who died in a car accident while driving drunk. Hart’s writing is touching and witty, and Aubyn Philabaum is wonderful as Our Heroine.

It looks like the Little Shubert finally has a hit in Potted Potter, a parody of the Harry Potter books/movies written and performed by Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner, wherein the indefatigable Clarkson and Turner parody all seven of the Harry Potters in 80 wild and whacky minutes. If you’re a Potter nut you’ll find it all great fun. If you’re not, like me, you won’t get a lot of it – but you can still enjoy the goofy clowning.

York Theatre Co.’s revival of the Richard Maltby/David Shire revue Closer Than Ever, stylishly directed by Maltby, has four wonderful performers doing one great song after another. Jenn Colella’s rendition of “Miss Byrd,” probably the best-known song from the show, is priceless. I also loved Sal Viviano’s touching take on another well-known song from the revue, “One of the Good Guys” – probably because I’m one of them too.

The revue seems to be something of an endangered species. Last season the Drama Desk Nominating Committee, of which I was a member, saw only four of them – two of which we nominated in the Best Revue category. Closer Than Ever wouldn’t have been eligible, because it’s a revival – but this is easily the best revue I have seen in quite a while.

I am a Tree at Theatre at St. Clement’s is a monodrama written and performed by Dulcy Rogers, whereon she plays a timid woman (presumably, herself) who goes off to meet her three eccentric aunts to try and solve the mystery of what happened to her mother, who lost her mind and is now institutionalized. Rogers is an engaging performer and her story is well-constructed, with flashes of real literary flair, though the evening is a little too long. The Theatre at SC has bad acoustics and tends to swallow up productions, including this one. It would have seemed much better had it been in a different space.

Gina Gionfriddo’s Rapture, Blister, Burn, which closes this weekend at Playwrights Horizons, is a wonderful play which examines the state of contemporary feminism. This sounds dry and academic, I know – but this one is engaging from start to finish, even if you have an extra Y chromosome. A feminist scholar, Catherine, comes “back home” to care for her ailing mother. She reconnects with her old friends Gwen and Don. Gwen has taken the Mommy track and Don, her husband, has settled for a life of lazy mediocrity. Turns out, Don was Catherine’s boyfriend before he married Gwen, who scooped him up when Catherine went off to study abroad. Now, Catherine wonders if she might have been happier lading her life with a husband, rather than being alone; and Gwen, who has pretty much had it with Don at this point, wonders what might have been if she led a life more like Catherine’s.

Peter DuBois’ direction is subtle and astute, and all his actors are excellent. I particularly enjoyed Amy Brenneman (Catherine), Beth Dixon (her mother) and Virginia Kull as a college student to whom all this feminist and post-feminist stuff is brand-new.

If we had a healthy commercial theatre, plays like Slowgirl and Rapture, Blister, Burn wouldn’t have brief runs at non-profit theatres and then have to close.

Speaking of closings, the annual Tony massacre has been claiming victims left and right. This past season, the vast majority of shows opened in March and April, hoping for Tony nominations as they competed for the same audience. Their nominations enable them to extend their runs; but when they lost the Tony Roulette they have to close. The latest victim is Des McAnuff’s brilliant production of Jesus Christ Superstar, at the Neil Simon Theatre, which didn’t get good enough reviews to justify keeping it going once it lost its Tonys. I blame McAnuff for this. He had the temerity to take the core story — which you may recall comes not from Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice but from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – seriously, instead of sending it up as some critics wanted him to do. So, JCS is closing this weekend, unless business picks up. I don’t think you necessarily have to suffer from what the late Christopher Hitchens called “The God Delusion” to enjoy this show. The singing is fantastic, as is McAnuff’s staging.

COCK. The Duke Theatre, 229 W. 42nd St.
Tickets: 646-223-3010
3C. Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, 224 Waverly Place.
Tickets: 212- 627-2556
SLOWGIRL. Claire Tow Theatre, Lincoln Center.
Tickets: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
CHIMICHANGAS AND ZOLOFT. Atlantic Stage II. Alas, closed.
LOVE GOES TO PRESS. Mint Theatre Co., 311 W. 43rd St.
Tickets: 866-811-4111 or www.minttheater.org
HARVEY. Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St.
Tickets: 212-719-1300 or online at www.roundabouttheatre.org
THIS IS FICTION. Cherry Lane Studio Theatre,
Tickets: 212-352-3101 or https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/33005
POTTED POTTER. Little Shubert Theatre, 422 W. 42nd St.
Tickets: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
CLOSER THAN EVER. York Theatre Co., St. Peter’s Church ni Citicorp Bldg., E 54th
St. @ Lexington Ave.
Tickets: 212-935-5820
I AM A TREE. Theatre at St. Clement’s, 423 W. 46th St.
Tickets: 212-352-3101 or www.theatermania.com
RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURN. Playwrights Horizons, 416 W. 42nd St.
Tickets: www.ticketcentral.com or 212-279-4200
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR. Neil Simon Theatre, 250 W. 52nd St.
Tickets: 800-745-3000, 877-250-2929 or www.ticketmaster.com

For discount tickets for groups of ten or more, contact Carol Ostrow Productions & Group Sales. Phone: 212-265-8500. E-Mail: ostrow1776@aol.com.

“It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry.”

— George F. Will

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually does strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

– Theodore Roosevelt