Lawrence Harbison, the Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. This week, Larry tells you about WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN, DRIVING MISS DAISY, THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS, A LIFE IN THE THEATRE, THE PEE WEE HERMAN SHOW, PENELOPE, IN THE WAKE, THE MEMORANDUM, and PHOTOGRAPH 51.

I never read reviews of a show before I see it. Nobody should. It’s important to go in with an open, receptive mind. Too many people let critics tell them what to think, rather than deciding for themselves. Anyway, since I saw Lincoln Center Theatre Co.’s production of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, at the beautifully refurbished Belasco Theatre, I have been reading the mostly negative reviews with mounting flabbergasted-ness, wondering, “Did these people see the same show I saw?”

I have not seen the Pedro Almodóvar film upon which this new musical is based, so I can’t compare the musical with it. The story (book by Jeffery Lane), which takes place in Madrid, centers around three women, all of whom have man troubles. Pepa, an actress who does TV commercials, finds out via a message left on her answering machine that her lover, Ivan, is leaving her; Lucia, Ivan’s wife from whom he has been separated for twenty years, is finally ready to file for divorce; Candela, a model with what used to be considered a healthy sex life (this takes place in the mid 1980s, before women became terrified that men might not only break their hearts – they might also poison them), has had a one-night stand with a man who might be a terrorist with plans to blow something up.

Bartlett Sher’s brilliant production of this complex work makes it seem almost as if you are watching a film. It’s the most “cinematic” staging of a musical I have ever seen. As for the score by David Yazbek, it is just one great song after another and is the first great musical score of this century. How’s that for hyperbole? I don’t usually engage in it; but I can’t help it here. Yazbek just plain blew me away.

As for the performances: Sherie Rene Scott (Pepa), Laura Benanti (Candela) and Patti Lupone (Lucia) and all fabulous, and Brian Stokes Mitchell (Ivan) is, too. Catherine Zuber’s costumes are spectacularly witty, and the scenic design by Michael Yeargan, which uses a lot of projections and greatly aids and abets Sher’s cinematic vision, is ingenious and wonderful.

Something about this show brought out the inner bitch in the critics. Don’t pay any attention to them. This one’s a don’t-miss.

Alfred Uhry’s Pultizer Prize-winning Driving Miss Daisy has been revived, this time on Broadway at the Golden Theatre, starring Vanessa Redgrave as Daisy and James Earl Jones as Hoke, roles made famous by Dana Ivey (in the original production), Jessica Tandy (in the film) and Morgan Freeman in both.

The play is still a touching story about bridging the great racial divide, as Daisy and Hoke progress from mutual suspicion towards friendship over the course of many years. It’s a little small-scale for Broadway, but director David Esbjornson has done a fine job of expanding it into a Broadway production. Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones are, as you might expect, mighty fine, though neither of them succeeds in topping Ivey, Tandy or, especially. Morgan Freeman. The always-wonderful Boyd Gaines plays Boolie, Daisy’s son.

I wouldn’t call this one a don’t-miss; but I did quite enjoy it. How many more times are we going to have a chance to see Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones?

I didn’t see the Kander and Ebb musical The Scottsboro Boys when it played last season off Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre. Now that I have had a chance to see it on Broadway (at the Lyceum Theatre), I understand what all the fuss was about.

This is the tragic story of nine young black men who were falsely charged with raping two white women in 1931, in Alabama, and were convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to death. None were executed, but most spent many years in prison, and all of their lives were ruined. Kander and Ebb have chosen to tell this story using the form of the minstrel show, a form of entertainment extremely popular from pre-Civil War right up until the 1930s in which white people dressed up as happy darkies and sang jolly songs about the old folks at home, and so on. This daring concept works brilliantly, particularly in the gifted hands of director/choreographer Susan Strohman, and the cast is terrific.

As we enter a time when a U.S. senator was elected who questions the legality of the Civil Rights Act (Rand Paul), when a lot of the right-wing antipathy to our president is covertly racist, we need a show which reminds us of the hypocrisy of our past, as a sort of cautionary tale. That The Scottsboro Boys manages to do this and still be wonderfully entertaining is no mean achievement.

In contrast to Driving Miss Daisy, nothing can be done to expand David Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre (at the Schoenfeld Theatre) into a Great Big Broadway Show. This slight, episodic play might be subtitled, “Hey Diddle-Dee-Dee, an Actor’s Life for Me,” as it’s just a series of scenes between an older actor, Robert, and a young actor, John, which actually could be arranged in pretty much any order. Director Neil Pepe has done his best to give the play some size and heft, but it just sinks  It starts out amusing but gradually loses the audience as we realize that there’s no “there” there. It’s a love-letter to the actor’s craft, nothing more. It is to the credit of Patrick Stewart (Robert) and T. R. Knight (John) that it works as well as it does. Stewart and Knight are wonderful; but it’s not enough.

Producer Jeffrey Richards seems intent upon producing the Complete Works of David Mamet on Broadway. What next, The Cryptogram? I certainly hope not.

Fans of Pee Wee Herman have been presented with a delightful early holiday gift with The Pee Wee Herman Show, in the newly-rechristened Stephen Sondheim Theatre. This is basically ninety minutes of Pee Wee’s Playhouse on Broadway, with all Pee Wee’s Puppetland pals in attendance: Chairy, Ptery, Cowboy Curtis, Miss Yvonne, Mailman Mike, Jamba et al, and is great fun not only for Pee Wee fans but for the as-yet-uninitiated.

Pee Wee is, of course, Paul Reubens, who ran afoul of the law down in Florida several years back when he was caught choking his chicken in a porno movie theatre. That seemed to be the end of Pee Wee; but no! Here he comes again. Reubens actually makes a couple of oblique reference to his arrest, as when he reads a postcard from a guy from prison, who misses him. These references of course fly over the heads of the kids in the audience but elicit great guffaws from adults.                                               .

If you’re in the mood for something Completely Silly, you couldn’t do better than The Pee Wee Herman Show.

St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn recently presented Ireland’s Druid Theatre in the production of Enda Walsh’s Penelope, the third Walsh play they have done. This was a play about the suitors of Mrs. Odysseus. There are four of them left. They sit around a drained swimming pool talking about this and that. Finally, each gets a chance to make his pitch to Penelope, who is silent throughout.

I can say only that this was the least boring of the Walsh plays I have seen, which is not to say that it was any good. Much of it is insufferable, particularly towards the end when the last suitor dresses up in various costumes, one after the other in quick succession. I guess I just don’t get Enda Walsh. His plays are all talk and little action. The language is colorful and poetic – but where’s the beef?

I have been seeing some shows of late which question what it means to be a “liberal,” which I find quite odd given the theatre’s usual knee-jerk liberal bent. One of these is Lisa Kron’s In the Wake, at the Public Theater, which is about a passionately liberal young woman who thinks bloviating about the world’s injustices is enough. She is finally taken on by an older woman (I think it’s her aunt), who has actually talked the talk and walked the walk, who has just returned from Africa and who has become cynical about the possibility of doing anything to make the world a better place.

Like her central character, Ms. Kron tends to go on and on, which makes this over-long play seem somewhat overstuffed, but Leigh Silverman’s production is pitch-perfect, her actors all terrific – particularly Marin Ireland and Deirdre O’Connell, two brilliant actresses you never want to miss.

The Actors Company Theatre (TACT) has revised Vaclav Havel’s The Memorandum, at the Beckett Theatre, to mostly excellent results. The play is set in the offices of a large company. Mysterious forces are plotting to have all company communication written and spoken in an inscrutable language. When the director of the company receives a memorandum in this new language and learns that the only people who know it are now running the company, a series of mordantly funny events is set in motion.

Today, the play comes across as a satire of inane office politics; whereas I am sure when he wrote it Havel intended it to serve as a metaphor for the ridiculous modern so-called “Communist” state. Either way, it’s great fun, although Simon Jones is sorely missed in the role of the much put-upon Director. He was set to play it but then he was hit by a car and had to drop out. TACT found someone else to do the role, but he is merely adequate; whereas Jones would I am sure have been great.

When this play was first staged, Havel was in prison in Czechoslovakia for his outspoken dissent against the government of this puppet state of the Soviet Union. It’s difficult to see how this play and others would have landed him in jail; but maybe that’s just an indication of how far the world has come since then.

I have often said that one of the most important marks of a really good play is that it tells a story which needed to be told. Such a play is Anna Ziegler’s Photograph 51, at Ensemble Studio Theatre, which reveals the untold truth behind one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of the 20^th Century – the discovery of how DNA works, the famous Double Helix. I remember reading about this in school, all about the genius of Watson and Crick, the British scientists who made this  discovery. Ziegler tells the true story of the real genius behind the discovery of the Double Helix – a female scientist (Yikes!) named Rosalind Franklin, who took the photograph which enabled Watson and Crick to assemble the first model of a Double Helix. They got credit for the discovery while Dr. Franklin died young, and in obscurity.

Who would have thought that a play about science could be so gripping? Linsay Firman’s direction is excellent, and all the actors are great – particularly, Kristen Bush, who plays Rosalind Franklin as if her life depended on it.

This one’s a don’t-miss.

WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. Belasco Theatre, 111 W. 44^th St.

TICKETS: www.telecharge.com of 212-239-6200

DRIVING MISS DAISY. Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45^th St.

TICKETS: www.telecharge.com of 212-239-6200

THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS. Lyceum Theatre, 149 W. 45^th St.

TICKETS: www.telecharge.com of 212-239-6200

A LIFE IN THE THEATRE. Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 W. 45^th St.

TICKETS: www.telecharge.com of 212-239-6200

THE PEE WEE HERMAN SHOW. Sondheim Theatre, 124 W. 43^rd St.

TICKETS: www.telecharge.com of 212-239-6200

PENELOPE. St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn. Closed.

IN THE WAKE. Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St.

TICKETS: 212-967-7555

THE MEMORANDUM. Beckett Theatre, 410 W. 42^nd St.

TICKETS: www.telecharge.com of 212-239-6200

PHOTOGRAPH 51. Ensemble Studio Theatre, 549 W. 52^nd St.

TICKETS: 212-352-3101

“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

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. This week, Larry tells you about LOMBARDI, LA BÊTE, RAIN, SWAN LAKE, WINGS, THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE, POWER BALLADZ, BANISHED CHILDREN OF EVE, IN TRANSIT, DRAMATIS PERSONAE,, OFFICE HOURS AND WISH I HAD A SYLVIA PLATH.

Plays about sports are a real rarity. It has been my perception over the years that the only thing that theatre people care less about than sports is religion. Plays which take religion seriously are even more of a rarity than plays about sports. I could go on and on about why this is, and why it’s a shame; but suffice it to say that we actually have a play about sports running on Broadway right now, Eric Simonson’s fascinating Lombardi at Circle in the Square.

Lombardi takes place in 1965, as the Green Bay Packers prepare for the upcoming season. A young reporter for Look Magazine has been assigned to write a profile of their legendary coach, Vince Lombardi. Over the course of a week, the reporter gets to know Lombardi, his wife Marie, and several players, as he tries to get to the heart of what makes Lombardi, and his team, so successful. Although the play which emerges does make you understand this great sports figure, it is not a hagiographic portrait. Though it is often quite inspirational, what we get is Lombardi, warts and all.

Thomas Kail has done a brilliant job of directing, and his cast is first rate. Dan Lauria is sensational in the title role. You almost feel he’s channeling Coach Lombardi. But he is matched by the delicate performance of Judith Light as Marie Lombardi, who provides much of the humor and much of the insight into what made this great sports figure successful.

Although Lombardi is primarily for football fans, it can also be enjoyed by those of you who don’t know a touchdown from a home run. I loved it, and I highly recommend it.

I also recommend the revival of David Hirson’s La Bête, an import from London at the Music Box Theatre. When this play was first staged on Broadway almost 20 years ago, it was one of the most notorious flops of the Rich Years. Many people who saw it thought it was absolutely brilliant (myself included); but a pan from the NY Times’ Frank Rich caused it to die the death. As I recall, Rich thought the play was merely an exercise in cleverness for cleverness’ sake. Well, I’ll give him this: the writing certainly is clever.

Can you imagine, a play set in France in the 17^th Century, written completely in rhymed couplets, sending up the theatre and the culture of Molière’s era, yet somehow managing to reflect our own?

A famous playwright named Elomire (an anagram of “Molière”) survives with his company on the patronage of a princess (in the original version, the patron was male) who wants to force on him another playwright and actor who she thinks is a genius, a pompous, self-congratulating bore named Valere. When we first meet this jackass, he wanders into a room occupied by Elomire and one of his actors and proceeds to hijack their conversation with a monologue that lasts at least a half hour. The reactions of David Hyde Pierce and Stephen Ouimette are priceless as they try to get a word in edgewise, to no avail, and this monologue as delivered by the great British actor Mark Rylance is one of the most incredible feats of acting I have ever witnessed.

The play tends to sag in the second act, when Princess Conti makes her appearance; but overall this is a brilliantly theatrical evening in the theatre, superbly directed by Matthew Warchus. I found La Bête great fun, and heartily recommend it.

Rain, at the Neil Simon Theatre, is also a lot of fun – if you’re a Beatles fan but not too much of a purist to enjoy a simulation of the Beatles in concert. The musicians who portray the Fab Four during various stages of their magical mystery tour are simply put, amazing. They sound exactly like the four lads from Liverpool. It’s a trip down memory lane. For those of you who would like to take such a trip and relive those golden days of musical yesteryear, go over to the Neil Simon Theatre and get back to where you once belonged.

Another great British director, Matthew Bourne, has brought his famous production of Swan Lake to City Center. The first time around, Bourne’s completely original take on the Swan Lake scenario was highly controversial, what with the swans all danced by men and what with his conception of this animal in general as a predatory thug of a bird. Here, the gaggle of swans reminded me of the gangs in West Side Story, or of Malcolm McDowell and the boys in A Clockwork Orange. This version of Swan Lake is not as controversial as it once was, but it’s just as brilliant. It’s a don’t-miss.

Second Stage has revived Arthur Kopit’s Wings, starring Jan Maxwell as Emily Stilson, a former wing-walker who has a stroke and then who struggles to recover, and directed by John Doyle.

The problem with this play is that most of it is an interior monologue spoken by Mrs. Stilson as she struggles to fight back against the debilitating effects of her “accident.” In other words, it’s rather static. The problem with this production is that the aviation metaphor doesn’t work if the play is set in the present. The heyday of stunt flying and wing walking was the 1920s and 1930s. Thirty years ago, when the play was first done on Broadway with a stunning performance by British actress Constance Cummings, Mrs. Stilson could have been a stunt aviatrix in her 60s or 70s. In other words, in order for the play to make sense it has to take place 30 years ago, and Emily Stilson has to be an old lady. In this production, Jan Maxwell looks mid-50s. She would have been walking on the wings of a Curtis Jenny in about 1980. I don’t think so! Ms. Maxwell has shown she is a gifted comic actress in previous roles, but she just doesn’t have the vocal range to play this demanding role.

I would say you could skip this production and not feel you’ve missed anything.

Julia Cho’s The Language Archive, produced by the Roundabout at their Laura Pels Theatre Off Broadway, is a wonderful comedy about a philologist obsessed with dying languages, yet who at the same time has no clue as to how to communicate with the women in his life.

Mark Brokaw’s production is witty and a lot of fun, and his cast is uniformly first rate.

This one’s a don’t-miss.

Irish Rep has another winner in Ciarán O’Reilly’s brilliant production of Kelly Younger’s Banished Children of Eve, a dramatization of the novel by Peter Quinn about the Civil War draft riots in New York. The central characters are impoverished actors, but the songwriter Stephen Foster, equally impoverished and drinking himself to death, is also part of the mix, my one quibble with the play, as he’s not integrated very well into the plot.

I don’t usually write about the set design, but I have to say that Charlie Corcoran’s whirling modular set is the best use of Irish Rep’s rather awkward space I have ever seen.

The whole thing has a very Gangs of New York feel to it. I don’t mean that as a criticism though. This is a wonderful evening in the theatre and should go straight to the top of your must-see list.

I’m finally getting around to shows that have closed, unfortunately.

Power Balladz, at the Midtown Theatre, was  a tribute to the 1980’s power ballad. It was  more of a revue than a musical. But it was extremely well-performed. If going back to the 1960s to see Rain is going back to far for you, if your musical era is the 1980’s, then this is the show would have been for you. It helps if you already know the songs, as most of the lyrics were unintelligible. I enjoyed it, though, even though I was not very familiar with the music.

In Transit, at Primary Stages was a series of vignettes about various New Yorkers coming and going. The songs were all sung a capella. I’m afraid this one didn’t make much of an impression on me, largely because I thought the music rather dull. If you missed this one don’t fret – you didn’t miss much.

Dramatis Personae, by Gonzalo Rodriguez Risco, at the Cherry Lane Studio, was about three writers, apparently all Americans. We are in some unspecified foreign country. What the Americans are doing there is never explained. There’s a hostage situation going on across the street. Had the three writers been hostages, this play might have been a lot more dramatically interesting; but as it was, it was not bad and featured excellent performances.

A. R. Gurney’s Office Hours, at the Flea, was about college professors who teach a Great Books of the Western Canon course at an unspecified university. They are under pressure from students, parents and administrators, who don’t see the usefulness, the “relevance,” of studying Dead White Males like Plato, Dante and Shakespeare. Gurney’s play was a delight, though I wasn’t wild about Jim Simpson’s direction which, I felt, lacked pace.

Finally, Wish I Had a Sylvia Plath, written and performed by Elizabeth Gray, at 59 E 59, was a one women play more or less about You Know Who — poet, suicide and icon of feminism. Ms. Gray was mighty fine; but this was definitely a show for women who like to celebrate Plath’s victimization, who believe that men are The Enemy. If you’re a guy who has had to, perhaps more than once, deal with a crazy woman in your life, it would have been a tough sit.

LOMBARDI. Circle in the Square, 235 W. 50^th St.

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

LA BÊTE. Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45^th St.

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

RAIN. Neil Simon Theatre, 250 W. 52^nd St.

TICKETS: www.ticketmaster.com or 212-307-4100

SWAN LAKE. City Center, 131 W. 55^th St.

TICKETS: www.nyccitycenter.org or 212-581-1212

WINGS. Second Stage, 305 W. 43^rd St.

TICKETS: 212-246-4422

THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE. Laura Pels Theatre, 111 W. 46^th St.

TICKETS: 212-719-1300

BANISHED CHILDREN OF EVE. Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 W. 22^nd St.

TICKETS: 212-727-2737

ALAS, CLOSED:

IN TRANSIT

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

OFFICE HOURS

WISH I HAD A SYLVIA PLATH

POWER BALLADZ

“Who is this guy?”

For over thirty years Lawrence Harbison was in charge of new play acquisition for Samuel French, Inc., during which time his work on behalf of playwrights resulted in the first publication of such subsequent luminaries as Jane Martin, Don Nigro, Tina Howe, Theresa Rebeck, José Rivera, William Mastrosimone, Charles Fuller, and Ken Ludwig, among many others; and the acquisition of musicals such as Smoke of the Mountain, A…My Name Is Alice, Little Shop of Horrors and Three Guys Naked from the Waist Down. He is a now a free-lance editor, primarily for Smith and Kraus, Inc., for whom he edits annual anthologies of best plays by new playwrights and women playwrights, best ten-minute plays and best monologues and scenes for men and for women. For many years he wrote a weekly column on his adventures in the theater for two Manhattan Newspapers, the Chelsea Clinton News and The Westsider. His new column, “On the Aisle with Larry,” is a weekly feature at www.smithandkraus.com.

He works with individual playwrights to help them develop their plays (see his website, www.playfixer.com). He has also served as literary manager or literary consultant for several theatres, such as Urban Stages and American Jewish Theatre. He is a member of both the Outer Critics Circle and the Drama Desk. He has served many times over the years as a judge and commentator for various national play contests and lectures regularly at colleges and universities. He holds a B.A. from Kenyon College and an M.A. from the University of Michigan.

He is currently working on a book, Masters of the Contemporary American Drama.

“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

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. This week, Larry tells you about BRIEF ENCOUNTER, ALPHABETICAL ORDER, MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION, THE PITMEN PAINTERS, THE DIVINE SISTER and MICROCRISIS._______________________________________

Brief Encounter, director Emma Rice’s adaptation of the classic David Lean film (screenplay by Nöel Coward) has come to Broadway’s Studio 54 by way of Brooklyn’s St. Ann’s Warehouse, where it captivated audiences and critics alike last season. Ms. Rice’s production is exhilarating and ineffably beautiful, and will prove to be one of the highlights of this already promising season.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the film, it’s the story of two star-crossed lovers who meet at a train station. Laura is on her way home after a day of shopping. Alec is on his way home after a day at hospital, where he is a doctor. They are clearly Meant For Each Other; but, alas, each is married to someone else. They commence a tender love affair before realizing that, inevitably, it must end.

Ms. Rice has joined the ranks of the world’s great directors with her wittily inventive staging of this story, which involves two other romances – between the bossy woman who runs the tea room at the train station and a porter, and her assistant and a candy vendor. Into this mix Ms. Rice weaves songs by Coward, goofily sung by her cast, who accompany themselves on various musical instruments. Her actors are just plain wonderful. Hannah Yelland (Laura) and Tristan Sturrock (Alec) will break your heart.

I’m not usually given to such hyperbole, but Brief Encounter is one of the greatest evenings I have ever spent in the theatre.

Michael Frayn’s Alphabetical Order won the Evening Standard Award for Best New Comedy 35 years ago but is only just now receiving it’s New York premiere, in a charming production by the Keen Co, at the Clurman Theatre, directed by Keen’s Artistic Director Carl Forsman.

It’s set in the morgue of a provincial newspaper. In pre-Internet days, a newspaper morgue was where clippings which might be needed by reporters in order to research their stories were kept. This one looks like the Collyer brothers are in charge. Into this mess comes a young woman, recently hired by the harried librarian to try and turn chaos into some semblance of order. Which she does.

Frayn’s cast of characters are hilarious portraits of various newspaper types, all wonderfully played by Forsman’s cast.  This one’s a don’t-miss.

Roundabout has a fine production of George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession on view at their American Airlines Theatre, directed by Doug Hughes, with a terrific cast headed by Cherry Jones in the title role. If you don’t know the play, it’s about a young woman named Vivie, fresh out of university, who plans to make her own way in the world, which was pretty unusual, even shocking, in Shaw’s day. But what was really shocking then was the profession of her mother, who has risen from poverty to luxury by running a strong of high-class brothels in major cities throughout Europe. The basis of her income was bad enough; but what really shocked audiences in Shaw’s day was that both she and the playwright were unapologetic about it. Shaw goes so far as to argue that the business of prostitution is a logical choice for women who don’t want their lives to be dependent upon men. Kitty Warren has in effect seized the means of production and has prospered as a result. The play no longer shocks, but it does resonate today as women are finally achieving positions of power unimaginable in Shaw’s day.

Ms. Jones is, as you would expect, wonderful; but she is ably supported by a fine cast. I loved Sally Hawkins’ Vivie, who can be sort of a stick in the hands of a less capable actress. Although Ms. Hawkins’ characterization is excellent, unfortunately she simply does not have the voice to execute it fully, particularly in scenes in which she has to raise her voice. She comes off sounding shrill and, often, unintelligible. She’d make a wonderful Vivie in a film version, but here she is overmatched going up against actors such as Ms. Jones who do have the requisite vocal chops.

Still, this is a very satisfying production of a play by one of the English language theatre’s greatest playwrights, which makes it a don’t-miss in my book.

Manhattan Theatre Club has imported Lee Hall’s drama The Pitmen Painters, which wowed ‘em last season at the National Theatre of Great Britain, opening it in their Broadway space the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. You may wonder why this greatly-accalimed play is not running in a commercial Broadway production, since British plays so dominate commercial Broadway. I assume the main reason is there’s no star part. This is a true ensemble, of wonderful British character actors.

The play tells the true story of a group of miners in the 1930s who took an adult education class in Art Appreciation and became acclaimed artists themselves. Hall’s theme is about the transformative power of art, which is very moving as seen in the lives of these men. You might think this sounds dull, but it’s not. Hall has filled his play with indelible characters and leavened the proceedings with much humor.

The Pitmen Painters is a don’t-miss.

And Now For Something Completely Different. Almost as an antidote to the high-mindedness of our typical theatrical fare, Charles Busch rides to the rescue with his totally ridiculous new farce The Divine Sister, at the Soho Playhouse. The plot concerns the Mother Superior of a convent (played by Busch – who else?) trying to save her institution from going under. This is merely an excuse for Buschian hijinks, of which there are many. Busch’s supporting cast match him mug for mug and take for take. Julie Halston, as another nun, steals the show. The scenery is minimal. Ms. Halston must have eaten most of it by now.

If you’re in the mood for something Completely Silly, The Divine Sister would be a good choice.

There’s a .lot of silliness in Michael Yew’s satire Microcrisis, presented by Ma-Yi Theatre Co. at Here, particularly in Ralph B. Peña’s wildly inventive staging. This is a far cry from the silliness of a Charles Busch play, though. Yew and Peña take on the financial institutions whose shenanigans have laid us so low.

The story concerns an unscrupulous banker named Bennett who builds a vast empire which proves to be a house of cards. Sound familiar? Alfredo Narciso is astounding as this suave, totally unscrupulous con man; but there is amazing work as well from Lauren Hines as an intern who finds herself the CEO of Bennett’s operation, and from William Jackson Harper, David Gelles, Socorro Santiago and Jackie Chung as various pawns in Bennett’s various schemes.

Microcrisis is great fun and not to be missed.

BRIEF ENCOUNTER. Roundabout at Studio 54, 254 W. 54^th St.

Tickets: 212-719-1300

ALPHABETICAL ORDER. Harold Clurman Theatre, 410 W. 42^nd St.

Tickets: www.ticketcentral.com or 212-279-4200

MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION. American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42^nd Street.

Tickets: 212-719-1300

THE PITMEN PAINTERS. Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47^th St.

Tickets: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200 or 800-432-7250

THE DIVINE SISTER. Soho Playhouse, 15 Vandam St.

Tickets: 212-691-1555

MICROCRISIS. Here, 145 6^th Ave.

Tickets: www.here.org or 212-352-3101

“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

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. This week, Larry tells you about BRIEF ENCOUNTER, ORLANDO, ALPHABETICAL ORDER, ME, MYSELF & I, THROUGH THE NIGHT, TRANS-EURO EXPRESS and A BRIGHT NEW BOISE.

Brief Encounter, director Emma Rice’s adaptation of the classic David Lean film (screenplay by Nöel Coward) has come to Broadway’s Studio 54 by way of Brooklyn’s St. Ann’s Warehouse, where it captivated audiences and critics alike last season. Ms. Rice’s production is exhilarating and ineffably beautiful, and will prove to be one of the highlights of this already promising season.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the film, it’s the story of two star-crossed lovers who meet at a train station. Laura is on her way home after a day of shopping. Alec is on his way home after a day at hospital, where he is a doctor. They are clearly Meant For Each Other; but, alas, each is married. They commence a tender love affair before realizing that, inevitably, it must end.

Ms. Rice has joined the ranks of the world’s great directors with her wittily inventive staging of this story, which involves two other romances – between the bossy woman who runs the tea room at the train station and a porter, and her assistant and a candy vendor. Into this mix Ms. Rice weaves songs by Coward, goofily sung by her cast, who accompany themselves on various musical instruments. Her actors are just plain wonderful. Hannah Yelland (Laura)and Tristan Sturrock (Alec) will break your heart.

Brief Encounter is one of the greatest evenings I have ever spent in the theatre.

Sarah Ruhl hit the Big Time with plays such as The Clean House, Dead Man’s Cell Phone and In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play, so it’s no surprise that her older plays are now of interest to Off Broadway theatre companies. Last season, Irondale gave us her Passion Play (written several years ago) and this season CSC is presenting Orlando, currently on view, a dramatization of Virginia Woolf’s novel about a young man who travels through time, starting out as a man in Elizabethan England and winding up as a woman in the 20^th Century. I think Woolf was making a point about gender identity throughout history, but I think there’s a lot of allegory in there about her own conflicting sexuality.

Much of the play is narrated, story-theatre style, which would be stultifying were it not for the extremely inventive staging by Rebecca Taichman and the wonderful performances by her cast. Francesca Faridany is endearing in the eponymous role, and David Greenspan steals the show in various supporting roles, one of which is Gloriana herself.

This one isn’t a drop-everything-must-see, but it’s fascinating from a theatrical standpoint, if that floats your boat.

Michael Frayn’s Alphabetical Order won the Evening Standard Award for Best New Comedy 35 years ago but is only just now receiving it’s New York premiere, in a charming staging by the Keen Co, at the Clurman Theatre, directed by Keen’s Artistic Director Carl Forsman.

It’s set in the morgue of a provincial newspaper. In pre-Internet days, a newspaper morgue was where clippings which might be needed by reporters in order to research their stories were kept. This one looks like the Collyer brothers are in charge. Into this mess comes a young woman, recently hired by the harried librarian to try and turn chaos into some semblance of order. Which she does.

Frayn’s cast of characters are hilarious portraits of various newspaper types, all wonderfully played by Forsman’s cast.  This one’s a don’t-miss.

Edward Albee’s Me, Myself & I, at Playwrights Horizons, almost seems at times to be a parody of an Edward Albee play. It’s about a woman who has two grown sons, identical twins. One’s name is OTTO; the other’s name is otto. One loves her; the other doesn’t. Which is which? Who cares?

Emily Mann, the director, has taken the heat for this terrible evening in the theatre because Albee apparently is, officially, the “Greatest Living American Playwright” so he’s hands-off. Balderdash. Nobody could direct this play and make it anything less than silly, repetitive drivel.

Through the Night, at the Union Square Theatre, is written and performed by Daniel Beaty, who in the grand tradition of the best one-actor plays doesn’t stick to just one character. He plays fathers, mothers, young and grown children. What emerges is an inspirational portrait of how far black men have come, and the next steps they need to take.

Beaty is a fantastic chameleon, with a world class baritone singing voice.  This show will be of particular appeal to black folks; but I’m a white dude and it moved me.

Gary Duggan’s Trans-Euro Express, at the Irish Arts Center, is a buddy film of a play about two mates – one an office drone and one a singer-song/writer — who go on a trip across Europe, ostensibly to make a video of one man’s new song. They have various adventures, some of them romantic, and wind up parting.

The writing is standard-issue for this sort of play; but the direction by Chris Henry is very inventive, and the actors are terrific.

Finally, I caught one of the last performances of Samuel D. Hunter’s A Bright New Boise at the Wild Project. It was set in the lunch room of an arts and crafts store in Boise, Idaho, and focused on a man’s attempt to reconnect with the son he has never known and in general to start over with his life. Hunter is a terrifically-talented playwright, and Davis McCallum’s production was absolutely wonderful. This one deserves to resurface somewhere else but it probably won’t, alas.

BRIEF ENCOUNTER. Roundabout at Studio 54, 254 W. 54^th St.

Tickets: 212-719-1300

ORLANDO. CSC, 136 E. 13^th St.

Tickets: 212-677-4210

ALPHABETICAL ORDER. Harold Clurman Theatre, 410 W. 42^nd St.

Tickets: www.ticketcentral.com or 212-279-4200

ME, MYSELF & I. Playwrights Horizons, 416 W. 42^nd St.

Tickets: www.ticketcentral.com or 212-279-4200

THROUGH THE NIGHT. Union Square Theatre, 100 E. 17^th St.

Tickets: 800-982-2787

TRANS-EURO EXPRESS. Irish Arts Center. Alas, closed

A BRIGHT NEW BOISE. The Wild Project. Alas, closed

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. This week, Larry tells you about THE LITTLE FOXES, THE REVIVAL, EXIT/ENTRANCE, ROADKILL CONFIDENTIAL, AN ERROR OF THE MOON, underneathymybed, BOTTOM OF THE WORLD, WIFE TO JAMES WHELAN and SECRETS OF THE TRADE.

Well, the summer doldrums are gone and the Jewish holidays passed, so the New York theatre season is exploding with new activity, some of it terrific, some of it not-so-terrific – as usual. I have been going to the theatre almost every evening (and some matinees). Here’s my Report from the Front.

The New York Theatre Workshop has brought back Dutch director Ivo van Hove, this time to direct Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes. The first time they brought Ivo over, his deconstruction of A Streetcar Named Desire was very controversial. Many people walked out at the interval; most of them subscribers, some of whom were so pissed off that they cancelled their subscriptions (so I’m told). I was with them.

Van Hove specializes in Famous Old Plays, which he stages in a very eccentric way, so that the Main Event of his productions is not the play, but his take on the play. This style is pretty much universal in Europe, but not all that common here (Peter Sellars’ abominable destruction of Othello last season notwithstanding). I deplore it, because I’m with Shakespeare, who not only wrote “The play’s the thing” but had Hamlet instruct the players to do the lines he’s inserting into The Murder of Gonzago as he wrote them. To my mind, a stage director is not a Creative Artist, he’s an interpretive artist, and the assumption, I take it, that few really care about what the playwright intended; but if they do, they’ve seen that Famous Old Play so often that they’re clamoring for a Fresh Take on it, such as our Ivo can supply in spades, is egotistical and Just Plain Wrong in extremis.

That said, I went with dread to The Little Foxes; but I found myself actually getting with the program. I wound up rather liking it! Astounding, but true. It’s not Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes but, rather van Hove’s adaptation (which I do wish they would put in the program). Van Hove has condensed the three acts into one long act, playing with the passage of time in a fascinating way. This works very well. It also eliminates an interval in which to ditch … Gone are the period clothes and southern accents of the feuding Hubbard clan. The scenery is a purple velour-covered box set with what I can only describe as a sort of Elizabethan “inner above” upstage center, in the center of which is a video screen on which we view characters moving about offstage.

The acting style van Hove calls for is very melodramatic – lots of shouting and bouncing off the walls. In the hands of a less-adept cast, this would be unwatchable; but not here. Elizabeth Marvel (Regina) is as usual, well, marvel-ous; though don’t go expecting anything remotely resembling Tallulah or Bette. I also liked Cristin Milioti as Alexandra and Tina Benko as Birdie. Both have moments of towering rage which rise to the level of Marvel’s. I wasn’t taken with Christopher Evan Welch’s Horace, but I must assume he was a puppet to Puppeteer von Hove. For Some Strange Reason, he’s not in a wheelchair, though there is a line referring to it, and he appears to have consumption rather than a bad heart. Why? Nobody Knows …

Still, this is a fascinating production, both intellectually and emotionally stimulating. I guess, once in a while, Ivo is OK. I wouldn’t want a steady diet of this sort of thing, though. Lillian Hellman is certainly rolling over in her grave.

Project Y Theatre has been around for a while, but not only have I never seen one of their productions, I never heard of them. Amazing, but true. They have a new production running at the Lion Theatre of Samuel Brett Williams’ The Revival, and it’s terrific.

The play’s about a Baptist preacher in a small town in Arkansas. He’s Harvard-educated, and is trying to save the church his father founded, which has been hemorrhaging congregants, by asking them to think more deeply about their faith when, of course, they want  less thought, more emotion, more testifying, more “Praise Jesuses.” At a church supper, he meets a young drifter who comes in for a meal, and is smitten with him. He lets him stay in a cabin he owns, and they begin a torrid lover affair which, if exposed, could ruin him.

Williams had me gripped right up until the end, when he resolves his plot with a non-credible twist; but director Michole Biancosino has put up a superb production. All the actors are wonderful; but Trent Dawson as the preacher and David Darrow as the drifter are even more so.

This one is well worth checking out, and Project Y is now on my A-List.

The First Irish Festival is going on now, at various venues. I saw Aidan Matthews’ Exit/Entrance at 59 E 59 and am seeing Trans-Euro Express this weekend at Irish Arts.

Exit/Entrance is about two couples – or is it? In the first act, an elderly couple are preparing to commit suicide. Why? Nobody Knows. Next door, a young couple is moving in. In the second act we meet the young couple, newlyweds who are starting their life together. Both men and both women have the same first name. Both women speak in an Irish accent; both men, in an American accent. Why? Nobody knows. There is much wheel-spinning in each act, and very little dramatic action. A friend of mine sitting nearby commented during the interval that the playwright must have seen or read too much Enda Walsh, an Irish playwright whose plays are all like this.

The actors are pretty much OK, Linda Thorson in the first act much more so; but I found this play to be pretty much insufferable. A definite must-miss.

Clubbed Thumb, one of my favorite “downtown theatre” groups, is back with Sheila Callaghan’s Roadkill Confidential, at 3LD Art & Technology Center. The play’s about an “artist” whose latest project involves scooping up road kill and making a kind of sculpture out of it. One of the animals has been infected with a deadly virus and a Sam Spade-like FBI agent thinks maybe a terrorist is at work, so he’s on the trail of the artist.

I have enjoyed several of Callaghan’s plays in the past, but this one is Just Plain Silly. It’s wonderfully staged, though, by  Kip Fagan, and the actors are excellent. A good production of a not-so-good play.

Luigi Creatore’s new play An Error of the Moon, at the Beckett Theatre, is about the Booth brothers – Edwin and John Wilkes. It appears to take place in a dressing room in some sort of Limbo, where Booth is forced to relive the awful events leading up to his brother’s assassination of Lincoln. Why? Nobody knows. John Wilkes is a zealot, obsessed with revenge. Edwin is a mewling alcoholic whose obsession is his determined belief that his brother is having an affair with his wife. He’s Othello to Johnny’s Iago.

Well, this is poppycock. I have nothing against a playwright using dramatic license to play fast and loose with the facts, but certainly not to this degree. I might have been willing to go along with it if the actors were better. The set and projections were terrific though. If you’re one of those theatergoers who likes to leave the theatre humming the scenery, you might well want to check this one out. For everybody else, it’s a must-miss.

As is Florencia Lozano’s underneathmybed (really, folks, that’s the title as printed in the program), at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre. It’s a drama about an Argentine family living in the U.S., where they’ve come to escape the brutal Argentine dictatorship, which has been “disappearing” thousands of people. The central character is a young girl who’s obsessed with another young girl back home who was able to get a message out about her torture and imprisonment. Though her two sisters have become Americanized, she can’t forget the past, and neither can her father, who rages incessantly about the political situation back home. Unfortunately, his tirades are delivered almost exclusively in Spanish, and there are large sections of the play spoken in that language – which is fine if you speak Spanish, but if you’re a Gringo who no habla Espanol much of the play is incomprehensible. What almost saves this is, as usual, is the excellent cast.

If you understand Spanish you might like this play; if you don’t, it’s a must-miss.

Also eminently missable is Lucy Thurber’s Bottom of the World, at Atlantic Stage II. The play takes place simultaneously in two time frames. In the present, a young woman is looking for love; of course, with other women. Her sister, recently deceased, has published a novel about farm people many years ago. Although she’s dead, Our Heroine and her sister interact, going over sections of the novel, which we see staged. These are also about love lost and won.

Thurber is trying to be Just Too Damn Clever, and the two halves of the play don’t fit together very well. The actors are good though. I wasn’t wild about the set, which features raw lumber splayed out as a sort of half-proscenium. What does this mean? Nobody Knows …

The Mint Theatre’s Wife to James Whelan, by Teresa Deevy is, like almost all of the Mint’s plays, a forgotten gem. Deevy was a highly-regarded playwright whose plays achieved great acclaim at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. When W.B. Yeats, the company’s founder and Artistic Director, retired, the new management rejected this play and it wasn’t produced until years later, after Deevy’s death.

Mint’s Artistic Director, Jonathan Bank, has directed a superb production of this play about a man who achieves success away from home, in Dublin, and returns to found a successful business. The Love of His Life, Nan, refused to wait until he achieved success and married another man, who died leaving her destitute. When he returns, a success, Whelan is very much in play with the town women; but he has no time for them because all he cares about is his business. He could rescue Nan by marrying her; but that he doesn’t is his tragedy, and hers.

The actors are wonderful, the production’s wonderful – don’t miss this one.

Finally, I am belatedly writing about Jonathan Tolins’ terrific Secrets of the Trade, which ran at Primary Stages but is now closed. Noah Robbins starred as a young theatre geek who just might possibly be a Future Genius. When he’s 16, he writes a letter to a famous Broadway director, asking to meet him, and receives no reply. Two years later, the director replies, and invites him to come to his office in New York. The director is a brilliant man. He’s also gay. He takes an interest in the kid, and becomes his mentor. We begin to wonder exactly what the nature of his interest is, particularly when we realize that he waited to invite the kid to New York to meet him until Our Hero was at the Age of Consent

Matt Shakman’s direction was superb, and the production featured wonderful performances by Robbins and, as the mercurial director, John Glover. I hope you got a chance to see this one. If you didn’t – bummer!

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. This week, Larry tells you about FREUD’S LAST SESSION, SEE ROCK CITY & OTHER DESTINATIONS, FALLING FOR EVE, THE IRISH AND HOW THEY GOT THAT WAY, BACHELORETTE, WOLVES, WITH GLEE, IN GOD’S HAT and THE CAPEMAN.

Mark St. Germain’s Freud’s Last Session, currently at The Margery S. Deane Little Theatre in the West Side YMCA, imagines a meeting in London between the cancer-ridden Sigmund Freud and the Oxford don C.S. Lewis during the early days of the Blitz. This is a pretext for a debate about religion, during which the arguments pro and con for the existence of God are laid out. This sounds pretty dry, but it’s not. St. Germain knows how to create compelling conflict and his dialogue is often very witty. You won’t come away with your mind changed, but you will enjoy yourself if you go to this. Tyler Marchant’s direction is perfectly, subtly understated, and his two actors, Martin Raynor as Freud and Mark H. Dold as Lewis are terrific.

The Transport Group’s musical at the Duke Theatre, See Rock City & Other Destinations by Adam Matthias (book & lyrics) and Brad Alexander (music), AT THE Duke Theatre, is basically a series of ten-minute plays about people visiting unusual tourist destinations in the U.S. All are ultimately about loneliness.

When you enter the Duke Theatre you are confronted by an empty space, save for a huge pile of lawn chairs. Just before the show begins, the cast members come out, disassemble the lawn chair mountain and set the chairs up in rows around the periphery of the room. This reinforces the themes of impermanence we are about to experience, but it also addS extra time to the event. It seemed to me an unnecessary contrivance.

I loved the little playlets, though; and the songs are lovely. The performers are are mighty fine. This one’s definitely worth a visit.

The York Theatre Co. has on view a charming take on the Garden of Eden story, a new musical called Falling for Eve. Book writer Joe DiPietro imagines God as both male and female, and in his version only Eve is expelled from Eden for eating that apple. She wanders around the earth for many years before she persuades an angel to let her back into Eden to go fetch Adam.

The songs by Bret Simons (music) and David Howard (lyrics) are charming, and the performers are delightful. Jose Llana is a wonderfully hunky, rather dim Adam, and Krystal Joy Brown is delicious as Eve.

You might think, “Oh, no, not another anachronistic take on the Bible;” but go – you’ll have a good time.

Irish Rep has brought back Frank McCourt’s The Irish and How They Got That Way, which they have produced twice previously, as a sort of memorial to McCourt, the author of Angela’s Ashes, who passed away last year and who was a much beloved New York character, particularly amongst the Irish in our midst.

McCourt’s script is a documentary which begins in Ireland but winds up in America. It’s the Cliff’s Notes edition of Irish/American History, made enjoyable by McCourt’s trademark wit and director Charlotte Moore’s charming cast, who sing snippets of scads of songs, from the inevitable “Danny Boy” and “The Rose of Tralee” to “No Irish Need Apply” and “Who Put the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder?”

It’s a darlin’ time in the theatre, even if you’ve seen it before.

Leslye Headland’s Bachelorette looks to be the biggest hit Second Stage has had with its summer uptown series at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre. It’s been extended until the end of the month, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it resurfaces later this season in a commercial venue.

Although there are men in the play, Bachelorette is basically a horrifying/hilarious portrait of 20-something women. We are in a swank hotel room. The Maid of Honor has invited over two of her friends who, it turns out, are not exactly friends of the bride. While we wait for the bride-to-be to show up at the party, these three women let their hair down. All three are terrified that life is passing them by. The play starts out as a bitch-fest, moves quickly into a cat fight, and ends up as potential tragedy – all in the course of 90 minutes.

One of my favorite directors, Trip Cullman, has worked his usual seamless directorial magic, and his cast is wonderful – particularly, Tracee Chimo, Elizabeth Waterston and Celia Keenan-Bolger as three lost girls partying on down a road to nowhere.

This one’s a don’t-miss.

Alas, the following have closed:

Delaney Britt Brewer’s Wolves, at 59 E. 59 Theatres, was a triptych of plays which also dealt with 20-somethings, a chilly scenes of winter sort of look at alienation and despair amongst the Next Generation, made watchable by excellent actors.

With Glee was my favorite of the Off Broadway musicals I’ve seen this summer. It was about a prep school for misfit boys, to which are sent kids to varying degrees too strange to make it anywhere else. One man and one woman played all the adults, but the young men in the cast were the Main Attractions, and all were excellent. John Gregor wrote the whole shebang and man, is he one to watch! Loved the music, loved the actors, loved Igor Goldin’s staging! Sorry you missed this one!

Richard Taylor’s In God’s Hat at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre was a trailer trash gothic sort of play about two brothers, one of whom is a convicted child molester who has just been released from prison. His brother picks him up at the prison gate, and on the way to Wherever they run into a couple of nasty skinheads. The play reminded me of Tracey Lett’s Killer Joe – and I mean that in a good way. The actors were wonderful – particularly the two guys playing the white supremacist skinheads, Dennis Flanagan and Gary Francis Hope, both of whom seemed like the Real Deal, instead of “just” actors.

Finally, I caught the last of the three performances at the Delacorte Theatre of the New York Shakespeare Festival’s staged concert version of Paul Simon’s The Capeman, a Broadway flop of a decade or so ago. Director Diane Paulus stripped away most of Derek Walcott’s ponderous, overly complex book. What remained were Simon’s wonderful songs. Paulus’ staging was terrific, as was Sergio Trujillo’s choreography. I wouldn’t be surprised if this resurfaces somewhere in the near future.

“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

Lawrence Harbison,The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. This week, Larry tells you about THE WINTER’S TALE, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, THE GRAND MANNER, A QUESTION OF MERCY and LOVESONG OF THE ELECTRIC BEAR.

“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

This summer, for the first time the New York Shakespeare Festival is running two productions in rotating rep at the Delacorte Theatre, The Winter’s Tale directed by Michael Greif and The Merchant of Venice directed by Daniel Sullivan. A repertory company does both plays, except for four actors, two per play, who only appear in one. It’s always a pleasure to go to the Delacorte; this summer it’s Theatre Heaven.

I started off with The Winter’s Tale, which I had never much cared for. Greif’s production made me realize that I hadn’t cared for it because I had never seen a really good production of it – until now. It’s largely been dismissed by the critics; why, I cannot fathom.

The challenge when doing the play is in how to make the character of Leontes not only credible but sympathetic. In the first half of the play, with his pathological suspicion of his wife’s infidelity with his best friend, he comes off as Othello, but without Iago there to manipulate him. Ruben Santiago-Hudson does a credible job here, and almost manages to make this believable; but he shines thereafter, as he recognizes his foolishness and tries to expiate the guilt he feels for having caused the deaths of his queen and his young son.

The other actors in the show are uniformly outstanding. My faves were Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a powerful, raging Paulina; Max Wright and Jesse Tyler Ferguson as the Bohemian shepherd and his dim son who find baby Perdita, left to die on the orders of her father Leontes, Linda Emond as an extremely touching Hermione, Heather Lind as Perdita and Hamish Linklater as Autolycus. Linklater is fast emerging as one of our finest actors, particularly in comedy, and I think Lind is a Future Star. I liked just about everything in Greif’s production, from Clint Ramos’ beautiful, rather whimsical costumes to Tom Kitt’s charming music.

Don’t believe what you’re read about this production: it’s really wonderful.

As is Sullivan’s even more wonderful production of The Merchant of Venice. Al Pacino is the finest Shylock I have ever seen, and Lily Rabe the finest Portia. Sullivan brilliantly makes it crystal clear that the play takes place in a world of high stakes finance and speculation, giving it a startling contemporary relevance to our world in the here and now.

Pacino is simply astonishing in the difficult role of Shylock, making him an archetypal Little Guy screwed by The System. Nobody does rage better than Pacino; and nobody that I have ever seen in the roles breaks your heart more than he does. Truly, he is “The Jew which Shakespeare drew.” Rabe is sweetly authoritative as Portia and once again Hamish Linklater amazes in the usually ho-hum role of Bassanio, whose need for money in order to have a shot with Portia sets the ball rolling. Linklater’s is a three-dimensional, compelling creation of a somewhat callow young man who becomes a grown-up by play’s end. Bill Heck is also compelling in the usually-forgettable role of Lorenzo, the gentile who steals Shylock’s daughter Jessica and marries her right under her father’s nose. Byron Jennings, who also appears in The Winter’s Tale (as Camillo), is the best Antonio I have ever seen, and once again Heather Lind is impressive as Jessica.

There are so many small pleasures in this production that I can hardly list them all. Max Wright makes a delightfully dotty, semi deaf and semi-senile Prince of Arragon, and Nyambi Nyambi proceeds to top him as a goofily pompous Prince of Morocco. Gerry Bamman, a wonderful Antigonus in The Winter’s Tale, is even more wonderful here as the Duke; and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, as Lancelot Gobbo, is as hilarious as he was in The Winter’s Tale.

Both productions in the park this summer are Not To Be Missed. They continue through 1 August.

Also Not To Be Missed is A.R. Gurney’s The Grand Manner, at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre in Lincoln Center. Gurney has based the play on an actual incident during his youth, when he travelled from his prep school in New Hampshire down to New York to see the legendary Katharine Cornell in Antony and Cleopatra. Armed with a letter from his grandmother, who knew Miss Cornell from Buffalo, he meets her, gets his souvenir program signed, and that’s it. Well, that’s what actually happens; but Gurney then proceeds to spin a “what if” scenario: what if he stayed longer and learned the truth about Miss Cornell and her husband, Guthrie McClintick? What if during this lengthy visit Miss Cornell came to a realization about the price of fame and success, about how she has gone from a great artist to a stately battleship going through the still waters in the “grand manner” which now, at the advent of Marlon Brando, seems obsolete.

Kate Burton is wonderful as Cornell; but even more wonderful are Boyd Gaines as Guthrie McClintick and Bobby Steggert as young Pete. Beautifully directed by Mark Lamos, this is Yet Another wonderful play by one of our finest playwrights, who should have won the Pulitzer Prize long ago.

Potomac Theatre Project is in residence at Atlantic Stage 2 with three productions, also running in rotating rep. I caught two of them, a revival of David Rabe’s A Question of Mercy and Snoo Wilson’s Lovesong of the Electric Bear. Both were terrific.

A Question of Mercy, was first done in the early 1990s, when the AIDS epidemic was raging, as was Jack Kevorkian’s (“Doctor Death”) battle to legalize euthanasia. A desperate, distraught man comes to his former doctor to please with her to help his lover, who is in the final stages of dying of AIDS, to kill himself. Though the play is less immediate than it was originally, and seems (thankfully I guess) like a relic from a long-past time, Jim Petosa’s production is mighty fine. Tim Spears is heartbreaking as Anthony, whose lover is dying, and Paula Langton is very compelling as Dr. Chapman. Alex Cranmer is absolutely harrowing as the dying Thomas.

This is a fine production or a more or less forgotten play, and well worth your attention.

As is Wilson’s Lovesong of the Electric Bear, an absurdist take on the story of Alan Turing, who originally conceived the concept of the computer, whose genius led to the breaking of Germany’s Enigma Code which contributed significantly to the defeat of the Nazis and who killed himself in the early 1950’s when he was persecuted for being a homosexual.

Apparently Turing, something of a child-man, continued to sleep with his teddy bear long into adulthood. Wilson makes this bear a character, as the play’s narrator and Turing’s protector and sometime foil. It’s a rather goofy concept, but it works. There have been other plays about Turing, Hugh Whitemore’s Breaking the Code being the most well-known, but Wilson’s is a worthy addition to the genre. It has been inventively directed by Cheryl Faraone and features terrific performances from Alex Draper as Turing and Tara Giordano as his teddy bear.

Both PTP productions are well-worth seeing.

“On the Aisle with Larry” 

Lawrence Harbison, the Playfixer, usually brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. It’s a slow time in the New York Theatre so this week, Larry reveals his theatrical pet peeves, in the style of Andy Rooney. 

I love going to the theatre. Last week excepted, I usually go about 5 times a week. I have just been chosen to be on the Nominating Committee of the Drama Desk, so I expect I’ll be going even more in the next year. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it. Since I took last week off (there really wasn’t anything I wanted to see), this week I have decided to write about some of my theatrical pet peeves. 

It used to be that if an audience really liked a show, or a performance therein, they would step up their applause at the curtain call, or even shout “bravo!” I am told they still do this at the opera – not that I would know. Who has time to go, when one’s at the theatre almost every night? And, anyway, it’s all in a foreign language. Now at the theatre, one hears ridiculous whooping at the curtain call. “Whoop!” Whoop!” Sometimes, just “Woo!” “Woo!” What’s with this? It just sounds idiotic to me. 

Speaking of curtain calls, it seems like every time I go to Broadway, the audience gives the actors a standing ovation. This used to be rare; now it seems to be obligatory. I think this is because people have spent so much money on their tickets, they want to believe that what they have seen is Extraordinary. Sometimes it is; usually, it’s not. I often find myself the only audience member sitting during the curtain call, curmudgeon that I am. To further add to my eccentric behavior, if I didn’t much care for the show itself I hold my applause until the actors come out, because if the show sucked it’s usually not the actors’ fault, and they deserve a hearty round of applause. Whoop-free. 

Another thing that annoys me is the inevitably tardy start of the show. If my ticket says it’s supposed to start at 8:00 pm, why does it usually not start until 8:10? Movies start on time; why can’t plays? 

Latecomers annoy me. The show starts ten minutes late (see above), but still there are people who just can’t make it even by 8:10. They usually have seats in the center section of the front of the orchestra, thus distracting everyone – the actors included, as they struggle past patrons who managed to make it on time, to get to their seats. These people should be flogged! 

I usually am fortunate enough to get a seat on the aisle; but occasionally I am seated down the row. On these occasions, inevitably the aisle seat is occupied by a movement-challenged individual who doesn’t seem to be able to get up and go. While he and his wife bask in the glow of their expensive night out, other patrons are blocked from getting out of there. Meanwhile, the aisle fills up and then it takes forever to get up it and out of the theatre. Once, at the Mint Theatre, I was seated in the third seat off the aisle. The first and second seats were occupied by an elderly couple who went catatonic after the curtain call ended. Eight of us were standing there, wondering if we’d ever get out of there. Finally, I reached over and gently tapped the old fella on the shoulder sitting on the aisle. “Excuse me,” I said. “The play’s over – you can go home now.” Immediately the geezer snapped out of his coma, and he and his wife got up and exited. Geez Louise! 

Speaking of audience exit behavior – why do so many people struggle with their coats and hats and scarves in the aisle or, worse, at the door to the street, thus making it impossible for anybody to get past them. Lord have mercy – get outta the way to put your coats on! 

At every show, from Broadway to deepest darkest Off Off, patrons are asked before the show begins to turn off their cell phones. Rarely am I at the theatre when at least one doesn’t go off. Are these people deaf??? 

Critics tend to piss me off. Many of them seem to think it’s their job to persuade as many people as they can not to go to the theatre. I can’t tell you how many times I have actually rather enjoyed a show which these cultural ayatollahs have panned. Just because you read it in a newspaper (or, these days, on the internet), doesn’t mean it’s true. And never forget; the critics don’t have you in mind when they are writing their reviews. 

Well, that’s about it. What are your pet peeves? 

“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

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York and this, week, Stratford, Canada.  This week, Larry tells you about ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST, LITTLE DOC, DIETRICH AND CHEVALIER, WHEN WE GO UPON THE SEA and my visit to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. 

The Peccadillo Theatre Company, dormant for a while, has come roaring back with a superb production of Lillian Hellman’s Another Part of the Forest, at the Theatre at St. Clement’s. I was unfamiliar with this play, as it pretty much fell into obscurity after its modest Broadway run during the 1946-1947 season, so for me this was like seeing a new play. It was a great way to end a theatrical season loaded with terrific plays by women. 

Another Part of the Forest is a prequel to Hellman’s most famous play, The Little Foxes, and deals with the dysfunctional Hubbard family, who make O’Neill’s Tyrones look like the Cleavers. The pater familias, Marcus, rules the roost with an iron hand, which extends to his frustrated wife Lavinia and his two sons, Benjamin and Oscar, who work for him in virtual indentured servitude. Regina, his daughter and the main character in The Little Foxes, is his father’s pet; but she too has her own agenda, and the seeds are sown for her titanic struggle against Benjamin and Oscar in The Little Foxes. Benjamin is continually scheming to find a way to get the old man’s money, and eventually he succeeds. 

Peccadillo’s production, beautifully directed by Dan Wackerman, makes a fine case for this play as a forgotten American classic, and the actors are just wonderful. Sherman Howard is appalling (and I mean that in a good way) as the vile Marcus, and Matthew Floyd Miller is brilliantly devious as Benjamin. 

The play runs about 3 hours but you never have the sense that it is over long. It’s a don’t-miss. 

Dan Klores’ Little Doc, at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, is a fascinating though ultimately unfilled drama about drug hustlers in 1970’s Brooklyn. Ric, the only character in the play who might escape this life, may or may not have stolen $50,000 from Manny, sort of a father figure to him. He plans to run off with the wife of his best friend, who doesn’t seem to care, to start a new life. 

The play builds to a tragic ending which, unfortunately, the playwright doesn’t supply; but if you don’t mind spending time with a bunch of despicable lowlifes, Little Doc is worth seeing, particularly for the fine performances, most notably by Adam Driver, who continues to impress me, as Rick. 

Dietrich and Chevalier, at the Theatre at St. Luke’s, is a bio-musical by Jerry Mayer about two great entertainment icons, Marlene Dietrich and Maurice Chevalier, who met in Hollywood in 1932 and carried on a love affair (though each was married to someone else), before parting. Both ran up against the Nazis. Dietrich managed to trump them, while Chevalier allowed himself to be blackmailed into performing in Paris during the German occupation, finding himself on trial for collaboration after the war ended.

 Interspersed with this fascinating story are songs closely identified with each, ably performed by Robert Cuccioli as Chevalier and Jodi Stevens as Dietrich. Neither looks much like his/her character, but they manage to embody their unique style of singing. 

This one is, I think, for theatergoers old enough to remember Maurice Chevalier and Marlene Dietrich. Younger people may wonder what the fuss over them was all about. 

The prolific Lee Blessing has a new one, at 59 E 59^th’s Americas Off Broadway Festival, When We Go Upon the Sea, a “what-if” play which imagines former President George W. Bush hauled before the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. The play takes place in a suite in a first-class hotel the night before Bush’s trial is to begin. The concierge does everything he can to make the former president comfortable, which extends to bringing in a mysterious woman, who may or not be his wife, to provide him with torrid sex. 

Had this play been about the imagined trial, it might have been interesting. As it is, I just found it silly and distasteful, a rare misfire for this fine playwright. The actors are good, but you could give this a miss. 

Finally, I visited the Stratford Shakespeare Festival for the first time in many years, seeing two plays, As You Like It and The Tempest, both directed by Stratford’s Artistic Director Des McAnuf. As The Tempest was in previews when I saw it, I really can’t comment on it, other than to say the production stars Christopher Plummer as Prospero. Well, heck – let me just say that Plummer is predictably amazing. 

McAnuf has set the first part of As You Like It in a 1920’s fascist state. When we move into the Forest of Arden, we enter a surreal world right out of Magritte, replete with extras standing around wearing animal and flower-bush heads. McAnuf gets a little carried away with this concept, I think, but the acting is of such a high quality that it doesn’t matter. Brent Glover makes a fine Jacques, more quizzical than misanthropic, and Andrea Runge is a delight as Rosalind. 

In my opinion, all lovers of classical theatre should make the pilgrimage to Stratford at least once. It’s a lovely town, and there you’ll find the best Shakespearean productions this side of that other Stratford, across the Big Pond. 

 “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

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. This week, Larry tells you about RESTORATION, EVERYDAY RAPTURE, IMAGINEOCEAN, WHITE WOMAN STREET, GRACELAND and YEAR ZERO.

Restoration, Claudia Shear’s new play at NY Theatre Workshop, is about a 40-something woman who is a brilliant art restorer, hired to clean Michaelangelo’s “David” for the 500^th anniversary celebration of its creation. Giulia is more than a little obsessive/compulsive about the job, so much so that she starts referring to the statue as “him” rather than as “it.” At one point in the play she actually quasi-tries to have sex with the statue. This is hilarious, by the way.

Giulia is great when she’s dealing with stone, but impossible when she’s dealing with people. Until, that is, she strikes up a friendship with the handsome security guard at the museum where she is working. In the course of the play, Giulia finishes her restoration of the statue and, just maybe, starts to come out of her shell.

Ms. Shear is perfectly cast as Giulia, no surprise as she wrote the role for herself. There is also wonderful work here from Jonathan Cake as Max, the security guard, and from Alan Mandell as Guilia’s former professor, who helped get her the job. Mandell sounds astonishingly like John Giulgud. Well, everyone in the cast is superb.

While I wouldn’t put this one in the absolutely-don’t-miss category, it’s a very enjoyable evening and well worth checking out.

As is Everyday Rapture, Sheri Rene Scott’s autobiographical musical at Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre. I saw this last season at Second Stage, and I had my doubts about how it would play in this much larger theatre. These doubts were dispelled.

Ms. Scott tells the story of a girl from Kansas, raised as a Mennonite, who fell in love with singing when she was introduced to Judy Garland records by her gay cousin. Judy became a huge influence in her life, as did Fred Rogers, of all people. Ms. Scott’s medley of Mr. Rogers songs makes a case for the children’s TV icon as a homespun philosopher/poet. Although Ms. Scott is most of the show, there is also good work here from her 2-woman backup group, whom she calls the “Mennonettes,” and a hilarious section involving a teenaged boy who has posted a video of himself lip-synching to a song his idol sang in Aida. Eamon Foley practically steals the show with this embodiment of the joy of performing, and of being a true musical comedy fan.

Go – you’ll have a great time.

You’ll have a great time, too, at John Tartaglia’s Imagineocean, at New World Stages – but only if you’re there with a little kid. This is a delightful puppet show about three fish buddies who go on a treasure hunt. It has dancing jellyfish, bubbles, and water sprays. I took a three year-old, and she was enthralled. And because she had such a good time, I did too.

Sebastian Barry’s White Woman Street, at Irish Rep, is about a gang of saddle-worn train thieves on the trail to White Woman Street, a small town where their leader, O’Hara, had an experience in his youth which marked him for life. The play is a mostly-narrated western, with little dramatic action. It is set in southern Ohio, in 1918, where apparently there are still injuns and it’s still the Wild West. Ohio? 1918? And the language sounded awfully bogus to me. I kept trying to identify the metaphor in all of this, but couldn’t. I just wound up wondering, why did an Irish playwright write this? It made no sense to me, but what ultimately held me were the superb performances, most notably by Stephen Payne as O’Hara.

Irish Rep does much better when they revive old plays. Why they can’t find better contemporary Irish plays is beyond me.

Lincoln Center Theatre has a program called LCT3, in which they produce plays by “unknown” playwrights. Plans are underway to build a space for this very worthy venture up there at Lincoln Center; but for now, LCT3 is performing at the Duke Theatre, where I saw Ellen Fairey’s wonderful Graceland, about an adult brother and sister, both themselves sort of lost souls, struggling to deal with the circumstances surrounding the suicide of their father.

Marin Hinkle is wonderful as the sister, Sara, and Matt McGrath is great as her brother, Sam. Well, everyone in the cast is delightful, with special praise going to David Gelles Hurwitz as teenaged Miles. The scene where he tries to put the moves on Sara is hilarious.

I loved this play!

I also loved Michael Golamco’s Year Zero, produced by Second Stage at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre, about a Cambodian woman and he younger brother, also struggling to deal with the death of a parent; in this case, their mother, who has just died of cancer. Ra, the sister, is dating a med student named Glenn who is hopelessly in love with her; but she holds a torch for neighborhood bad boy Han, a gang member who has just gotten out of prison and who is adored by Ra’s teenaged brother, Vuthy.

Will Frears’ production is just beautiful, and all the actors are great. Louis Ozawa Changchien is an extremely charismatic Han, and Mason Lee a wonderfully surly Vuthy.

This one is definitely a don’t-miss.

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“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