★★★★★ Replacing Tony Shalhoub, the Isaeli star helps maintain the just-about-perfect chamber musical
War of the Roses: Henry VI & Richard III: Losing Shakespeare Battles
★★☆☆☆ The history play combination, directed by Austin Pendleton and Peter Bloch, too often fires blanks
The New One: Lovably Humorous Mike Birbiglia Cracks Very Wise
★★★★☆ The stand-up comic who does a lot of commanding the stage talks about his expanding family
The House That Will Not Stand: Smart, Oppressed Women in 1813 Nola
★★★★☆ Marcus Gardley pens a history play relevant to today’s compromised feminist status
My Life on a Diet: Renée Taylor Serves Dishes of Comfort Laughs
★★★★☆ The comedienne looks back at several decades of being funny while dieting
The Originalist: Antonin Scalia v. a Liberal Clerk With Hot Results
★★★★☆ John Strand pits conservatism against liberalism in a play as timely as they come
The Damned: Ivo van Hove Goes About Theatricalizing Visconti
★★★☆☆ The challenging story of a steel manufacturing family in 1933 Germany struggling to survive
Fire in Dreamland: Rinne Groff’s New Drama Has Trouble Igniting
★★★☆☆ A woman hoping to make something of her life latches on to an ambivalent moviemaker
The Saintliness of Margery Kempe: Saint or Sinner? Not Worth Deciding
★☆☆☆☆ John Wulp stage-adapts a medieval mystic’s life at great length to small avail
From London: Imperium I: Conspirator, II: Dictator
★★★★☆ Mike Poulton adapts Robert Harris’ Cicero novels for Gregory Doran’s surging two parts