★★★☆☆ The wonderful Lois Smith, directed by Lila Neugebauer, in Lily Thorne’s well-cast death watch
Off-Broadway
The Beast in the Jungle: Lovely Poetry, Lousy Prose
★★★☆☆ John Kander’s score and Susan Stroman’s choreography soar; the play does not
The Beast in the Jungle: Henry James’ Work Dances on Uncertain Feet
★★★☆☆ Susan Stroman, David Thompson and John Kander get Irina Dvorovenko, Tony Yazbeck on their toes
A Pink Chair (In Place of a Fake Antique): Wooster Group on Tadeusz Kantor
★★★★★ A fascinating tribute to the late, great Polish director/author and his Cricot 2 company
Our Lady of 121st Street: Spicy Soul Food, Served Warm
★★★★★ Director Phylicia Rashad mines the spiritual curiosity under Stephen Adly Guirgis’s exquisitely crushing dialogue in a stirring revival.
Our Lady of 121st Street: The Case of the Nun’s Missing Corpse
★★★★☆ Pulitzer-winner Stephen Adly Guirgis takes us on a wild ride with rhapsodic crests
Paradise Blue: Striving for That Perfect Note
★★★★☆ Dominique Morisseau wraps up her Detroit trilogy with a jazzy ode to the city’s once-thriving entertainment district
Paradise Blue: Race, Music, and Madness In Detroit
★★★☆☆ The second play in a trilogy by Dominique Morisseau looks at jazz and change in a gentrifying city.
Twelfth Night: An Uneven Feast of Love
★★★☆☆ Maria Aitken’s new staging of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy lacks consistency but offers lovely touches, and all ends well.
Long Day’s Journey Into Night: Drunk Family History
★★★★☆ Lesley Manville’s performance in Eugene O’Neill’s wrenching family drama will leave you on a morphine-like high