★★★☆☆ Jen Silverman’s characters are smart, sharp-tongued, and far from stereotypical. Try to keep up.
Off-Broadway
The Naturalists: A Romantic Triangle Shoots Up in the Irish Countryside
★★☆☆☆ A play about new love and old crimes amid Ireland’s rural greenery strains credulity and patience.
Heartbreak House: Framing Shaw’s Upside-Downton Abbey Saga
★★☆☆☆ Inconsistent acting styles and a needless frame obscure Shaw’s portrait of pre-war English society
Smokey Joe’s Cafe: Smokin’ Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller Hits Smokin’
★★★★★ A nine-cast Top-40 revue from mid-20th century so hot you could sizzle steaks on it
The Gospel at Colonus: A Joyful Noise Erupts in Central Park
★★★★☆ A unique piece of musical theater briefly makes an inspirational reappearance
Private Peaceful: One Soldier’s Story, in Multiple Voices
★★★★☆ Another World War I–era novel from ‘War Horse’ author Michael Morpurgo gets the theatrical treatment
Hershey Felder As Irving Berlin: Say It With Music
★★★☆☆ Hershey Felder is pretty good in his modest tribute to a great American songwriter
Days to Come: Less-Than-Mint-Condition Hellman
★★☆☆☆ The Mint Theater digs up Lillian Hellman’s long-forgotten, failed 1936 drama
Henry VI: Stop and Smell the War of the Roses
★★★★☆ The National Asian American Theatre Company condenses Shakespeare’s three Henry VI plays into a two-part, five-and-a-half-hour experience
Be More Chill: Loud Musical About a Desperate Teenage Social Outcast
★★★☆☆ Songwriter Joe Iconis, bookwriter Joe Tracz transfer Ned Vizzini’s popular YA novel to the stage