Fresh works from Ireland and Japan arrive in the opening week of the annual festival of innovative theater
Off-Broadway
Picnic at Hanging Rock: Tasty Picnic, Some Ants Intruding
★★★☆☆ Hilary Bell, Greta Gertler Gold musicalize scary novel and movie, Portia Kreigler directs
Amahl and the Night Visitors: Grand Opera, Grandly Done
★★★★☆ Gian Carlo Menotti’s one-act opera shines as a holiday attraction
Amahl and the Night Visitors: Kid’s Stuff or What?
★★★☆☆ Kenny Leon strategically stages Gian Carlo Menotti’s 45-minute chamber opera
Tartuffe: Sparkling Wine, Without the Sparkle
★★☆☆☆ Matthew Broderick and David Cross in Lucas Hnath’s Adaptation of Molière
Tartuffe: Lucas Hnath Runs Out of Rhymes on Molière’s Classic
★★☆☆☆ Sarah Benson’s lively direction can’t overcome adaptor Hnath’s careless Molière treatment
Anna Christie: The Sea-Themed Drama Docks at the Brooklyn Waterfront
★★★☆☆ Michelle Williams plays a hooker with a heart of coal in Eugene O’Neill’s 1921 drama
Anna Christie: That ‘Ole Devil Play
★★★☆☆ Michelle Williams, Tom Sturridge, and Brian d’Arcy James star in Thomas Kail’s revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama
It’s A Wonderful Life: Live And Life-Affirming On Stage
★★★★☆ The Irish Rep resurrects its heart-warming adaptation of the film classic.
A Christmas Carol: Rings the Bell Downtown
★★★☆☆ Michael Cerveris is Scrooge in a Holiday Return of the Matthew Warchus/Old Vic show