In The Next Room or the vibrator play

GRADE: B-

Photo By Joan Marcus

By Sarah Ruhl, Directed by Les Waters. At the Lyceum Theater

It's odd that a playwright as good natured as Sarah Ruhl would end up being so controversial, but perhaps this is what happens when you're given a MacArthur "Genius" Award before making your New York Debut. In The Next Room or the vibrator play is Ruhl's first play written post-MacArthur (both Passion Play and Dead Man's Cell Phone were written just prior) and this time she's on the Great White Way with a comedy about the medicinal uses of the vibrator in the 19th Century. The play earns generally high marks, with critics admiring the way she and director Les Waters have simultaneously pulled off a hilarious comedy and a probing look into female sexuality and our relationships with our bodies. John Simon, who normally hates Ruhl, is shocked (shocked!) to find himself thoroughly charmed by the play. Not everyone is so content... Matthew Murray finds the play overstuffed, Linda Winer finds it overly slight and Terry Teachout hates it so much, he impugns the taste of anyone who likes it (leaving out his F- grade, the score jumps to B+).

Hollywood Reporter A
(Frank Scheck) The playwright, responsible for such works as The Clean House and Dead Man's Cell Phone, mines her subject for suitably bawdy humor without resorting to vulgarity. But what really gives the work its distinction is its sensitive exploration of the physical and emotional repression suffered by the women of the era, which has yet to disappear entirely. Nor does Ruhl neglect the male side of things, as evidenced by the beautifully staged final scene in which Mrs. Givings provides her husband with a lesson about the beauty of his own body. The play, seen at the Berkeley Rep, has been given a pitch-perfect Broadway staging that beautifully balances its humor and pathos. Under the sensitive direction of Les Waters, the ensemble delivers sterling performances, with Benanti a particular delight as the woman for whom electricity turns out to be a marriage saver.

New York Times A
(Charles Isherwood) In the Next Room, a Lincoln Center Theater production, is directed by Les Waters with a fine sensitivity to its varied textures. Insightful, fresh and funny, the play is as rich in thought as it is in feeling. It is also Ms. Ruhl’s most traditional work, taking place as it does in a single setting (realized with warmth by the set designer Annie Smart) and hewing closely to naturalism. Nonetheless, admirers of Ms. Ruhl’s fanciful imagination and flair for surreal imagery, given free rein in plays like The Clean House and Eurydice, will be gratified to know that she imbues her heroine, Mrs. Givings, with a penchant for flights of lyric fantasy and a tendency to speak her thoughts almost before she has formulated them.

NY Post A
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Ruhl presents something a lot more intimate and a lot more daring: women's discovery of their own bodies and their own pleasure. It may be the first time we've seen characters repeatedly reach orgasm on a mainstream stage -- in a Lincoln Center Theater production, no less -- and it happens in a play that's smart, delicate and very, very funny...As well written as the play is, it could easily have gone astray in the wrong hands. But director Les Waters and his cast proceed with great sensitivity. Cerveris' earnest, slightly stiff physicality is put to good use here, while Benanti and Dizzia brim with a contagious glee in their shared scenes. Excited and curious, they giggle, whisper and intrigue. After all, their characters are on the cusp of a marvelous discovery: They were already adults. Now they can become women.

TheaterMania A
(David Finkle) If Henrik Ibsen and Oscar Wilde had decided to collaborate on a post-modern drawing-room comedy, the hotsy-totsy twosome surely would have turned out something very much like Sarah Ruhl's genuinely hysterical new work In the Next Room or the vibrator play, now being presented by Lincoln Center Theatre at Broadway's Lyceum Theatre... Handed material that theatergoers stuck in a bygone age might find unsavory, director Les Waters has honed it to a fare-thee-well. (He also helmed the piece for its Berkeley Repertory Theatre debut.) And his actors are certainly a game lot. Dizzia, Benanti, and Williams are obliged to present several approaches to orgasms, a requirement that may have evoked second thoughts on initial readings of the lubricious script. But they leap in. Cerveris, as a detached man of science, is adept at stripping his emotions bare and then some. Bernstine gets to deliver the play's longest speech -- a confession of her resentment at wet-nursing an infant after her own son died at 12 weeks -- and she breaks hearts with it. Ryan's thick-skulled Mr. Daldry and Stetson's secretly unhappy and longing Annie are additional assets.

Bloomberg A
(John Simon) Wonders will never cease. Sarah Ruhl, whose previous work I execrated, has written a smart, charming, iridescently funny-serious jewel, In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play...As Ruhl traces it with wit and insight, and without the slightest prurience, the birth of this new era gives rise to colorful events, astute psychological revelations and endearingly apt dialogue. A parallel plot line centers on the black wet nurse, Elizabeth: Catherine is as jealous of her success with Lotty as her husband is of his male patient Leo Irving, a bohemian, Paris-based painter with whom Catherine is unrequitedly smitten.

Time Out New York A-
(David Cote) This premise could easily devolve into a silly sex farce or a strident feminist critique; in fact, Ruhl samples from both without becoming indebted to either. In a way, In the Next Room is unabashedly antiscience; Ruhl has noted in interviews that she’s not impressed by psychological realism or rationality in contemporary plays. In the battle between reason and wonder, she comes down firmly on the side of dreamy awe. By restricting her genre to aphorism-peppered 19th-century drawing-room comedy, Ruhl tempers her tendency toward twee whimsy and delivers a compelling yarn with engaging characters who evolve. And director Les Waters doesn’t gild the lily of Ruhl’s heightened but period-respectful dialogue, setting a comical but grounded tone.

Associated Press B+
(Michael Kuchwara) This provocative, often quite funny play, which Lincoln Center Theater opened Thursday at Broadway's Lyceum Theatre, is Ruhl's most entertaining work to date. Not only because of its sexual subject matter but because she has created a parade of appealing, fully drawn characters, starting with the husband and wife at the center of her play. And Ruhl is dealing with some serious issues, too, most prominently the often difficult relationships between men and women and their misreadings of each other

Variety B
(David Rooney) Victorian repression gets a rude poke in Sarah Ruhl's typically idiosyncratic rumination on women's struggle to understand and explore their sexual selves, In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play. While the signature 19th century ailment being treated is "hysteria," the chief weakness is the bipolar disorder of the inconsistent second act, which shifts uncertainly between serious developments and the more farcical business of romantic cross-currents. But there are so many lingering moments of emotional truth, and even more of daring comedy, that the play amuses and charms even if it doesn't quite satisfy.

NY Daily News C+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) In the Next Room clicks, or hums, when it's at its silliest and most titillating. As characters shed corsets and knickers for some good vibrations, the play surges with laughter. The merriment ceases in the second half, larded down by so many themes concerning life, light, love, lactation, lesbianism - and that's just the L words.

Newsday C-
(Linda Winer) In the Next Room or the vibrator play is a great big idea with a mildly amusing play tacked onto it. The comedy is more substantial and less self-consciously whimsical than the three previous Sarah Ruhl plays that also have been luxuriously produced in New York in the past three years. But I still wish I understood the appeal.

TalkinBroadway C-
(Matthew Murray) Unfortunately, even these added layers of context and depth make the story difficult to sustain over two and a half hours. Sight gags about the stimulating devices - including the horrific “Chattanooga vibrator” to which Leo is subjected - and Catherine’s borderline conspiring to treat herself when her husband refuses may satisfy in the short term. But because the side plots and subsidiary characters aren’t especially compelling, you focus on the play’s coarser aspects more than they’re capable of bearing - and ultimately, they’re not much more than the sort of lame sex jokes most people get tired of after middle school. Counting adultery, classism, lesbianism, racism, artistic inspiration, the disintegration of social prudishness, the landscape of scientific progress, and a modern history of wet nursing in addition the dual-headed main story of vibrator theory and the accidental collapse of a marriage, Ruhl has loaded In the Next Room with too many expansive topics to do any of them justice. Neither she nor her director, Les Waters, is capable of drawing your attention to the threads of greatest importance, which instead of elevating everything only increases the insignificance of each individual portion.

The Faster Times D+
(Jonathan Mandell) All this is so clearly put forth that we get it within the first 15 minutes of the play — a half hour, tops. The problem is that the play is two and a half hours long. In that time, we watch nearly a dozen sessions with a vibrator (or maybe the better verb is hear, since they are conducted under discreet covering.) There are variations to be sure — one time it’s a man, a couple of times it’s two women. There are also tiny subplots, frustrated little efforts among various of the characters to make connection, and a fanciful ending that is at odds with the tone of the rest of the play, intentionally so. But much time is taken with the smug little joke that these naifs did not even understand that what they were experiencing was sexual pleasure, which might have been better-told as a 12-minute skit; allow the two musically-talented leads the chance to sing, and it would have been firmly in Monty Python territory. Instead, In The Next Room, or the vibrator play is a tease without titillation; it has the rhythm of pornography without the pleasures of pornography; most theatergoers would probably not find it very shocking, but for all the expressed intention to offer insights into attitudes towards sex and electricity, it is also not all that stimulating.

Wall Street Journal F-
(Terry Teachout) Believe it or not, this is actually a pretty good idea for a play, one that might have been both smart and provocative had it been treated in the astringent manner of "Topsy-Turvy," the 1999 film in which Mike Leigh showed us Victorian England through the eyes of Gilbert and Sullivan. "In the Next Room," by contrast, is a sentimental wallow studded with sniggering jokes that too often appear to be made at the expense of Ms. Ruhl's innocent characters, none of whom is believably Victorian in speech or carriage. The result is the theatrical equivalent of a jelly doughnut with vinegar-flavored frosting, a dish fit only for the tasteless.

HR A 13; TM A 13; NYT A 13; NYP A 13; BB A 13; TONY A- 12; AP B+ 11; V B 10; NYDN C+ 8; TB C- 6; ND C- 6; TFT D+ 5; WSJ F- 0; TOTAL: 123/13=9.46 (B-)

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My Wonderful Day

GRADE: A-


(Photo by Robert Day)

Written and Directed by Alan Ayckbourn. At 59E59 through Dec. 13th.

Alan Ayckbourn directs his own dark farce in this Brits off Broadway Production, and the reaction is overwhelmingly positive, with a couple of quibbles. Both Elisabeth Vincentelli and Ben Brantley find the goings-on a bit too familiar and a bit too formulaic, having seen plenty of Ayckbourn's farces over the years (perhaps this formula helps explain the scribe's terrifying prolificness--he's written 73 plays!). Terry Teachout--on record as a huge fan of Ayckbourn as a writer and a director--can't sing the praises of the show highly enough. Everyone gets a big kick out of the premise--a middle-class sex farce watched over by a nearly silent-year-old played convincingly by 28-year-old Ayesha Antoine. (For a bonus Q+A wiht Sir Alan, point your browsers to this interview conducted by David Cote)

Wall St. Journal A+
(Terry Teachout) Not only is My Wonderful Day one of the wittiest and most pristinely crafted of Mr. Ayckbourn's dark farces, but the Brits Off Broadway festival has wisely imported his own production, which was first seen in October at Mr. Ayckbourn's home base, Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre. Like the play, it's a gem, a textbook example of how to stage a comedy effectively, and anyone fortunate enough to see it will wonder why Mr. Ayckbourn's parallel career as a director is largely unknown on this side of the Atlantic.

TheaterMania A+
(David Finkle) Alan Ayckbourn's new bittersweet comedy My Wonderful Day, now at 59E59 Theaters as part of the Brits Off Broadway festival, is among his best and most touching works -- which really says something considering it is his 73rd play...Ayckbourn wants to show the world of adults as seen through a child's innocent eyes. He's not the first to take the approach, but he's one of the funniest. Character-based laughs keep coming even as anxiety accumulates about the burdens children are asked to bear by the supposedly mature. For instance, Winnie knows that eager Kevin and willing Tiffany have gone off alone to the bedroom, but how should she respond when Paula, returning unexpectedly, asks about her husband's whereabouts?

NYTimes A-
(Ben Brantley) All of this is per usual for Mr. Ayckbourn, whose comedies have always held more than a trace of melancholy. I can’t say I cared very much about the fates of these selfish adults, though they are portrayed with enjoyable wit and style. What makes My Wonderful Day so moving is your awareness of the grim spectacle of the life to come that they present to Winnie. She already knows that promises are inevitably broken and that stability of any kind is an illusion. No wonder Winnie worries that her mother could die any minute, though of course Laverne, as an Ayckbourn adult, fails to grasp the depths of her child’s fear.

Associated Press B+
(Jennifer Farrar) Some adults still believe that children should be seen and not heard. But what if that quiet child is writing down every foolish thing the adults are saying and doing? That's the delightful premise of Alan Ayckbourn's latest comedy, My Wonderful Day, making its New York debut as part of BritsOffBroadway 2009 at 59E59 Theaters. Ayckbourn wrote and directs this witty, thoughtful farce, which includes the original British cast from the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Yorkshire, England.

NYPost B
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Ayckbourn's written more than 70 plays' worth of this stuff, and he knows what he's doing. But this one also feels by-the-numbers...just as we seem to be cruising toward an uneventful finish to an uneventful play, Ayckbourn introduces a new character in the final stretch. When brisk, acerbic Paula (Alexandra Mathie) enters, it's as if someone had opened a window and let a bracing wind blow in. Paula helps end the show in a delicious high note -- but also makes you wish she'd come in much, much earlier.


TM A+ 14; WSJ A+ 14; NYT A- 12; AP B+ 11; NYP B 10. TOTAL: 61/5 = 12.2 (A-)

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The Late Christopher Bean

GRADE: A-



By Sidney Howard. Directed by Jenn Thompson. At The Beckett Theatre, Theatre Row through December 5, 2009

The Actors Company Theater makes good on its quest to present "neglected or rarely produced plays of literary merit" with this revival of Sidney Howard's farce The Late Christopher Bean, last seen 'round these parts in 1932. Most critics score the play according to TACT's stated goals, and most report a well-produced night of comedy, with company member Cynthia Darlow receiving multiple praises for her acting work. The action takes place in the Boston home of a doctor and his wife who discover that their long-dead starving-artist lodger has been declared a genius, posthumously. A New York art critic and others descend on the house to find his now-priceless early work and hilarity ensues as the different players battle for a piece of the pie. Every theatre has a Mission Statement (usually containing the phrase "human condition"), but few have a mission that is at once comprehensible and consistently fulfilled. Critics seem gratified that a story about forgotten art has been revived by a company devoted to finding forgotten art. The critics also appreciate the prescience and merit of this particular revival because Bean's plot is animated by the farcical force of Greed.

The New Yorker A
(Unattributed) Sidney Howard’s 1932 comedy, which has been unjustly gathering dust, gets a first-rate outing by the Actors Company Theatre. Dr. Haggett (the terrific James Murtaugh), a country physician living outside of Boston, becomes the sudden focus of the art-world élite when he turns out to be the unknowing owner of a stash of priceless paintings. As collectors and scammers gather at his doorstep, his simple life is upended and his family descends into a collective frenzy of greed. (Cynthia Darlow, a company veteran, is particularly scrumptious as the devil-eyed matriarch.) The relevance of Depression-era avarice is not the only reason to revive the play: Jenn Thompson’s production proves it to be a gem in any era, and catnip for a comedic ensemble.

Backstage A
(Lisa Jo Sagolla) The comic antics are directed with controlled velocity by Jenn Thompson, who never lets the riotous proceedings get so wild as to undermine the elegance of Howard's efficient language, which is where the bulk of the show's sharp humor lies. The production resides comfortably within Charlie Corcoran's handsomely homey 1930s farmhouse set and is smartly cast with outstanding comedic actors, who all manage to mark their characters with a singular, appealing peculiarity.

Theatre Mania A
(David Finkle) Under Jenn Thompson's warm and tidy direction, it's loaded with laughs; it has nine carefully articulated parts for the accomplished actors assembled here to enliven; and it contains genuine plot surprises right up to the deeply satisfying curtain line. What more do you need? ... Howard's portrait of greed is worthy of a Moliere satire, and Murtaugh grabs the role of Dr. Haggett and makes hay with it. By the time Haggett understands that tens of thousands of dollars are available to him if he can locate the missing paintings, Murtaugh's entire body is vibrating.

Lighting & Sound America A
(David Barbour) [S]uffice to say that, except for one or two moments when the action briefly drifts into expositional cul-de-sacs, this is an expertly plotted farce, filled with exquisitely timed bombshells that continue dropping up until the very last minute. And, under Jenn Thompson's smartly paced direction, a fine cast expertly underplays this genteel tale of cutthroat negotiations. Leading the way is James Murtaugh, as Dr. Haggett, whose laconic Yankee propriety crumbles into bits as his greed subjects him to a barrage of comic humiliations ... All of this double-dealing takes place on Charlie Corcoran's setting, which, with its dowdy furniture, homely paintings, and hooked rugs, is a fine study in respectable middle-class bad taste. Ben Stanton's lighting bathes the action in a warm, sunshiny glow that contrasts nicely with the dirty doings at hand. Martha Hally's costumes include some nicely tailored men's suits and a sufficiently august day dress for Mrs. Haggett. Stephen Kunken's sound design provides crisp reinforcement for the piano tunes, composed by Mark Berman, that bridge each scene.

Variety B+
(Steven Suskin) Much of the brightness of this production comes from the Yankee doctor, whose character is described as a gargoyle and who, when overcome with greed, jerks about like a puppet on hopelessly tangled strings. Murtaugh (a memorably dour McComber in the 1998 Lincoln Center Theater revival of O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness!") also supplies an inspired bit of mime in the final scene when he tabulates the spoils of swindling like a deranged abacus. Darlow contributes numerous laughs as a harridan who goes in for occasional-but-inauthentic lunges at civility; this pair deserves each other, and the audience is the beneficiary. Bacon does an admirable job as the woman at the center of the affair, but she is at something of a disadvantage. Howard wrote the play as a vehicle for Pauline Lord, star of "They Knew What They Wanted" and a living legend for her 1921 performance as O'Neill's "Anna Christie." Abby has also been played by Marie Dressler, Edith Evans and Lillian Gish. That's not to say you need a star in the role, but Howard clearly intended us to focus on the housemaid from the earliest scenes, which we don't do with Bacon ... In the company's hands, the play proves intelligent, well crafted and laugh-out-loud funny.

New York Times B+
(Ken Jawarowski) It’s a play that has remained fresh and funny, proving once again that a strong script is rarely tarnished by time ... Along with its commendable mission to restage forgotten plays, the Actors Company has put an impressive amount of work into its production. The set, by Charlie Corcoran, shows a sharp eye for detail, as do Martha Hally’s costumes and Ben Stanton’s lighting. The cast of nine is often as skilled. Though the actors’ timing occasionally misfires — a number of the jokes elicit wide smiles rather than the big laughs that such writing deserves — the ensemble, directed by Jenn Thompson, is nevertheless engaging. James Murtaugh as Dr. Haggett and Jessiee Datino as his daughter Susan are particularly effective.

New York Post C
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Unfortunately, the proceedings never switch to the necessary higher comic gear. As the increasingly frenzied Haggett patriarch, James Murtaugh -- looking like Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons" -- comes closest to the right sense of exaggeration. Overall, the production sticks to an amiable canter when a full gallop's required.

The New Yorker A 13; Backstage A 13; Theatre Mania A 13; Lighting & Sound America A 13; Variety B+ 11; New York Times B+ 11; New York Post C 7. TOTAL: 81/7 = 11.6 (A-)

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The Brother/Sister Plays

GRADE: B+



By Tarell Alvin McCraney. Part 1 directed by Tina Landau. Part 2 directed by Robert O'Hara. The Public Theater. Through Dec. 13.

Young playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney has his share of supporters and detractors. Some critics call him the next August Wilson, while others, though recognizing his talent and potential, find his writing in his trilogy, The Brother/Sister Plays, to be self-indulgent. McCraney's techniques of characters referring to themselves in the third person and speaking stage directions have really polarized critics, but the design team and actors get kudos all around.

The New York Times A+
(Ben Brantley) Mr. McCraney’s characters — who notably include a charismatic high school track star, a garage mechanic, two recent parolees and a 16-year-old boy surprised by his attraction to men — often say what they are going to do, in the third person, before they do it. Smile or scowl or touch someone. Yet instead of distancing us from the narrative, à la Bertolt Brecht, this stylistic device draws us in deeper. It’s as if we had a share in weaving the narrative and in the pure, heady pleasure the performers derive from navigating their characters’ stories. When the actors address the audience directly, asking for agreement or advice, it never seems disruptive because we already feel so complicit in the creative process. This lack of artistic self-consciousness is the more remarkable when you realize that the plays are all about levels of consciousness, as Mr. McCraney’s characters search for, or try to escape from, reflections of themselves. “In the Red and Brown Water,” patterned on García Lorca’s “Yerma” (1934), Oya (Kianné Muschett), a barren young woman with the name of a powerful Yoruban nature goddess, longs for a baby that will allow her to “look down and see myself mirrored back to me.”... The cast members are, to a person, wonderful at embodying and narrating their characters in the same moment (though never archly). I have seldom seen a play in which the tellers and their tales seem so ineffably one.

Variety A+
(David Rooney) The buckets, tubs and oil drums that serve as props and percussion instruments in part one of "The Brother/Sister Plays" conjure thoughts of bailing out a drowning world. And even before Hurricane Katrina is evoked, it's impossible to watch the Louisiana bayou characters of Tarell Alvin McCraney's hypnotic trilogy without picturing those people whose invisibility was shockingly exposed in the wake of that disaster. Images of water run in a lyrical vein through the interconnected plays, which draw on West African myth to tell down-home stories rich in cultural specificity, salty humor and portentous dreams. Let's be clear upfront that those forebodings of Katrina, which is never directly named, do not mean this is some breast-beating dirge for a wounded people. The plays depict life in the projects in the fictitious community of San Pere, where narrow prospects, poverty and crime are the norm, and where folks are always braced for tragedy. But these are spiritual works that thrum with vitality, whether it's joyous or melancholy, told in vigorous language that artfully folds together slangy vernacular with bursts of haunting poetry. If there's an heir to the legacy of August Wilson, the gifted 29-year-old McCraney may be on his way to claiming that title.

The Daily News A+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) The men and women in McCraney's world constantly break character, as if to provide running comment on their actions. The device takes you by surprise at first, then becomes part of the fabric that the author weaves. Moments of exuberant music and dance pop up and flow through the show, giving it a fantastical feel. Director Tina Landau ("Superior Donuts") has expertly guided all the various storytelling elements into something rich and atmospheric.

Newsday A
(Linda Winer) The wonder comes in both the tales and the way they are told. All three plays follow generations of characters in the Louisiana bayou. There is little in the way of sets, just the occasional table or oil cans for stools. Characters - portrayed by a chameleonic company of 14 - are unmistakably American, but they have names from Yoruba mythology. Stories - both playful and awful - establish their muscular narrative through ritualized gesticulations, bits of chant, allusions to moons and the wind and, especially, the sounds - often the gasps - of breathing. Most distinctive is the way McCraney has characters say their stage directions before they carry them out. For example, Oya (Kianné Muschett) says "Oya laughs at her crazy mama," then laughs and says "You crazy." It's a technique that can teeter on the edge of self-parody, but it is more often provocatively unsettling and, when fused to the wrenching confrontations in "Brothers Size," it becomes an inextricable part of the spell.

Theatermania A
(Dan Balcazo) Johnson, who is the only actor to play just one part in all three plays, nevertheless finds different aspects of the character to emphasize in each piece; Ogun seems vulnerable and unsure of himself in the first play, confident and slightly aggressive in the second, and contemplative in the third. Holland also takes a journey with Elegba, who grows from boy to man within In the Red and Brown Water, and emerges as a fully sexual and charismatic presence in The Brothers Size. The actor's work as Marcus in the third play is filled with a playful, yet sweet sincerity. The remaining cast members all do fine work, with standouts including Muschett's Oya, Henry's Oshoosi, Heather Alica Simms' Mama Moja, and Kimberly Hebert Gregory's Aunt Elegua. The design work is also strong -- particularly that of lighting designer Peter Kaczorowski, who impresses from the opening moments of In the Red and Brown Water as a man turns over a physically empty bucket, only to have the light ripple out in a convincing and gorgeous water effect.

Associated Press A
(Jennifer Farrar) Fluidly directed by Tina Landau, Oya's gradual emotional decline is told by these lively relatives and neighbors in memorable scenes, with cast members also creating a sympathetic, watchful Greek chorus. Minimalist set design by James Schuette, aided by Peter Kaczorowski's skillful lighting, creates a clean background for McCraney's stylized group storytelling. The only props are buckets, used as pedestals, drums and vessels. The shadow of Hurricane Katrina is everywhere, with watery imagery repeatedly invoked in all three plays. The lives of some of these characters and their descendants continue in Part 2 of McCraney's trilogy, the previously successful "The Brothers Size" and "Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet." These two plays, performed together, are directed with muscular precision by Robert O'Hara.

The Faster Times A-
(Jonathan Mandell) As with much poetry, McCraney’s trilogy sometimes achieves its beauty while sacrificing some of its clarity. The sacrifice might have been unacceptably high were it not for the splendidly down-to-earth acting. All nine actors are so good — entertaining, charming, compelling, sympathetic (or at least understandable) even when playing characters who are behaving like jerks — that it is almost unfair to single any out. If I had to pick one, though, it would be Andre Holland, who appeared in the most recent Broadway revival of August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” (the show the Obamas attended). Holland appears in all three plays, first as Elegba, and then in the last play as the title character Marcus. And if I had to pick one play, “Marcus” is the one that stood out for me, as the most accessible and entertaining. But of course, I don’t have to pick. There is no worse curse than calling somebody promising, except maybe calling them (as Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis does) “a major new voice in the American theater.” So let’s just say: Put me down for a subscription to the future works of Tarell Alvin McCraney.

Nytheatre.com A-
(Saviana Stanescu) All the actors deserve accolades for such a tour de force, as they nuance their multiple roles in all three plays, alternating main characters with members of the chorus. As for the directors, I must say that Tina Landau's heightened yet minimalist style, the way she uses the space, the props, and the ensemble of performers, emphasizing the poetic/mythic symphony of words, gestures and sounds (In the Red and Brown Water), seemed to me to serve better the text than the more grounded and realistic approach that Robert O'Hara employs in the last two plays. However, McCraney's dramatic stories are so original and strong that they allow various directorial interpretations without losing their amplitude and appealing power.

CurtainUp A-
(Elyse Sommer) Seeing the complete trilogy will also give you a chance to see two different directing styles that connect seamlessly thanks to the the staging, the splendid ensemble acting and the playwright's unifying stylistic elements. Most notable in the latter category are the frequent dream sequences, the melding of poetry and street talk and the device of having the actors speak the stage directions before playing them out. The spoken stage cues not only underline and bold face the characters feelings and actions but fit in with the story telling mode. On the other hand, this device tends to make the audience too aware of seeing a play to be really swept up in the story and, used as extensively as it is, does get a bit tiresome. As long as I'm quibbling about the intriguing but over used spoken stage directions. . . the non-specific staging and the characters' African names tend to obscure the fact that their stories play out in an American housing project and not a country village in distant Africa. When a reference to the project is actually made it doesn't seem to fit in with what we're seeing and hearing. This is especially true in Tina Laundau's highly stylized staging of In the Red and Brown Water. O'Hara's more naturalistic direction, though also relying on generic props (a table that doubles as a bed and a car) does add a large garage door and some very realistic rain.

Village Voice B+
(Michael Feingold) Nothing is so simple in McCraney's works, where ancient gods and last night's dreams keep drifting into and out of the action, and the characters' dialogue tracks, with hairbreadth precision, into and out of self-narration. The constant repetition of data that results can get maddening, but it can also be used for subtle effects. Both Tina Landau, staging Part 1, and Robert O'Hara, directing the double bill of Parts 2 and 3, use it so: One remarkable aspect of the event is its unity of style. Only Landau's imagistic use of background figures, and the intentionally harsher sound effects in O'Hara's double bill, differentiate the two stagings. And, although much in both is shoutingly overplayed, whenever the story turns serious, the acting turns transcendent. Marc Damon Johnson, evolving from the stammering adolescent of Part 1 to the weary, grieving oldster of Part 3, acquires breathtaking stature.

Lighting & Sound America C+
(David Barbour) The talk can also be brutally honest, sizing up whole lives in a handful of words. Ogun, fed up with his brother's troublemaking ways, says, "You say I ain't never been in the pen?...All my life, I carry your sins on my back." Or it can conjure up a stylized, wittily woeful poetry all its own. "Ever had so much on your mind that you forgot what you wanted to think about?" wonders Marcus, weighed down by the fear that he might be "sweet." ("They ain't even have gay folks in Africa," he haplessly tells a properly nonplussed adult.) His would-be girlfriend is under no such illusions; "I mean, you the only one I can sing The Wiz straight through with," she points out, outing him once and for all. The author has bigger ambitions, however, and these afflict all three plays with a bad case of self-consciousness; he is aided and abetted in this by his collaborators. It's one thing to have the actors address the audience throughout; it's another thing to have them constantly speak their stage directions. "Moja looks at Oya like, 'What I say?'" says Oya's mother, following up with "What I say?" It's a gimmick that gets old in record time; the fact that it doesn't cripple the plays is a testament to the cast's superior skills.

Backstage C+
(Erik Haagensen) The Tarell Alvin McCraney bandwagon is rolling. Embraced by the cream of the nonprofit theatrical establishment and winner of the first New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award, the talented 29-year-old is placed in the esteemed pantheon of O'Neill, Miller, Shepard, and Parks by Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis in his effusive program notes. It's a heavy burden to put on any young author, and McCraney can't shoulder it in his sprawling new trilogy, "The Brother/Sister Plays." While there are definitely elements to admire, particularly in "Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet," the final play, there's also a good deal of overblown mythologizing combined with a paucity of convincing character writing. At his best, McCraney has a decidedly original way with language; at his worst, he relies on sociological stereotypes for easy laughs. Is he deserving of careful nurturing and support? You bet. Is he the second coming? Not yet.

Talkin' Broadway C-
(Matthew Murray) Part of the trouble with The Brother/Sister Plays is that, in totality, they amount to little more than an elaborate gay parable. Two years ago, “The Brothers Size” felt timeless; now it just seems trite. Another issue is that McCraney’s specific style here, of having the actors speak almost all their stage directions, grows wearying after a while. Their saying what they’re going to do and then doing it is supposed to render a three-dimensional world out of the depthless construct of a play script, but it’s not a vivid enough idea to retain its initial magic over four and a half uneven hours. Even the most accomplished playwrights - Eugene O’Neill with Mourning Becomes Electra, Tom Stoppard with The Coast of Utopia, Horton Foote with The Orphans’ Home Cycle (now in previews Off-Broadway) - wait years or perhaps decades to assemble their epics, so they can first fully develop their voices, points of view, and theatricality. McCraney is simply not ready yet for this mammoth an undertaking, gifted as he’s proven himself with snatches of individual writing here and his dazzling Wig Out! last year. But when he is, assuming he has the right help along the way, he could emerge as one of the most original playwrights of his generation.

New York Post D+
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Blame it on self-indulgence. A rainy dream sequence is so nice, we see it twice. Worse, the script instructs the actors to recite the stage directions. "Enter Shango, dressed in an Army recruit uniform," Shango (the charismatic Sterling K. Brown) announces. Well, yeah, we can see that. If this heavy-handed staginess wasn't enough, the actors occasionally indulge in soliloquies and direct winky asides to the audience. As precious and redundant, naive and obvious as it is, this affectation is an integral part of McCraney's poetic storytelling style. Too bad it often feels like an MFA writing assignment... And yet the plays entertain almost in spite of themselves, thanks to directors Tina Landau (for Part 1, "In the Red and Brown Water") and Robert O'Hara (for Part 2, "The Brothers Size" and "Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet"), and the superb ensemble they pilot.

Time Out NY D+
(David Cote) Everyone longs for connection and roots, to see themselves reflected in a baby or a lover or a community. Such desires could ostensibly lead to drama, but McCraney overwrites terribly, and his fusion of African and American folkways undermines both. He aims for archetypes but ends up with shrill, verbose stereotypes, wandering through a vague mythopoetic landscape. Tina Landau and Robert O’Hara stage their sections movement-theater style, eliciting passionate performances from an appealing cast. (At its worst, though, the group gestures and choral speaking come across like a poor tribute to Joseph Chaikin’s Open Theater.) McCraney is undeniably talented but also self-indulgent; he needs dramaturgical focus and concision, not more awards.

The New York Times A+ 14; Variety A+ 14; The Daily News A+ 14; Newsday A 13; Theatermania A 13; AP A 13; The Faster Times A- 12; Nytheatre.com A- 12; CurtainUp A- 12; Village Voice B+ 11; Lighting $ Sound America C+ 8; Backstage C+ 8; Talkin' Broadway C- 6; New York Post D+ 5; TONY D+ 5; TOTAL: 160/15 = 10.67 (B+)

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Or,

GRADE: B+


By Liz Duffy Adams. Directed by Wendy McClellan. Women's Project at the Julia Miles Theatre. Through Dec. 13.

Most critics are more or less seduced by Liz Duffy Adams' playful, sexy take on Restoration playwright Aphra Behn, with kudos for the attractive cast and Wendy McClellan's crisp, energetic direction. A number of admirers voice one quibble or another--Do the parallels between the 1660s and 1960s really hold up? Does Andy Paris' drag turn go a camp too far?--while a few count themselves frustrated by the piece's gossamer lightness and farcical focus.

New York Post A
(Frank Scheck) Rollicking, bodice-ripping farce...Echoing the door-slamming, bawdy style of Restoration comedies, the play scores its satirical points in highly entertaining fashion, aided by director Wendy McClellan's fast-paced staging. Siff's Behn is suitably smart and sexy, and Hutchinson and Paris are wonderfully amusing in their multiple, cross-dressing, quick-changing roles.

Back Stage A
(Gwen Orel) Liz Duffy Adams' historical romp of a backstage sex farce about Restoration playwright Aphra Behn displays style, humor, and jaw-dropping wit. Whether speaking in rhymed couplets or hiding in closets, Adams' characters surprise and appeal. It's a workout for all three actors. Two play multiple roles at a great clip, and Behn is onstage constantly. Director Wendy McClellan shines with the storytelling and pace.

CurtainUp A
(Deborah Blumenthal) Maggie Siff...is a spirited, lively, and seductive Aphra...The play’s title, complete with its grammatically clever comma, would lead you to believe it to be more of a rumination on language than it really is. It is quite linguistically rich, and boasts rhyming verbal acrobatics, but the fascinating ruminations on the titular word come only in momentary explorations. Instead, the unexpected is a pleasure —- a sexy, witty and irreverent comedy, and a playful take on history. Those stuffy seminars where I first heard about Aphra Behn should have been so much fun.

The New York Times A-
(Charles Isherwood) A playful, funny and inventive comedy...[Ms. Adams'] language has a natural period flavor and a formidable wit; her characters possess the spark of fully animated spirits; and she weaves into her story both biographical detail and cultural context with grace. More remarkably, the play succeeds on its own terms as a potted pastiche of Restoration comedy as well as a lively showcase for the actors...The director, Wendy McClellan, orchestrates the farcical mechanics with the necessary precision...At the play’s center is Ms. Siff’s lovely turn as the ambitious but sensual Behn, who is ultimately more interested in pursuing her artistic freedoms than indulging her amorous ones. Although the play’s sexual politics can be a little overstated and self-congratulatory, Ms. Adams’s smartly conceived unraveling of figures corseted in history honors the remarkable facts of Behn’s ground-breaking career.

Theatermania A-
(Sandy MacDonald) More comic bodice-ripper than feminist tract, Liz Duffy Adams' sprightly farce Or,...perfectly suits its inspiration, the 17th-century playwright and poetess Aphra Behn...Adams' text -- enhanced by Wendy McClellan's energetic direction -- toggles adroitly between the 1660s and the 1960s, and between the formalities of iambic pentameter (as in a curtain-opener speech containing the obligatory cell phone warning) and a more contemporary sensibility. It's a tribute to Adams' nimble wit that the three-century leap always amuses, never jars. She has also done a brilliant job inserting imaginative "what ifs" into the sketchy details available concerning Behn's colorful career...Your mind may take a little hike as Aphra gives rein to an impulse to deliver a brief blank-verse paean to her vision of a Golden Age, a pastoral paradise in which free love supplants war and strife -- but give the visionary her due.

That Sounds Cool A-
(Aaron Riccio) Though Adams is intent on illustrating the ambiguity of character, Wendy McClellan directs with a crisp, clean hand. Even the intentionally sloppy bits, where characters are peeking only parts of their body out of the various rooms and closets in which they've hidden, are done with precision. And rightly so: the play Behn is attempting to finish is the one that she's actually in, and it would be impossible to crack as many jokes at the play's structure if it were not so impeccably upheld...Adams might have gone a bit further--as is, the historical double-meanings are lost, especially among people unfamiliar with Behn. However, there's nothing wrong with a blatant farce, and once can't fault Adams for sticking to her game plan: "Compose yourselves for pleasure," announces Hutchinson at the start of the show. That's perhaps the one thing in Or, that has no alternative.

Nytheatre.com B+
(Lynn Marie Macy) Our heroine, irresistibly brought to life by the talented Maggie Siff, is charming, intelligent, undeterred, courageous, and triumphant...Kelly Hutchinson shines with versatility and spirit in the multiple roles of Nell Gwynne, the Jailor, and Maria, Aphra's loyal servant; and Andy Paris does extraordinary work in the roles of King Charles II, William Scott, and Lady Davenant...Wendy McClellan has directed the piece with heart, creativity, excellent pacing, and grounded humor throughout but for one instance. While it was perhaps, understandably difficult to resist a "campy" approach to Lady Davenant's tour de force monologue, the braver choice may have been to play the character for truth and trust the actor's abilities and Adams's wonderful text to convey the comedy of the scene...This brief departure from theatrical truth also tends to lessen the stakes for us and for Aphra when things get truly dicey later on.

Show Showdown B
(Wendy Caster) While Or, is funny, fast, and well-written, and the three actors (Kelly Hutchinson, Andy Paris, and Maggie Siff) are skilled and entertaining, I wanted more for--and about--Aphra Behn...Aphra Behn pretty much invented the idea of a woman making her living as a writer, and while it's a fun concept to have her involved with both royalty and a famous performer, focusing on her sex life doesn't do her justice. Also, the supposed parallels to the 1960s didn't add much for me...Overall, the period dialogue convinces, the plot amuses, and the characters engage, and the doors slam frequently and farcically, just as they should. I just wanted more.

Time Out NY B
(Helen Shaw) For much of Or, Adams and director Wendy McClellan effectively juggle the ridiculous (the designers deliberately conflate the 1660s with the 1960s) and the sublime. Adams can write mock-Restoration-style nonsense that positively ripples—in the prologue she promises to “show a vast unsettled world within/that open o and nosing thrust of r”—though as a farceur, she has less success at getting multitasking actors into cupboards and out of costumes. Unfortunately, therefore, the play attains headlong speed, but never the element of surprise. Luckily, Siff’s Behn reposes catlike in the center of the maelstrom, exuding predatory zing even when her prey (usually the underwhelming Hutchinson) doesn’t zing back. Paris, however, occasionally gives Siff worthwhile competition.

New Yorker C+
The tissue-thin, self-conscious plot feels like an excuse to have Paris and Hutchinson play multiple characters. The shenanigans are funny at first, but when they get old, the play feels empty. Zane Pihlstrom’s beautiful set brings together the sixteen-sixties and the nineteen-sixties, driving home the point that those eras had a certain relaxed morality in common.

Variety C
(Marilyn Stasio) While this cheeky pastiche artfully mimics the period style and playfully references the highlights of Behn's colorful career, its plot and dialogue lack the flashing wit and biting social commentary of high comedy of manners. Behn was no Congreve or Wycherley, but she was still a member of the club and deserves better than this overly mannered production of what is essentially a trivial sex farce...Once the dramatic situation has been set up, Adams more or less relinquishes any claim to intellectual content or stylistic wit. With Siff ("Mad Men") reduced to playing Behn's omnivorous sexual appetite, and Paris and Hutchinson hopping all over the stage in multiple comic roles, the play devolves into low farce...Helmer Wendy McClellan goes for the obvious, forcing the farcical elements and pushing the actors into mannered performances. Like Zane Pihlstrom's cartoonish set design, the frantic proceedings do engage the brain -- but only to give it a really bad headache.

New York Post A 13; Back Stage A 13; CurtainUp A 13; The New York Times A- 12; Theatermania A- 12; That Sounds Cool A- 12; Nytheatre.com B+ 11; TONY B 10; Show Showdown B 10; New Yorker C+ 8; Variety C 7; TOTAL: 121/11=11 (B+)

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Ragtime

GRADE: B+


Music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, book by Terrence McNally. Directed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge. Neil Simon Theatre.

The original Broadway production of Ragtime is still fresh in the mind of most critics, though not always favorably. Marcia Milgrom Dodge's stripped-down version is for some an improvement over the grandiose original production as it turns the focus to the characters. A common theme in the reviews is that Ragtime is more timely now than it was in 1998. Those who loved the Flaherty/Ahrens score still love it and those who didn't still complain of it's overuse of anthems. The cast receives mostly positive reviews, but can't erase the memory of their predecessors, especially in the case of Stephanie Umoh and Quentin Earl Darrington as Sarah and Coalhouse Walker, Jr., originally portrayed by Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell.

NY1 A+
(Roma Torre) Ror all its virtues, Ragtime is not an easy show to stage. It requires a delicate balance combining textbook history with an emotional depth that touches both our heads and hearts. To say that this company got it right is an understatement. This "Ragtime" is one for the ages.

Variety A+
(David Rooney) But despite its gifted cast and elaborate visual trappings, Frank Galati's original staging -- overseen with the bombast of a Barnum-esque showman by producer Garth Drabinsky -- somewhat smothered the characters' emotional journeys in spectacle. By stripping back the production frills yet retaining a grandeur appropriate to the sprawling story in Derek McLane's three-tiered, wrought-iron scaffold set, Dodge has made the focus more intimate, the sorrows more piercing and the joys more uplifting. But as much as the characters, it's the growing pains of a multicultural nation that become the production's pulsating center, swiftly communicated in a stunning opening tableau and in the exhilarating title number that follows... Some may quibble that Flaherty's score overplays its hand with its succession of emphatic anthems, but shuffled among those numbers are more delicate songs of introspection and yearning that bring the show gently back to earth from its many soaring peaks. Under Dodge's assured direction, the impeccable cast plays that balance like perfectly tuned instruments.

Bergen Record A+
(Robert Feldberg) Watching the vivid, stirring, lovingly staged revival of "Ragtime," I had the thought, "This time they got it right." When it debuted, with much ballyhoo, nearly 12 years ago, the musical based on E.L. Doctorow’s best-selling novel about America at the turn of the 20th century was stately and handsome, and had all the emotional immediacy of a museum exhibit. The revival, which opened Sunday at the Neil Simon Theatre, uncovers the compelling musical that had been hidden beneath the original’s massive sets and stilted presentation. Thanks to director-choreographer Marcia Milgrom Dodge, working with inspired designers and a superb cast, "Ragtime" can take its place as a major American musical.

Show Showdown A+
(Cameron Kelsall) The cast, from top to bottom, is perfection and quite often made me forget their predecessors (high praise indeed), but three individuals deserve special mention: Robert Petkoff, an ideal Tateh; Bobby Steggert, who manages to capture Younger Brother's idealism without making him seem overly quixotic; and Christiane Noll, whose brilliant Mother emerges as a rational, highly intelligent woman stifled by the society in which she lives. To watch her transformation from idyllic homemaker
to independent proto-feminist was nothing short of astonishing.

The Toronto Star A+
(Richard Ouzounian) Something else was working against this majestic show as well. We were all existing in a period of relative complacency, not needing or wanting to hear about how fragile the threads were that tied us all to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But oh, how the world has changed since that time. Just look at the following words that had no meaning for us then, but now can make us all shudder with terror: Columbine, 9/11, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Katrina ... the list goes on and on. No wonder some reviewers condemned the work back then for its anthemic qualities and derided it as sentimental and patriotic. Americans were more interested in pursuing Mr. Clinton's destiny following Lewinskygate than re-examining the overall nature of the world they had created a century before. That's why this Ragtime has such pertinence and punch. When Coalhouse Walker Jr. now threatens urban terrorism, we know what it means. When hooded fanatics with explosives lay siege to civic landmarks, it rings all too true.

Entertainment Weekly A
(Melissa Rose Bernardo) Santo Loquasto's stunningly detailed period costumes and accessories have been reinvented, with intricate layers of lace and pearlescent parasols for Mother, sequined come-and-get-it corsets and shimmery stockings for showgirl Nesbit. Apart from some small nips and tucks in the score, the only economizing is in the sets — or, rather, the set, singular. Derek McLane (33 Variations) has framed the entire stage in a series of exposed beams, tiers, and steps. Everything about this production is open (Coalhouse's piano is a mere shell, as is his prized Model T) so that all it takes is a chord progression and a lighting cue to shift from a nightclub to a factory. The set's tiers also signify class, dividing the immigrants from the African-Americans from the whites. (In the second act, note how Tateh and his daughter, he with a better-trimmed beard and she in a new dress, have risen to a higher level). Dodge's greatest strength as a director is keeping the actors moving, particularly in the glorious opening number, which hauls out practically every character in the proverbial melting pot: ''beggar and millionaire/everyone, everywhere/moving to the ragtime!'' (In fact, her staging is so superior that one is inclined to forgive her insipid assembly-line choreography.)

Newsroom New Jersey A
(Michael Sommers) The intricate libretto and score have been trimmed a trifle, but Flaherty's music is gloriously rendered by a 28-piece orchestra. Soaring anthems such as "The Wheels of a Dream" and the surging title number are unforgettable stuff and the musicians and vocalists do them justice. If this "Ragtime" does not match the visual opulence and the depth of talent boasted by the stunning original production, it comes darned close. Anyone who's never before seen "Ragtime" is likely to be blown away by the experience, while everybody else will thrill once more to the work's dramatic sweep and musical majesty.

TheaterMania A
(David Finkle) There's no point hammering away at the high quality of the ragtime-infused and heartfelt score (which has undergone only minor revisions since the show's original Broadway production) or harping on the fact that it has one too many plant-your-feet-on-the-stage-and-declaim anthems. Likewise, there's no point to singing the cast's praises at length, although they uniformly perform with fervor reflecting a nation struggling sometimes thrillingly, sometimes shabbily to attain equilibrium. Among the standouts are Darrington, who has the force of a steam-engine, Noll, who acutely embodies Mother's pre-feminist determination, and Umoh, Petkoff, and Bobby Steggert (as Mother's Younger Brother), who brim with joy and pain.

Backstage A
(David Sheward) In a season full of star vehicles, the revival of "Ragtime" rides onto Broadway with nary a box-office name and steamrollers its way to the top of the heap. Marcia Milgrom Dodge's stripped-down production, transferred from a hit engagement in Washington, D.C., imparts the musical's sweep of history and the intimate story of lives caught up in a ceaseless movement of events. The original 1996 production was a vast pageant on the enormous stage of the Ford Center (later renamed the Hilton Theatre). Now, in the relatively more intimate Neil Simon Theatre, Milgrom's staging focuses on the interactions of three families coping with rapid changes in the American landscape at the dawn of the 20th century. Though that first production remains fresh in my mind, this edition finds new spark and vibrancy.

The Hollywood Reporter A
(Frank Scheck) The revival, after a run at Washington's Kennedy Center, serves as a valuable reminder that this show, based on the classic E.L. Doctorow novel and featuring a gorgeous score by Stephen Flaherty (music) and Lynn Ahrens (lyrics), is one of the best musicals of recent decades. It has been reborn in a magnificently stirring production that deserves to run for years... Director-choreographer Marcia Milgrom Dodge's presentational-style staging, performed on a multilevel scaffold set, is far less lavish than the original version. But it works beautifully, balancing the epic with the intimate and keeping the uncommonly large 40-member company in full view of the audience for long stretches.

On Off Broadway A
(Matt Windman) While the size of the cast and orchestra still match the original production, this revival emphasizes character detail and clarity over spectacle. Its three-story unit set of iron scaffolding and gothic arches allows the story to move fluidly alongside an evocative lighting design. The cast is uniformly fantastic, marked by great performers offering sensitive acting and gorgeous singing. 23-year-old Stephanie Umoh is rather bland as Sarah, the role originated by Audra McDonald, but that hardly detracts from the show's overall emotional power.

The Daily News A-
(Joe Dziemianowicz) Same goes for Flaherty and Ahrens' stirring score. It has moments of true magic. But it has issues, too. There are so many anthems that it becomes a power-ballad pileup and a case of diminishing returns. A song like "What a Game!" — a bouncy baseball ditty featuring Bohmer and the crowd-pleasing Christopher Cox as his son — is a welcome change of pace. A song without ... that ... last ... big ... note. Petkoff and an outstanding Noll sing "Our Children," a simple tune I've never thought much of. Here, it has such nuance and understanding it's an unexpected highlight. In it, their characters have an awakening about themselves, each other and the future. For a show that sings that "you can never go back to before," it seems exactly right.

Bloomberg News A-
(John Simon) The original production had a combination of realistic and whimsical scenery by Eugene Lee. The revival has a spectacular three-tiered unit set that suggests the main pavilion of some World’s Fair on which the brilliant designer Derek McLane works minor changes for different locations that -- except for ships at sea and a baseball game -- work very nicely. Santo Loquasto, the original costume designer, again provides jaunty costumes and Donald Holder contributes versatile lighting including some fetching shadow play. Marcia Milgrom Dodge’s staging is generally effective, though her choreography is somewhat less inventive than Graciela Daniele’s back in 1998.

Show Showdown B+
(Wendy Caster) The minimalist design mostly works, but the car should be a car and the piano should be a piano. Marcia Milgrom Dodge keeps the show moving like Henry Ford's assembly line (which is mostly a good thing) and nails the opening number, which is as thrilling as it should be. The ensemble members work their butts off, playing so many roles and having so many costume changes that the friend I saw it with said the dressers should get a bow. On a whole, the somewhat uneven production has many more strengths than weaknesses, and the 30-person orchestra sounds wonderful. And the point really is the score, that glorious, glorious score.

The Village Voice B+
(Michael Feingold) Ragtime's shortcomings have been much debated since its disappointing initial run. What's less well remembered, which Marcia Milgrom Dodge's new production successfully arouses, is the sense it gives of being in that musical heaven where the artists do everything right. About half the Ahrens-Flaherty score comes into this category. Dodge's production—barer, starker, and smaller than Frank Galati's original—enhances the work's tautness by linking its criss-crossed stories more sharply, and pushing for heightened tensions in Terrence McNally's book, which, as a result, seems less mild-mannered than it did, less of a problem-solving task in adaptation and more of a drama. That approach has dangers attached. Push, and you sometimes get coarser results; tighten, and you put extra pressure on the weak links.

Associated Press B
(Michael Kuchwara) What made the original so enticing was not so much the lavishness of its setting but the impeccable casting that anchored the show and which made stars out of such performers as Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Marin Mazzie. In this revival, the actors are not quite as accomplished in creating credible portraits even though Dodge has given them more breathing space in which to come alive... What remains most memorable about "Ragtime" is its score: Stephen Flaherty's outpouring of melodies, tunes that encompass not only the sounds of the show's title but a whole range of musical expression from hymns to cakewalks to a bit of vaudeville razzle-dazzle. One song in particular, the haunting "New Music," neatly encompasses the ardent relationship between Coalhouse and Sarah and the unraveling of the bond between Mother and Father (an appropriately stuffy Ron Bohmer).

Washington Post B-
(Peter Marks) Like many out-of-town arrivals to Manhattan, Broadway's new production of "Ragtime" has to make do with tighter quarters. The stage of the Neil Simon Theatre, where this invigorating revival opened Sunday night, doesn't accommodate Derek McLane's multi-level set quite as majestically as did the Kennedy Center's slightly more expansive Eisenhower Theater, birthplace last spring of this warm rendering of a musical that has at times in the past felt mechanical. Some other forces of contraction have come into play in the move to New York, most lamentably in the absence of Manoel Felciano, who is not reprising his captivating turn as Jewish immigrant Tateh in the adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's beehive of a novel, set in the rapidly changing America of 1906. The loss of Jennlee Shallow as the doomed Sarah has also lowered the goose bump quotient by some noticeable degree. And yet in most important ways, director Marcia Milgrom Dodge's economical staging retains the infectiously melodious appeal of the version that worked to such stimulating effect in the Eisenhower.

USA Today B-
(Elysa Gardner) As a work of social commentary, Ragtime, introduced on Broadway in 1998, is hokey and pedantic, much like that other, plodding musical adaptation of historical fiction, Les Misèrables. Ragtime's unabashed sentimentality is more compelling, though, thanks to the relative wit and grace of its creators. The score, composed by Stephen Flaherty with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, is hardly A-list, but the songs are well-crafted and on occasion are genuinely soulful. And Terrence McNally's book tugs at your heart and conscience with such artful aggression that only an ogre could resist the urge to weep at some points and smile at others... Warmly acted and agreeably sung, this “Ragtime” travels light. And if it still sometimes feels like an animated history lesson, delivered by a liberal but square teacher a shade too eager to make the past come alive, the show now neither drags nor sags under its big themes.

The Faster Times B-
(Jonathan Mandell) It is a vertiginous mix, simultaneously dark and hopeful, violent and sweet, as punchy as an action comic and as grave as an opera. The musical’s book by Terrence McNally did, and does, the job you would expect from the playwright of such gems as “Master Class” in navigating around these varying tones and compressing the page for the stage. The lyrics by Lynn Ahrens are in turns clever and moving. The music by Stephen Flaherty is often tuneful. The musical, however, is called “Ragtime”, yet with the exception of the title song and a few others, the songs are not light and tinkly, neither playfully convoluted rags nor “Tea for Two”-type period pieces. They are not from the 1900’s but from the 1990’s, the era of the megamusical, heavy ballads and full-out anthems. If you have the CD or otherwise know the score already, and this music appeals to you, there is no reason to stay home; many reasons to go. The cast does it full justice, especially Christiane Noll as Mother.

Wall Street Journal B-
(Terry Teachout) Santo Loquasto's resplendent costumes will be a shoo-in at Tony time. The cast is quite good but not breathtakingly so, which is more or less what I'd say about the production as a whole—though those who know the show only from the overblown, overdesigned 1998 Broadway production may well find this revival to be revelatory. Me, I liked it just fine, and I wholeheartedly commend it to anyone who loves "Ragtime."

Time Out New York C+
(Adam Feldman) There is much to enjoy about it: Stephen Flaherty’s music, played by a rich-sounding orchestra, is often transporting, especially in the stirring opening number; Dodge’s crisp staging on Derek McLane’s elegantly skeletal set gives her actors—notably the compelling Christiane Noll as the conflicted Mother—a chance to stamp their roles with personality. But although the musical has been faulted for its distancing style (the characters often describe themselves in the third person), Ragtime falters most when it departs from that distance and snowballs into preachy anthems. When the audience applauds Mother’s Younger Brother (an aptly intense Bobby Steggert) for telling off the complacent industrialist Father (Ron Bohmer, in a dismissively written role), it seems to be clapping for its own liberal virtue.

The New York Times C+
(Ben Brantley) “Ragtime” benefits from this less-is-more approach, but only to a degree. The show is hardly one of Sondheimesque complexity. Terrence McNally’s script and Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens’s songs have a way of turning the shifting historical flux of Doctorow’s novel into carefully diagrammed flow charts. Characters who remain mysteries to themselves in the novel are here allowed moments of self-analysis and self-explanation that Dr. Phil might applaud. So to present a bare-bones “Ragtime” courts the danger of revealing how bare them bones are. Ms. Dodge doesn’t avoid this pitfall. But with a top-drawer design team that includes Derek McLane (set), Santo Loquasto (costumes) and Donald Holder (lighting), she makes it clear that “Ragtime” never needed all that decorative baggage to tell its stories of three families of different ethnic and economic strata.

Newsday C
(Linda Winer) "Ragtime" dwindles, as it has always dwindled, ever since its controversial premiere, so obsessively assembled and overproduced by impresario Garth Drabinsky (recently convicted in Canada of fraud and forgery). Precision craftsmanship in the first act turns bland and earnest, just when the stakes are highest. As the material gets tough, Terrence McNally's cleaned-up, de-sexed adaptation of Doctorow's heavily erotic, subtly political fiction goes into sincerity-overload, while composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens turn from canny period-pastiche to poperatic ballads and bloated anthems. It is then that the fine intentions of this astute production can no longer mask the limitations of the cast, which is more capable than individually remarkable. As an ensemble, especially in the haunting and syncopated choruses, the company works beautifully.

New York Post C-
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Derek McLane's towering three-tiered set evokes a steel beaux-arts cathedral, as if to say, "We're dealing with important stuff here." Along with two essential props (a Model T and a piano reduced to their skeletal frames), it also signals that the show intends to look at America's very bone structure. Don't expect an X-ray -- "Ragtime" is more about XXL bathos. Where Doctorow was dry and cerebral, bookwriter Terrence McNally seems to have never seen a heartstring he didn't want to pluck. This is compounded by Marcia Milgrom Dodge's staging. She has a great eye and comes up with many gorgeous, painterly compositions (greatly enhanced by Santo Loquasto's inventive costumes), but she also tends to soften the story's harsher aspects. Some of the best scenes are the lighter, most tender ones, especially when they involve Noll, wonderful as a suburban wife whose corset can't restrict her kindness.

Talkin' Broadway F
(Matthew Murray) This is not “the era exploding, the century spinning” that the lyrics promise, but static and makeshift people moving that doesn’t propel us into the stories of how Coalhouse finds and loses love and then enacts bloody revenge, how Mother frees herself from the psychological confines of her restrictive marriage, and how Tateh moves from poor artist to filthy-rich filmmaker. Without that initial forward motion, the show can do little but lurch for well over two and a half hours. Milgrom Dodge has tried to correct for this by slashing many scenes and songs to bits - I noticed significant internal cuts in at least nine numbers. But most of the sections she leaves intact aren’t much better... These changes all identify Milgrom Dodge’s attempts to wrangle the show down to manageable size. But all they do is sap the power and passion from a story that need them operating at full strength from beginning to end. Worse, she’s demanded the same of the performers, many of whom make no impression at all.

NY1 A+ 14; Variety A+ 14; The Bergen Record A+ 14; Show Showdown A+ 14; The Toronto Star A+ 14; EW A 13; Newsroom New Jersey A 13; TheaterMania A 13; Backstage A 13; The Hollywood Reporter A 13; On Off Broadway A 13; The Daily News A- 12; Bloomberg News A- 12; Show Showdown B+ 11; The Village Voice B+ 11; AP B 10; Washington Post B- 9; USA Today B- 9; The Faster Times B- 9; Wall Street Journal B- 9; TONY C+ 8; The New York Times C+ 8; Newsday C 7; New York Post C- 6; Talkin' Broadway F 1; TOTAL: 270/25 = 10.8 (B+)

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What Once We Felt

GRADE: C/C-


By Ann Marie Healy. Directed by Ken Rus Schmoll. The Duke on 42nd St. Through November 21.

Grades for Ann Marie Healy's tale about the publication of the last print novel set in an all-female future run from A to F-. Depending on who you ask, the play is either a scary warning effectively directed by Ken Rus Schmoll or a series of confusing plot points. John Simon's 0-star review is surprisingly inoffensive, though he incorrectly refers to the "Tradepack" characters as "Traypacks."

That Sounds Cool A
(Aaron Riccio) That’s why Macy—who has written a book about a woman who just happens to be a Tradepack—has such trouble getting published: who can understand, let alone “believe” in something as “complicated” as that? Except, it’s not complicated, and that’s what Healy communicates so well, using What One We Felt as a case-in-point, at least for those who are willing to listen. This dystopia is a warning: not everything can be reduced to cold logic and mathematical reason. This is shown best by Benita and Yarrow (Hawley and Parker), who, because of a computer bug, wound up with an “error” instead of the baby they’d carefully selected from online simulations. And yet, Benita falls for it completely: “Maybe we don’t [have choices],” she says. “Maybe we think we do but an Error / Is some amazing lesson / Some amazing possibility / For something / Unforeseen / Something / Beautifully / I don’t know.”

Associated Press A
(Jennifer Farrar) Healy's witty, double-edged dialogue is laced with publishing industry humor as well as oblique references to disintegrating societal humanity. Parallel plotlines show the desperation of Keepers and Tradepacks alike regarding the baby allocation, while Tradepacks seem to be rapidly disappearing in a government -sponsored process called "the Transition." Eerie sound design by Leah Gelpe and lighting by Japhy Weideman complement the elegant simplicity of Kris Stone's smoothly functional set.

Newsroom New Jersey A-
(Michael Sommers) Here's a classy blind date for you: How about risking a night with a playwright you don't know? Now in its second season, Lincoln Center Theater's LCT3 series presents smartly-staged premieres of new works by new writers. Tickets go for only $20. A theater is projected for LCT3's future but in the meantime, the series is being staged very nicely at the 200-seat Duke on 42nd Street. That's where a promising playwright, Ann Marie Healy, offers a scary glimpse into a dark near-future in "What Once We Felt." Healy's sci-fi vision is hazy but chilling. If her open-ended tale seems to ebb away rather than satisfy with a resolution, my taste for bolder punctuation here simply may be a guy thing.

Time Out New York A-
(David Cote) If you have any interest in sci-fi or speculative fiction, all this (in a play!) should tantalize you. Healy lines up a series of provocative concepts and sends them spinning in heightened, comic language. It’s true, What Once We Felt isn’t an entirely successful fusion of sci-fi and literary comedy; a subplot about a couple who aren’t sure if they’ve downloaded a Keeper or a Tradepack lacks emotional resonance. And a recurring narrator, the last surviving Tradepack from the future, feels slightly tacked on. However, Healy has two big assets: an unfettered imagination and a gift for cultivating ambiguity and menace.

Variety B-
(Sam Thielman) If you think print is dying now, wait 'till you get a load of Ann Marie Healy's "What Once We Felt," a new play about the trials of the World's Last Print Novelist as she struggles for artistic integrity against know-nothing publishers and politicizing editors. Healy's parallel universe doesn't hold together terribly well and depends heavily on concepts that are christened and fleshed out badly, so it's up to helmer Ken Rus Schmoll to supply coherence and highlight the all-pro cast's delivery of Healy's sparkling dialogue, which he does beautifully... Interestingly, Schmoll gives the production some great quirks that make the problems with inequality ring truer. Once, for example, when we shift scenes from a swanky dinner to a slum home, Schmoll and lighting designer Japhy Weideman dim the lights, but the diners go on eating in the dark, over the much poorer character's scene.

TheaterMania C-
(Barbara & Scott Siegel) One can readily understand the raw appeal of Ann Marie Healy's new play, What Once We Felt, now at The Duke on 42nd Street as part of Lincoln Center's LCT3 series. After all, her story is jam-packed with lots of eye-catching concepts, themes, and plots, and plays into our society's current interest in science-fiction. Unfortunately, there is so much happening that the play very quickly whirls out of control, and director Ken Rus Schmoll does very little to help keep it in focus.

The Village Voice D+
(Michael Feingold) As in her earlier work, produced by 13P last year, Healy shows promise and daring. Unhappily, she also shows glaring novice faults, like leaning too heavily on familiar models and grinding her dialogue into a rhythm-less, repetitive stasis, which Ken Rus Schmoll stages at a painfully plodding pace. A good cast works hard, but only Ellen Parker and Marsha Stephanie Blake manage, briefly, to get past the obstacles.

The New York Times D
(Charles Isherwood) It may seem tedious to dwell so insistently on the mechanics of Ms. Healy’s plot, but “What Once We Felt” really does not offer much else to dwell on. Macy’s book is described as a work of “biting satire and dystopian leanings,” a blurb that could as easily be used to plug Ms. Healy’s play, which aims for the kind of territory covered more cogently by the British playwright Caryl Churchill in “Far Away” and “A Number.” But Ms. Healy spends so much time setting out the parameters of her particular dystopia that incidental matters like the creation of substantial characters, a consistent story and a philosophical argument get lost in the ominous murk.

On Off Broadway D-
(Matt Windman) Healy deserves credit for building an unusual premise with an ambitious amount of storytelling, but the play itself falls under its heavy weight and fails to recover. It would certainly help if audience members had a glossary that explained the Healy's vocabulary. Ken Rus Schmoll's shadowy, intimate production feels too slow and stale to make this alternative world feel threatening instead of just bizarre. The cast works hard to imbue their characters with emotion and urgency, but they often seem at sea and at odds with each other.

Backstage F
(Adam R. Perlman) Healy's only bit of creativity is her recombination of recycled semiotics, but this just turns out to be subtraction by addition. The allegory here is blunted with ponderous babble meant to pass for profundity. All of Healy's themes—genocide, worker oppression, eugenics, media manipulation—have been worked over by sci-fi writers for decades. At this point, they've been worked over by the mainstream media too. Rarely has a vision of the future been quite so dated. I have no doubt that what once we felt by the mere invocation of these themes was some sort of awe, but eliciting such feelings today requires wit, humanity, and at least a flash of insight.

The New Yorker F
(Unsigned) The audience is left to guess how things got to be the way they are, the effect of which is more frustrating than tantalizing, which seems to be Healy’s (misguided) aim. Her own fascination with language eclipses the drama, and the shaky cast, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll, seems more concerned with the delivery of jokes than with putting across the story.

Talkin' Broadway F-
(Matthew Murray) The idea is a simple and fantastic one that comes closer to reality every day. Somewhere in the misty, digital-overrun future, a youngish author named Macy O. Blonsky (Mia Barron) has written what will be the last novel ever published in print. Your mind is soaring, right? You're picturing Macy fretting endlessly about the historic responsibility she must shoulder, stirring scenes and speeches about the old ways dying forever, the overriding sense that tomorrow has finally arrived - for better or worse. You may wonder how such a story could not be about the people who create and are affected by art. That, alas, is not even close to what Healy has written. Instead, she's made everything and everyone a symbol, given them all oh-so-cute names, and flooded the proceedings with such suffocating ambiguity that she's never able to convince you even for a second that she's aware - or interested in - what it all specifically means.

Bloomberg News F-
(John Simon) The play is written in free verse full of maniacal repetitions, presumably deemed poetic by the author. Further innovation has characters gesticulating in lieu of countless spoken lines. So the text reads, “You don’t seem fully,” followed by a vague gesture connoting “with it,” or “Considering the fact that,” followed by a vague gesture that is supposed to indicate “it’s all right in front of me.” Pity the poor actors trying to create movements for such things, with little help from the director, Ken Rus Schmoll. Even the best actors could do little for this overlong, underwhelming play. The ones we get are rather far from the best, three of them further burdened by having to play multiple roles. As Macy, Mia Barron is distinguished mostly by charmlessness. Ellen Parker does manage to make something of Astrid, Macy’s overbearing agent, in one of her two parts.

That Sounds Cool A 13; AP A 13; Newsroom New Jersey A- 12; TONY A- 12; Variety B- 9; TheaterMania C- 6; The Village Voice D+ 5; The New York Times D 4; On Off Broadway D- 3; Backstage F 1; The New Yorker F 1; Talkin' Broadway F- 0; Bloomberg News F- 0; TOTAL: 79/13 = 6.08 (C-)

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