theater reviews: Last News

Patti LuPone. Not too shabby.Joining their esteemed ranks, McDonald undeniably makes Rose her own, as her predecessors all did, with a thoughtful portrayal. In demeanor, her Mama is unusually soft and vulnerable, with eyes that well up long before the climactic finale, “Rose’s Turn.” She’s less aggressive or mean than she is frantic, speaking lightning-fast in an almost mutter while buzzing about the stage, cajoling to get her daughters ahead.

he allows himself to.Clooney the writer has not been so generous to Clooney the actor. The part is milquetoast, like a sanded-down version of Atticus Finch who speaks with the repetitive calm of a hypnotist.He’s even-keeled and professional to a fault, as if gunning for sainthood.

oh-so-dull “Othello” a block away, the draw is its formidable celebrity cast. The wrinkled suits of these foul-mouthed cheats and backstabbers are worn, this time around, by Oscar winner Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr and Michael McKean.That’s not stunt casting.

Hamilton”-like rap, “Six”-style dance pop and “Billy Elliot”-evoking anthems with broad physical comedy and throws it all onto a hamster wheel.I found the story absorbing; the yuks, abusive.The little-known, weird-but-true tale, which was recently made into a serious film of the same name starring Colin Firth, is itself appealingly warped. Set in 1943, it’s about a real intelligence operation during the Second World War in which the British tricked the Nazis into abandoning Sicily by planting false plans on a corpse disguised as an officer. Such a premise wouldn’t immediately scream “musical!”, but here’s a techno dance number called “Das Übermensch” performed by dancing Nazis.

Two hours and 10 minutes, with one intermission. At the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 W 45th St.“Buena Vista Social Club,” the new musical that opened Wednesday night at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, is practically a jumbo jet to Havana.So transportive are the intoxicating Cuban music and spirited dance that it’s easy to forgive the show’s rather wispy and cliched book.

Appropriate,” which snagged last year’s Tony Award for Best Play and “Purpose,” which opened Monday night at the Hayes Theater.His latest firecracker is unstoppably fierce, funny — and ruthless.I howled all the way through Jacobs-Jenkins’ clever and venomous spin on the story: This particular bombshell-littered house belongs to the Jaspers, a powerful black political dynasty whose controversies and scandals come down faster than the blizzard outside their window.If your family is anything like them, I’d recommend emancipation.The salt-and-pepper-haired dad, Solomon (Harry Lennix), is obviously modeled on Jesse Jackson. He does not orate from behind a podium, though, but fumes behind closed doors.This imposing patriarch is also a famous minister and was an activist alongside Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement.

“Othello” opens next Sunday on Broadway. But The Post has decided to review the show a week early after the production rescinded critic Johnny Oleksinski’s ticket because he wrote a column blasting their $921 prices. That’s OK. We bought our own.Two hours and 35 minutes, with one intermission.

Gladiator II” star Paul Mescal onstage in Brooklyn. And, as brutish Stanley Kowalski, the part made famous by an early-career Marlon Brando, the 29-year-old Irishman does not disappoint. Mescal is a human wrecking ball as he snarls and barrels around the boxing-ring stage like it’s a sweaty tribal ritual.But while the crowd has come for Paul, at the end of Tennessee Williams’ classic play, which opened Tuesday night at BAM, they leave raving about Patsy.That’s Patsy Ferran, the unbelievable 35-year-old British actress who’s been lavished with acclaim in London for years, but is not yet well known stateside.

The title character of “Redwood,” the musical that opened Thursday night at the Nederlander Theatre, is a humongous northern California tree. One hour and 50 minutes, with no intermission. At the Nederlander Theatre, 208 West 41st St.Onstage, the centuries-old conifer enters dramatically like a wooden grande dame and towers over the five actors.

One hour and 30 minutes with no intermission. At the Hudson Theatre, 141 West 44th Street.

That’s all? I wish.“The Devil Wears Prada,” Elton John’s horrid musical that crashed and burned two years ago in Chicago, is giving it a second go in London. But you know the old phrase: If at first you don’t succeed… don’t succeed again!The totally new production at the Dominion Theatre, directed by Jerry Mitchell of “Kinky Boots,” is at least an improvement from the train wreck I saw in 2022. Now it’s more of a fender bender.Still, the clumsy couture of “Prada,” which has wholly misguided Broadway aspirations, should steer clear of New York.

dreadful new Broadway musical about 1970s and ‘80s televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker posted its closing notice Tuesday — just five days after it opened at the Palace Theatre.“Tammy Faye” was reportedly capitalized at $25 million, and will lose every penny.When the show shutters Dec. 8, it will have played 24 previews and a scant 29 regular performances.

90 minutes, with no intermission. At the Longacre Theatre, 220 W. 48th Street.Something I won’t be saying on my death bed: “I wish I would’ve watched more shows about boats.”Yet another crew of singing seafarers sets off in the Avett Brothers’ uneven “Swept Away,” which opened Tuesday night at the Longacre Theatre.

mixed reviews, but it eventually caught on with tourists.Then, in 2006, came the singing vampires of “Lestat” (uh-oh!), based on Anne Rice’s novels. Critics were out for blood, and wary audiences didn’t bite.And on Thursday, the Rocket Man’s latest show, “Tammy Faye,” took its opening night bows, once again, at the Palace. Unfortunately for Sir Elton, the god-awful musical about flamboyant 1980s televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker (later Messner) is a lot more of a “Lestat” than an “Aida.”Sheesh, the glories of his “Billy Elliot” seem so long ago, Billy probably goes by William now.“Tammy Faye,” which I also found lacking when it premiered in 2022 at the tiny Almeida Theatre in London, vanishes in a much bigger Broadway house.

At the Belasco Theatre, 111 W. 44th St.The sublime start of “Maybe Happy Ending” is the closest I have ever come to experiencing a Pixar movie on Broadway.Oliver, a lonely robot played by Darren Criss, goes through his usual daily routine — over and over and over again.

wife story that fails to capture Armstrong, the artist. The “Hello, Dolly!” singer, who died in 1971, indeed married four times and was a cheating jerk to that quartet of women.His turbulent relationships with them as his fame skyrockets — from second trumpet in King Joe Oliver’s (Gavin Gregory) jazz band to Hollywood icon — punctuate “A Wonderful World.” That’s personally messy, yes, but it’s a theatrically tricky choice by book writer Aurin Squire to center a musical filled with many, many (did I say many?) upbeat tunes around spousal quarrels and infidelity.The show’s best numbers actually belong to the actresses who play the wives, each one fabulous.Think of it like “Nine” or “Six” — but “Four.”Armstrong’s ladies are Daisy Parker (Dionne Figgins), a “switchblade hooker”; practical piano player and manager Lil Hardin (Jennie Harney-Fleming); fan Alpha Smith (Kim Exum); and Cotton Club singer Lucille Wilson (Darlesia Cearcy), who finally holds him accountable for his zipper.Their personalities are as distinctive as their knockout voices.

& Juliet” has been running for two years. And on Thursday night, seven blocks away at Circle in the Square Theatre opened its companion piece — “Romeo &.”OK, director Sam Gold’s, nntz-nntz, party-hardy production of William Shakespeare’s tragedy is actually called “Romeo + Juliet,” swiping the youthful “+” from Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.

There is no doubt as to what the new play “Left on Tenth,” which opened at the James Earl Jones Theatre Wednesday night, wants to be: A romantic, funny and harrowing tale of a woman’s rebirth.One hour and 40 minutes, with no intermission. At the James Earl Jones Theatre, 130 West 48th Street.Yet, after seeing Delia Ephron’s Broadway show starring Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher, different descriptors jump to mind: Sappy, sluggish and awkward.That Ephron, who co-wrote rom-coms such as “You’ve Got Mail” and “Hanging Up” with her late sister Nora, based this cliche-ridden slog on the dramatic highs and lows of her own life adds another layer of discomfort.I felt bad — awful, really — that I disliked the dramedy about this real person’s heartbreak, illness and eventual triumph as much as I did. But the mangled tone, laughless jokes and emotional fakery are impossible to look beyond.The charisma of the two leads can’t save cardboard dialogue.

Jamie Lloyd’s startling production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical from beginning to end, you’d swear it was brand new.And adrenaline pumps through our bloodstream anytime the extraordinary Nicole Scherzinger, making her wondrous Broadway debut, wails a note.She’s otherworldly as that reclusive has-been Norma. A revelation.

the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, an easy trip for New Yorkers.And before this year, one would have had to search far and wide to find “Something Rotten” on any theater lover’s list of favorites.Talk about “all’s well that ends well” — the show of Shakespearean shenanigans has a sitcom’s supply of belly laughs. Really, it’s a north-of-the-border reinvention.What the Broadway musical needed, it turns out, was to schlep 500 miles away from 42nd Street to a 71-year-old festival that made its reputation with stagings of the Bard’s plays.Since the mid-aughts, Stratford’s musicals, earthier than ours, have gotten better and better.

radical feminist opera that controversially sickened 18 audience members over its sex scenes and depictions of sadism is speaking out.Annina Machaz plays a thoroughly unconventional version of Jesus in “Sancta Susanna,” which was shelved due to public outrage back in 1921.Now, more than 100 years later, composer Paul Hindemith’s controversial creation is being performed in Stuttgart, Germany for the first time.In the shocking modernized version, Machaz plays Jesus as a homeless drug addict. She also performs in a secondary role as a naked Adam.