BROADWAY & ME QUICKIES

The Play: Making a Show of Myself; a surprisingly moving one-woman show about the importance of the stories we tell one another, and ourselves  Written by: Mary Kate O Flanagan        Directed by: Will O’Connell One good thing:  The Irish-born Flanagan delivers each of the six beautifully crafted monologues about her life in an unusually soothing and totally captivating voice  One not-so-great thing: There’s no set, no costume changes and no major traumas revealed, which may disappoint theatergoers who require heavy helpings of razzle-dazzle     

The Play: Blackout Songs, an Olivier-nominated two-hander about the destructive relationship between a pair of co-dependent alcoholics Written by: Joe White        Directed by: Rory McGregor One good thing: Abbey Lee and Owen Teague give the kind of intense and sexy performances that are sure to be catnip for generations of drama school students eager to show off their own acting chops One not-so-great thing: The play’s elliptical structure successfully mimics the hazy memories that people who drink to the point of blacking out often have but it also left me unsatisfactorily confused about what had and hadn’t actually happened    

The Play: The Disappear; a self-important misfire about the costs of being an artist in which Hamish Linklater plays a narcissistic filmmaker and Miriam Silverman his long-suffering wife who also happens to be a bestselling novelist Written and directed by: Erica Schmidt         One good thing: Brett J. Banakis’ set nicely splits the difference between the kind of early 20th century dacha that would have been the perfect setting for the kind of Chekov play this one so clearly wants to be and the kind of boho chic retreat that so many theatergoers would totally love to own One not-so-great thing: Maybe another director would have been able to get all the actors—a really talented bunch but here grossly underserved—on the same page, or at the very least wouldn’t have staged the final climactic scene so far upstage that most of the audience couldn’t see it, including me who was fortunate enough to have a great press seat    

The Play: An Ark; ; a mixed-reality piece in which viewers strap on high-tech goggles to watch the holograms of four actors—including Ian McKellen and Golda Rosheuvel, the imperious Queen Charlotte in Netflix’s “Bridgerton” series—appear in a 47-minute performance in which they recount an everyman’s life from birth to afterlife   Written by: Simon Stephens        Directed by: Sarah Frankcom       Produced by: Todd Eckert One good thing: It’s cool to watch the holograms and almost impossible not to smile as they seem to make eye contact and reach right out to you One not-so-great thing: It’s scary to watch the holograms and think that this simulacrum of live performances is where theater might be heading    

The Play: Anna Christie, Michelle Williams stars in a soggy revival of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winner about the uneasy triangle that forms between a bibulous barge captain, his grown daughter who has spent hard years fending for herself after he abandoned her as a child and the seaman who falls for her before knowing her past.   Written by: Eugene O’Neill               Directed by: Thomas Kail One good thing: Even wearing a thick beard and wielding an even thicker Swedish accent, Brian D’Arcy James manages to convey the vulnerability that underlies the father’s remorse and desperation to shield his daughter from future pain One not-so-great thing:   In its efforts to differentiate this production from past stagings this one gets bogged down with stylized choreography that has unnecessary supernumeraries rearranging the set between scenes, costumes that sometimes seem more like discards from "The Matrix” rather than what early 20...

The Play: Tartuffe; the second version this fall—this one a post-modern adaptation—of the 17th century satirical farce about a hypocritical holy man who tries to dupe a wealthy family out of its fortune   Written by: Moliere    Adapted by: Lucas Hnath        Directed by: Sarah Benson One good thing: Tapping into the contact list of great comic actors she assembled during her nearly two decades heading up Soho Rep, Benson has put together a cast of downtown faves—Lisa Kron, Emily Davis, Francis Jue,  Ryan J. Haddad,  Amber Gray —who all look to be having great fun swishing around in Enver Chakartash’s over-the-top costumes and performing Raja Feather Kelly’s intentionally fey choreography. Even Matthew Broderick—simply dressed in Pilgrim drag and giving his usual deadpan performance—seems to be having a good time as the titular scoundrel One not-so-great thing:   The revised script: too many of its rhyming couplets are predictab...