BROADWAY & ME QUICKIES

The Play: Swept Away; four shipwrecked seamen are faced with a terrible choice about how to save themselves in this dark and sober musical about sacrifice and redemption Music and Lyrics by: The Avett Brothers     Book by: John Logan     Directed by: Michael Mayer One good thing: John Gallagher Jr. as a gruff veteran mate and Stark Sands as an unwilling but sensitive recruit are both fine but the show’s real star is Rachel Hauck’s set, which beautifully creates a 19th century whaling ship during the first half of this 90-minute show and then, assisted by Kevin Adams’ muscular lighting and John Shivers’ visceral soundscape, transforms during the shipwreck One not-so-great thing:  The Avett Brothers’ folk rock songs, taken from one of their earlier albums about a real similar shipwreck, are pretty and fit the story but they sound so much the same that the score became a sonic blur for me        

  The Play : King Lear; a fast-paced version of the classic tragedy about a monarch whose reckless decision to prematurely divide his kingdom among his daughters leads to the disintegration of his family and his own descent into madness, starring Kenneth Branagh and a group of recent graduates from London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts Written by: William Shakespeare        Directed by: Rob Ashford, Kenneth Branagh and Lucy Skillbeck One good thing: Branagh, who trained at RADA and served as its president from 2014 until stepping down earlier this year, makes only a so-so Lear but gets good mentor points for giving so many young actors the chance to appear in such a high-profile production, and a few of them—including Doug Colling as the virtuous nobleman Edgar and Saffron Coomber, giving off the vibes of a young Zoë  Wanamaker in her feisty portrayal of Lear's middle daughter Regan—show true promise One not-so-great thing:   Aggressively trimming the text so that the running t

  The Play: Hold On To Me Darling; a narcissistic country music superstar tries to return to his humble hometown roots in this comedic takedown of celebrity culture Written by:  Kenneth Lonergan        Directed by: Neil Pepe One good thing: The whole cast is terrific but movie star Adam Driver gets extra credit for taking on such a big role in such a small off-Broadway venue and delivering such a deadpan funny performance, even though it lacks some of the subtler nuances that Timothy Olyphant brought to the part during an almost identical production at the Atlantic in 2016 One not-so-great thing: The play doesn’t really need 2 hours and 45 minutes to make its point that stars can be self-involved and emotionally needy    

The Play: Ragtime; an Encores! concert version of the 1996 musical based on E.L. Doctorow’s award-winning novel about three families—upper-class WASPs, Jewish immigrants and striving African Americans—struggling to realize the American Dream at the turn of the last century  Score by: Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens      Book by: Terrence McNally       Directed by: Lear DeBessonet Two good things: Both Joshua Henry as the proud Black musician Coalhouse Walker and Brandon Uranowitz as the ambitious Jewish artist Tateh are terrific in roles that each has long dreamed of playing One not-so-great thing:  Doctorow’s original mixture of fact and fiction included such real-life figures as automaker Henry Ford, socialist activist Emma Goldman, magician Harry Houdini and educator Booker T. Washington but their connections to the story and its main themes gets a little lost in this production