BROADWAY & ME QUICKIES

The Play: Welcome to the Big Dipper;  Amish farmers,  drag queens,  descendants of an Underground Railroad conductor and the spirits of the Mexican painter Frieda Kahlo and Annie Edson Taylor, the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel, make for too-unbelievably strange bedfellows in this lackluster musical  set in an inn during a blizzard   Music & Lyrics by: Jimmy Roberts    Book by: Catherine Filloux & John Daggett    Directed by: DeMone Seraphin One good thing: The simple set of doors on rolling casters and the subtle video projections of snow falling against a night sky are elegant reminders of how much a production can do on a limited budget One not-so-great thing: Robert Cuccioli, still in great voice two decades after starring in Jekkyl & Hyde, deserves a better showcase than this one    

The Play: Strategic Love Play, a slightly awkward play about an awkward first date between two insecure people Written by: Miriam Battye        Directed by: Katie Posner One good thing: This is an Audible production so you’ll soon be able to listen to this two-hander in the comfy confines of your own home One not-so-great thing: Both Michael Zegen and Heléne York commit wholly to their characters but those characters, particularly hers, are somewhat annoying, as is the play’s ending    

The Play: The Light and the Dark (The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi); a paint-by-the-numbers version of this gifted 17th century painter’s struggles to be recognized as an artist at a time when, regardless of their talent, very few women were accepted as professional painters Written by: Kate Hamill        Directed by: Jade King Carroll One good thing:  As the dozens of books that have been published about her attest, Gentileschi is a fascinating subject One not-so-great thing:  Hamill, who also stars as the artist, is clearly incensed by how Artemisia was treated, particularly by the men in her life, but she channels that anger into long harangues that unfortunately come off more as pedantic Ted Talks than affective drama, shedding very little new light on this feminist icon    

The Play: The Blood Quilt; four very different sisters gather after their mother’s recent death at their family home on a Georgia sea island to continue the ritual of making quilts to memorialize their family’s history in this drama that attempts to cover too much, from the complicated relationships among the siblings— and with their mother — to such outside issues as gentrification and the legacy of slavery Written by: Katori Hall         Directed by: Lileana Blain-Cruz One good thing: The actors are all good but first among equals is Crystal Dickinson who brings not only gravitas to the role of the eldest sister who stayed behind to care for their mother in her final days but a good Geechee accent too; still the true standouts are the dozens of beautiful handmade quilts loaned to the production by the Brooklyn Quilters Guild One not-so-great thing: Blain-Cruz’s has added directorial gestures that are supposed to be culturally appropriate but come off as t...

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 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