BROADWAY & ME QUICKIES

The Play: Dakar 2000; a cat-and-mouse game between an eager young Peace Corp volunteer and an experienced intelligence officer on an anti-terrorism mission who meet in the Senegalese capital as the world anxiously awaits the predicted technological havoc of Y2K Written by: Rajiv Joseph        Directed by: May Andrales One good thing: Tim Mackabee’s revolving set cleverly moves the action from a nondescript embassy office to a local bar, to a couple of hotel bedrooms, all the while subtlety underscoring how things are spinning out of control One not-so-great thing:   The story includes so many twists, turns, red herrings, unreliable narrators and plain old implausibilities that it’s hard to keep track of what’s going on— or of the play's more serious messages     

The Play: Grangeville; two very different half-brothers raised by a neglectful and now dying mother try to deal with the lingering trauma of their shared childhood Written by: Samuel D. Hunter        Directed by: Jack Serio One good thing: Paul Sparks who was called in to replace Brendan Fraser early in rehearsals gives a sensitive and layered performance as the more tradition-bound older brother, proving once again how lucky we theatergoers are that he keeps returning to the stage One not-so-great thing: The staging, particularly in the first half when the brothers are supposed to be in different countries, lacks imagination    

  The Play:  Redwood, a new musical that strains to weave together a mother’s grief over the death of her son, a cautionary tale about ecology and a mystical reverence for the majesty of the titular tree Music by:  Kate Diaz      Lyrics by:  Kate Diaz and Tina Landau       Book by:  Tina Landau, with additional contributions by Idina Menzel    Directed by:  Tina Landau One good thing:  The giant tree that scenic designer Jason Ardizzone-West has created is impressive and the surrounding forest that Hana S. Kim's video projections conjure are incredibly immersive but I’m giving props to Idina Menzel for putting her star-power behind a wholly original musical, for once again belting out high notes while dangling high up in the air, and for conveying something of the soul-rattling emotions of the grieving process (I saw several men wiping away tears at my performance)   One not-so-great thing:...

The Play: My First Ex-Husband; a Vagina Monologues-style evening in which a rotating cast of actresses read stories supposedly drawn from conversations with real women that riff on a common theme: in this case, the reasons women divorce their hapless and otherwise inadequate male spouses  Written by: Joy Behar        Directed by: Randal Myler One good thing: The opening cast—Susie Essman, Tovah Feldshuh, Adrienne C. Moore and Behar herself—are all pros who know how to charm an audience—particularly an audience of women of a certain age One not-so-great thing: Each of the eight stories they tell is far too long and not nearly as witty nor insightful as they should be, making the actors work harder than they should to put them across