BROADWAY & ME QUICKIES

The Play: Archduke; a darkly comedic take on the events leading up to the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose death helped set off World War I Written by: Rajiv Joseph        Directed by: Darko Tresnjak One good thing: Patrick Page is having a grand time as the blowhard mastermind behind the plot and set designer Alexander Dodge has constructed a massive revolving turntable that delights in revealing one set location after another One not-so-great thing: The history is shaky, the jokes are silly and the show seems to be striving to say something about how young men, especially those poor or jobless, can be so easily radicalized into violent acts but the way it delivers that message is too muddled to have the effect it desires     

The Play: Little Bear Ridge Road; a stymied gay writer returning to his rural Idaho hometown after his opioid-addicted father’s death finds himself sheltering during the Covid quarantine with his estranged and reclusive aunt in this quietly affecting meditation on loneliness, the obligations of family, the privileges of class and the power of forgiveness Written by: Samuel D. Hunter        Directed by: Joe Mantello One good thing: Hunter tailored the role of the flinty aunt for Laurie Metcalf and she’s unsurprisingly terrific in it but equally superb is Micah Stock, whose performance as the emotionally-stunted nephew makes good on the promise that won him a newcomer's Theater World Award in 2015 for standing out in a cast that included such scene stealers as  F. Murray Abraham, Matthew Broderick, Stockard Channing, Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally One not-so-great thing: I've spent days thinking about what to say here but I’m pretty much all in on this one, I wa...

The Play: Queens; a timely drama about undocumented immigrant women sharing a shabby outer-borough basement apartment and caught between the lives they left behind and the challenges they face as they try to survive in America  Written by: Martyna Majok        Directed by: Trip Cullman One good thing: This much-debated political issue is recast as an intensely personal one One not-so-great thing: The playwright has worked on this play for nearly a decade, including a longer production at LCT3 in 2018, but she may have overworked it: the narrative now attempts to focus on the journey of one of the women but Majok, who herself immigrated to this country as a child, is reluctant to push the others into the background, resulting in some undernourished stories, some unnecessary ones and, ultimately, an unsatisfying whole     

The Play: Richard II; the Red Bull Theater company’s reimagining of Shakespeare’s history play about the monarch whose narcissism lead to his downfall and set off the 32-year War of the Roses for control of the British throne Written by: William Shakespeare        Adapted and directed by: Craig Baldwin One good thing: Michael Urie, long celebrated for his comedic performances, shows that he has the dramatic chops and the classical technique to shine in the demanding title role One not-so-great thing: The decision to set this production in the bathhouse culture of the 1980s is confusing where a more traditional approach—even with the gay undertones this one favors—might have been more effective for one of the Bard's less familiar plays that is so rarely done       

The Play: Reunions; a slight musical adaptation of two separate one act-plays set in the 19th century and centered around former lovers encountering one another years after their failed romances Book & lyrics by: Jeffrey Scharf          Directed by: Jimmy Calire One good thing: Chip Zien and Joanna Glushak are entertaining as two crotchety old people who pretend not to remember one another when they’re forced to share a park bench One not-so-great thing: While there’s nothing really wrong with this show, there’s nothing that makes it special either    

The Play: Bat Boy; a fully-staged version of the horror comedy inspired by the old supermarket tabloid headlines about the discovery of a boy who is half human and half bat that is both a morality tale about how society treats outsiders and a loving send-up of musical tropes from the montage-like transformation of a waif (the intentional shout-out here is to My Fair Lady’s “Rain in Spain”) to the rousing gospel number sung by a heavyset black person (this show has two of those)   Story & book by: Keythe Farley & Brian Flemming    Music & lyrics by: Laurence O’Keefe      Directed by: Alex Timbers One good thing: Encores! always puts together a top-shelf cast and this one is packed with scene stealers—Andrew Durand, Jacob-Ming Trent, Alex Newell, Christopher Sieber, Marissa Jaret Winokur and Kerry Butler who appeared as the ingenue in the original 1997 production and is now back in a terrific turn in the vital role of that character’s mom...