BROADWAY & ME QUICKIES

The Play: The Seat of Our Pants; a musical version of  Thornton Wilder’s “The Skin of Our Teeth” that heightens the absurdism and meta-theatricality of the 1943 Pulitzer winner, whose allegorical narrative about a family surviving calamities ranging from the Ice Age right up to the present time is frequently interrupted by direct addresses to the audience and the actions of a fictional stage manager who tries to get the actors to behave Adaptation, Music and Lyrics by:   Ethan Lipton           Directed by: Leigh Silverman One good thing: Lipton’s score is filled with tunes that are jaunty and occasionally moving and Silverman has assembled an all-star cast that is stacked with folks—Damon Daunno, Micaela Diamond, Andry Grotelueschen, Shuler Hensley and Ruthie Ann Miles—who know how to put on a good show; plus there are puppets One not-so-great thing: The production is performed runway style, which not only means that one side of the audience is ...

The Play: Initiative; a somewhat self-indulgent five-hour character study of a group of millennial outsiders in a small California town at the turn of the century Written by: Else Went        Directed by: Emma Rose Went One good thing: The individual characters are interesting and their struggles with gender identity, absent or opioid-addicted parents and the advent of online social interactions are clearly designed to speak to theatergoers who grew up during those years—and to those still wrestling with memories of troubled adolescences in earlier times One not-so-great thing: The long segments devoted to re-enacting sessions of Dungeons & Dragons might have been more meaningful if they’d been shorter and less opaque for those not familiar with that fantasy role playing game    

The Play: Weer; a one woman show in which Natalie Palamides, wearing a costume that on one-side has her dressed as a plaid-shirted, scraggly-bearded bro and on the other as a down-market Carrie Bradshaw wannabe, plays both the male and female roles in a fractious on-and-off relationship Written by: Natalie Palamides        Directed by: Natalie Palamides         One good thing: You have to admire the plain physical energy that’s required for Palamides to throws herself around the stage in a literal do-any-thing-for-a-laugh performance that lasts what must be an exhausting 90-minutes  One not-so-great thing: This is a bit too silly and all-over-the-place to be my kind of humor but the show is clearly aimed at Millennials and Gen Zers, and the ones at the performance I attended seemed to be having a great time    

The Play: Gruesome Playground Injuries; a satisfying revival of the 2009 two-hander about the relationship between childhood friends who over three decades inflict physical harm on themselves and emotional wounds on one another Written by: Rajiv Joseph        Directed by: Neil Pepe One good thing: I’d admired the 2011 Second Stage production with Pablo Schreiber and Jennifer Carpenter but Nicholas Braun (cousin Greg from the HBO series “Succession”) and two-time Tony winner Kara Young find new depths in these damaged souls who are desperate to connect but can’t seem to find a way to save themselves or each other One not-so-great thing: Despite the projections at the start of each scene and the fact that the script instructs the actors to change into decade-appropriate costumes in front of the audience, the out-of-sequence time jumps can be confusing    

The Play: Meet the Cartozians; based in part on a real Supreme Court decision, this two-act dramedy about the struggles of Armenian-Americans to balance the burdens and privileges of racial identity in this country during the early years of the 20th century and now in this one is both thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable Written by: Talene Monahon        Directed by: David Cromer One good thing: Under Cromer’s customarily adroit direction, each cast member—Raffi Barsoumian, Will Brill, Nael Nacer, Susan Pourfar, Tamara Sevunts and the always crowd-pleasing Andrea Martin—aces the challenge of playing utterly different characters in the two time periods One not-so-great thing: The show’s a bit too long but I’m going to give it a pass on that since it manages to make its inarguably relevant points without being too didactic about it