When the show's creators zero in on those feelings, something a lot more specific and wistful than a love story between two strangers, the piece comes alive. If only it stayed there. The pos…
What elevates the show from an assembly-line rom-com is the way Barne and Buchan balance the genre's baked-in cliches with sharp left turns and nuanced commentary about life experience and p…
"Two Strangers" is funny in places, occasionally moving in others, and just a little off-feeling throughout, as if it is trying too hard to charm across the storytelling and whimsy chasms it…
Tutty is an absolute star in the role, displaying boisterous enthusiasm as well as a tender naivete that hints at the inevitable act two disappointment to come. The actor's flawless comedic …
Two Strangers could have sunk into treacly territory, but it stays afloat on a banter-filled book and twinkling contemporary score by Jim Barne and Kit Buchan. While the lyrics aren't ground…
This fall, see powerhouse trio Tony Award® winner Aaron Tveit (Moulin Rouge!), acclaimed stage and screen star Lea Michele (Funny Girl, Glee), and breakout talent Nicholas Christopher (Sw…
Parts of the show are absolutely thrilling and parts are flat at best, aggressively dumb at worst. At least Mayer's production, starring Nicholas Christopher, Lea Michele and Aaron Tveit, is…
In its sweeping musical moments, it's easy to see why "Chess" has diehard fans. However, there's so much else that brings everything down: clunky plotting, nonsensical character motivations,…
Chess has always been a great score in search of a good book, and writer Danny Strong believes he's cracked the code by reframing it as a self-referential examination of Cold War-era America…
"One Night In Bangkok" walked so Sam Rockwell's White Lotus monologue could run. The song is such a ridiculous rush that it pretty much justifies the whole project. I think some plot still h…
The script has been reworked and the characters retooled, only for Chess to end up back where it started: impeccable music, a flat story and a baffling execution. But the eternal contradicti…
While I found myself longing for a wholly heartfelt Chess " whatever that might be " I also enjoyed the peppery, style-forward way that this production almost makes the amoebic musical itsel…
The production at Broadway's Imperial Theatre, directed by Michael Mayer, has plenty of good moves. Memorable and tuneful songs, including some bona fide bangers? Check! Slickly staged music…
Big numbers and baffling story almost spent, Chess leans into the possibility that nuclear war is extremely nigh, and the outcome of a final chess match could kill us all. There is even more…
After the revelatory 2023 revival of "Merrily We Roll Along," which finally clarified another difficult 80s musical, there was hope that "Chess" might enjoy a similar breakthrough. This isn'…
Election night. The polls predict a landslide victory. Everything is about to change. Direct from a sold-out, record-breaking, Olivier Award-winning West End run, Sophocles' epic tragedy is …
Icke's change in timeline trades catastrophe for suspense, ontological disaster for down-to-the-cuticles nail biting. Is this a fair exchange? Maybe. Is it electrifying? God, yes. The result…
His Oedipus, while glowing with his usual whip-smart language, doesn't have much fun in the toppling. Each domino falls ("I killed who?! You're my what?") with complete earnestness, and with…
Mark Strong and Lesley Manville, giving two of this year's great performances, lead a brilliant cast that turns this millennia-old story of pride and familial dysfunction into a timely polit…
The biggest pleasure of this prestige production is watching how Icke pastes these modern references onto a classic story. It's often fun to watch, but never more than clever. The post Mark …
It's where we learn her story in all its graphic detail, and though Manville is one hell of an actor"utterly at ease in one moment, ferocious in the next, destroyed in the one after that"eve…
Reid, Strong and Manville are transfixing as awful revelation after revelation comes to light. Strong's nice guy gives way to brutishness and boiling blood, and Manville's heretofore stalwar…
And above all there is his wife, Jocasta, who"as played by the great Lesley Manville"is a creature of effortless fascination: confident, worldly, intelligent, practical passionate, sexually …
Icke's work is really something: I can't recall ever previously being as riveted at a Greek tragedy. And my admiration for his show is increased by how Icke manages to stay remarkably true t…
The taut spin on "Oedipus" now on Broadway after a West End run last fall is a rare and magnificent feat of adaptation: Writer and director Robert Icke draws Sophocles' ancient play into the…