My Take On: More Reviews of New York City Plays & Musicals

REVIEWS OF SCHMIGDOON, THE LOST BOYS, SEAGULL: TRUE STORY, TWO STRANGERS (CARRY A CAKE ACROSS NEW YORK), FALLEN WOMEN, MONTE CRISTO, THE RECEPTIONIST

A fifth edition of our  new feature “My Take On:: Short reviews from New York shows by Nunzio Michael Lupo, veteran journalist and an insightful appraiser of the arts. Some of these are still running for you to see on your next trip; other have closed but remain interesting for his assessment. To see his reviews more quickly, sign up for reminder at https://tinyurl.com/2s4mceaj

The Lost Boys, Palace Theatre

Sparing no expense, a lavish production of the 1980s teen vampire flick offers thrilling atmospherics, but you might not get bit.

Because most Broadway musicals lose tens of millions of dollars, we’ve seen the rise of the little musical. The trend seems to encourage small casts, modest musical arrangements, downsized orchestras, simple sets and lighting effects. “The Lost Boys” director Michael Arden helmed one small musical in 2024, “Maybe Happy Ending,” which won him the Best Director Tony Award and the show a heap of others.

But now for something completely different: With a tab that eclipsed $20 million before even one seat was filled, “The Lost Boys” is a big musical in every way imaginable. Perhaps banking on fan fervor for the 1987 cult horror-comedy film about a town spawning young vampires, “The Lost Boys” has a budget big enough to offer it all. Against foreboding industrial steel and girders, sets appear from the floor and ceiling, including one with a working merry-go-round and a playground slide. Fog is everywhere, and the dramatic lighting designs slash across stage and audience. Actors fly to the booming choruses of the show’s big rock-and-pop anthems.

The cast numbers 26, mostly young performers, including several making a Broadway debut. Broadway veteran Shoshana Bean takes on the thankless role of the mom and is chronically underutilized until the show needs her hurricane-force belt. LJ Bennett and Maria Wirries are fine enough as the endangered lovers. Ditto for Benjamin Pajak, Jennifer Duka and Miguel Gil, who play the dweeby kid brother and bumbling heroes. So it’s left to the menacing presence and deep baritone of Ali Louis Bourzgui (excellent as the day-to-day vampire boss) to give the show what few fangs it has.

You may not get bitten by “The Lost Boys,” but you will be entertained.

Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), Longacre Theatre

So few Broadway shows can cover the costs of their development and turn a profit these days that we need more shows like this to shock producers out of their collective ennui.

“Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)” is both modest and delightful. Like last season’s “Maybe Happy Ending,” this production passes on showy bombast.

It’s confident in building something from classic musical theater building blocks: a story about likable people who grow as individuals; a well-written script that moves the story along briskly; a simple but attractive set (which remains in place throughout the show); a crack orchestra (just five in this case, and onstage); and appealing actors with vocal chops and comic timing.

In this case, the cast of two consists of Sam Tutty (as Dougal) and Christiani Pitts (as Robin), drawn together in New York when his father marries her sister. Dougal is an odd duck visiting from England, and Robin is a young city woman with a hard shell. You’ve seen this pairing and character arc before. Nothing will surprise you.

The relatively bland pop anthems that make up most of the songs probably won’t bowl you over, but they are good enough to work with all the other elements to create an evening that is… charming.

Fallen Women, Todd Haimes Theatre

There is something comedically irresistible about seeing the goddess-like beauty of Kelli O’Hara, taking a pratfall drunk over a chair or tripping down the stairs on a bad hangover.

Fans who have only seen the beautiful and romantic O’Hara are nonetheless likely to be captivated by O’Hara’s self-absorbed Julia. In this revival of Noel Coward’s drawing room comedy set in Jazz Age London (the first Broadway revival in 70 years), Julia schemes to inject life into her boring marriage by igniting things with an old flame.

It makes for a merry clash that her partner and rival in this endeavor is Rose Byrne, equally delightful and off-the-chain as Jane. With a champagne bottle that seems to be bottomless, these two jealous frenemies throw down like Bravo housewives with posh British accents over that hunk of a man they once knew – um, well. (He’s Mark Consuelos, making his Broadway debut as the Frenchman Maurice.)

The physical bits from these two comic actors are inspired. That verdant 1920s halter dress on Byrne looks all the more elegant once she’s drunkenly tied that dirty napkin in with her shawl. Both women contort like guilty two-year-olds looking to be nonchalant when finally confronted by their hapless husbands (Aasif Mandvi and Christopher Fitzgerald, both fine).

Rounding out the cast is a hilarious Tracee Chimo as Saunders, the maid who’s done it all and can ou-tsing O’Hara to boot. Suspend your disbelief, dear, have another glass of champagne and just enjoy the romp.

Seagull: True Story, The Public Theater

It’s tempting to try to separate the real events from what is merely theatrical license in The Public Theater’s production of “Seagull: True Story.” This dramedy fuses Anton Chekhov’s 1896 play about artistic strife, “The Seagull,” with the life experience of creator-director Alexander Molochnikov.

The play at The Public, set in Russia on the eve of its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, is described in production materials as a “politically charged retelling of Molochnikov’s attempt to stage ‘The Seagull.’” At that time, Molochnikov spoke out against the war, left the country, and now is unable to return.

Moscow’s loss is New York’s gain.

From the moment Andrey Burkovskiy opens the show as a smarmy MC, this show takes a comic and sometimes absurd journey toward serious themes about repression, both state-sanctioned (in Russia) and societal and economic (in the United States). Burkovskiy is an exceptionally deft chameleon filling a variety of roles and a joy to watch. He can embody an arrogant theater producer, Lenin, in his tomb; a macho and shirtless Vladimir Putin atop a horse (a tight phalanx of his fellow actors, swishing tail and all), and a New York subway train pulling into the station. He’s also the only cast member doing a Russian accent because he is Russian.

The others include standout performances from Miles McCabe as Kon, the director and stand-in for Molochnikov; Suzanna Szadkowski as Kon’s mother, a famous Russian actor; and Elan Zafir as Anton, the friend who tests the limits of Russian freedom of speech. The musical interludes by Russian artist Noize MC are hit-and-miss, but the production is zany, inventive and thoughtful.

Like Chekhov’s Nina in the source material, this troupe learns that making art doesn’t necessarily bring freedom. Making art instead means enduring rejection, experiencing failure and continuing anyway.

Monte Cristo, York Theatre, Theater at St. Jean’s,

There’s a deep relationship at the center of this adaptation of “The Count of Monte Cristo,” but it’s not the love between Edmund and Mercedes (Adam Jacobs and Sierra Boggess, both with thrilling voices). No, it’s the bromance between Edmund and Caderousse/Abbe (with Danny Rutigliano as both characters). Whether they’re in the dark and dank prison of Chateau d’If digging their way out over 18 years or plotting revenge in Paris, these two are having a grand old time yukking it up in dialogue and song.

Call this show a kinder and gentler spin on “The Count of Monte Cristo” – even though one of Edmund’s enemies (Norm Lewis, commanding) still blows his brains out. So what if his soul-searching song before the offstage shot is a jaunty number with a cha-cha beat? No sense getting hung up on consistency here when there are such great voices to enjoy.

This adaptation by Peter Kellogg (book and lyrics) and Stephen Weiner (music) certainly follows the outline of the adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas: Three men intrigue to get rid of Edmund and pack him off to prison. He escapes, finds riches, styles himself a count and devotes his life to getting justice.

But this soft-focus “Monte Cristo” sands off the classic deep questions about whether revenge – even when warranted – corrodes the soul. Given the intended direction, this show arrives at the logical modern musical conclusion: happily ever after with a lesbian coming out for good measure.

The Receptionist, The Irene Diamond Stage, The Pershing Square Signature Center

Somewhere, there is a field office as drab as the Northeast Office in Adam Bock’s “The Receptionist.” The carpet is stained, the water cooler is half-full, the glass offices are shielded with cheap Venetian blinds and the computer on the desk emerges defiantly from an unruly tangle of cords. There may also be a chipper receptionist – the air traffic controller, “please hold” czar, gossipy pal and hoarder of office supplies.

Beverly Wilkins is that woman, as embodied by the wonderfully malleable Katie Finneran. With frumpy shoes, a winter parka from Target and brisk efficiency, she manages to keep her co-workers, Lorraine and Edward (Mallori Johnson and Nael Nacer) in line. Well, at least until Martin (Will Pullen) from the head office shows up. It’s only then that we get a sense of what this business really is, and it’s not good.

Playwright Bock builds on what the political theorist and author Hannah Arendt famously called “the banality of evil” – the concept that moral catastrophes like the Holocaust don’t require horribly twisted characters, just ordinary people who obey orders, comply with bureaucracy and fail to think for themselves. When villainy comes for Beverly, however, even she’s unable to protest. “I’m just the receptionist” isn’t much of an excuse where evil is concerned.

KenRex, a True Crime Thriller, Lucille Lortel Theatre,

That this wholly American story of vigilante justice in podunk Missouri should have been birthed in London is one astonishing aspect of “KenRex: A True Crime Thriller.”

Also astonishing is the production itself, which conjures genuine suspense from a taut script, simple sets (a doorway, a stairway and a platform); bar-brawling music by a raucous one-man band (John Patrick Elliott); and moody, smokey effects, striking lighting and bold sound design.

Most astonishing is that the entire town of Skidmore – some 35 characters in all – are played with abandon as fully formed unique individuals by Jack Holden, who wrote the play with the director, Ed Stamboullouian. (Holden won the UK’s highest acting honor for his performance.)

Holden is scarily menacing as the deep-voiced title character, Ken Rex McElroy, who terrorized Skidmore, Mo., for decades. With the help of a weaselly but slick lawyer (also Holden), McElroy dodged prison 21 times on charges including animal cruelty, burglary, arson, assault, child molestation and statutory rape (his wife – also Holden – gave birth at 14).

But the town itself did something astonishing: In 1981, it had had enough and fought back; McElroy paid the ultimate price. Even more astonishing: No one has ever been charged in his death. The people of Skidmore, all of them, said they saw nothing and knew nothing.

Fear of 13, James Earl Jones Theatre,

Nick Yarris’s life makes for an extraordinary story in “Fear of 13.” He spent 22 years on death row in a Pennsylvania prison for a rape and murder he didn’t commit. Yarris is the first person to be exonerated by DNA evidence and became an author and activist.

The title refers to his fear that something terrible would happen to him in prison on the 13th anniversary of his incarceration. In this well-crafted play written by Lindsey Ferrentino and directed by David Cromer, two-time Academy Award winner Adrien Brody makes his Broadway debut as Nick in a beautifully calibrated performance.

Beaten down by the injustice of his situation and the enforced silence and indignity of prison, Brody presents a broken man. He folds his body into the tiniest package possible, rooted firmly to the stool that is bolted to the floor. He is lonely, wounded and fearful. His savior comes in the form of a prison volunteer (Tessa Thompson, also excellent), who marries him and takes up his cause. Yarris has good reason to rant and rave as the wrongs pile on him, but Brody contains the character until the moment when Yarris – and the audience – can bear it no longer. How, we wonder, has this man endured all this? Can we?

Brody is supported by a fine cast of character actors who assume all the other roles. The overall production is at its most surprising and beautiful when, as other inmates, the ensemble sings a cappella to protest the inhumanity of life on death row and to celebrate Yaris’s wedding in prison. All the elements cohere to give Yarris’s tale the exceptional telling it deserves.