Image Credit: Jeremy Daniel

Three of Broadway’s best—Patti LuPone, Mandy Patinkin and Alan Rickman—returned to the Main Stem this week, but don’t be too thankful, because the results are varied.

EW film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum gives Rickman’s writing-themed Seminar (pictured) a C+, calling it a “synthetic, audience-stroking comedy,” and adding that it “has little of depth or authenticity to say about the struggle to put words in order.” She does, however, praise actor Hamish Linklater, who makes his Broadway debut in the play. “In the end, Seminar belongs to Hamish Linklater,” she writes. “The actor does such a good job of creating, sustaining, and quietly intensifying [his character’s] full personality.”

On the other hand, An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin is “two hours of good old-fashioned musical theater” according to critic Melissa Rose Bernardo. “The greatest of the greatest hits are here,” says Bernardo, giving the play an A-.  Patinkin’s ‘Oh What a Circus’ “reminds us what Ricky Martin’s up against in this spring’s Evita revival” and LuPone’s ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ has “powerhouse vocals….She gets a standing ovation simply by slowly raising her arms in the now-famous Evita-on-the-balcony pose.”

Off-Broadway had similar up-and-downs this week. The Cold War drama Blood and Gifts earns an A from stage editor Thom Geier, who praises playwright J.T Rogers. “He takes a subject that seems like the stuff of PBS or dry policy papers—Afghanistan in the 1980s,” writes Geier, “and crafts a smart, intellectually stimulating, and just-plain entertaining spy thriller.” On the other hand, while there are “some interesting ideas at work” in Thomas Higgins’ C+ boyhood drama Wild Animals You Should Know, Geier warns “none of the characters seem fully fleshed out in Higgins’ engaging but overly schematic plot.”

Image Credit: Joan Marcus

Broadway’s most expensive musical is still nabbing the week’s biggest headlines. First, ousted Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark director Julie Taymor made her beef with the show’s producers official on Tuesday when she filed a federal lawsuit against 8 Legged Productions and Spidey co-writer Glen Berger for copyright infringement and breach of contract. Their response: We’ll see you in court. Then actor Matthew James Thomas — making his debut as Peter Parker — was injured offstage during a Wednesday matinee performance.

While Taymor and 8 Legged prepared to duke it out and Thomas mended, our critics reviewed a week’s worth of Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Los Angeles shows — including Hugh Jackman’s hip-shaking return to the New York boards. Read the highlights below. READ FULL STORY »

Image Credit: Sandra Coudert

First time’s a charm, apparently: Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg’s stage-writing debut, Asuncion, earned a healthy B+ this week from writer Keith Staskiewicz. Our critics also saw two other productions — a premiere on the Main Stem and an I Love Lucy tribute in L.A — highlights below.

Asuncion: According to Staskiewicz, Eisenberg’s off-Broadway comedy about a liberal who discovers his hidden prejudices “is a solid playwriting debut.” “Even if the plot can be as shaggy and messy as the low-rent apartment in which it’s set,” he says, “Eisenberg has created something more ambitious than the sort of safe, colorless dramedy that a lot of first-time playwrights go for.” READ FULL STORY »

Image Credit: Joan Marcus

Comedy apparently doesn’t come in threes. The triple-threat writing team behind Broadway’s Relatively Speaking — Woody Allen, Ethan Coen, and Elaine May — failed to impress this week, earning only a C+ from EW senior writer Clark Collis. Luckily, our reviewers saw three other higher-ranking Off-Broadway plays.  Read the highlights below.

Relatively Speaking: “This trio of comedies,” writes Collis, “is, comparatively speaking, far from any of its creators’ finest work.” Of the three C+ vignettes that make up Speaking, Collis likes May’s the best, as only she “seems to have really put her heart and soul into her one-act.” “[Speaking] most resembles the output of some supergroup whose members have decided to save their A game for solo projects.” READ FULL STORY »