ScheckOnTheater

A true fondness for the British music hall is probably a prerequisite to fully enjoy the charms of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Rupert Holmes’ 1985 musical based on an unfinished novel by Charles Dickens that is being given a beautifully staged revival by the Roundabout Theatre Company. But despite its many amusing moments, the proceedings tend to wear thin over the course of two-and-a-half hours, even with the much ballyhooed audience involvement in choosing the final plot twists.

That gimmicky aspect, in which we’re given the chance via raised hands and applause to determine such aspects of the story as the identity of the title character’s murder, the detective-in-disguise and the secret lovers, adds an undeniable element of fun to the experience, even if the process tends to drag on.

The evocative atmosphere is established immediately, with the ushers dressed in period costumes and the performers playfully interacting with the audience before the show. Eventually a master of ceremonies dubbed the Chairman (Jim Norton) introduces the actors who will be playing the characters in Dickens’ gothic mystery tale.

These characters include choirmaster and opium addict John Jasper (Will Chase, fresh from TV’s Smash), who is madly in love with his young pupil, Rosa Bud (Betsy Wolfe); his nephew and perceived romantic rival Edwin Drood (a cross-dressing Stephanie J. Block): the mysterious Ceylonese Neville and Helena Landress (Andy Karl, Jessie Mueller); the perpetually befuddled and marvelously named Reverend Septimus Crisparkle (a very funny Gregg Edelman); the gravedigger Durdles (Robert Creighton) and his buffoonish deputy (Nicholas Barasch): and Princess Puffer, the owner of an opium den (Broadway veteran Chita Rivera).

The convoluted plot, involving young Drood’s sudden and mysterious disappearance, is ultimately beside the point. It merely provides the springboard for a constant series of visual gags, cheap puns and bawdy humor that is well exploited in Scott Ellis’ breezy staging and the fine efforts of the hard-working cast playing both the Dickens characters and the low-rent entertainers impersonating them. Norton, inheriting the role played so magnificently in the original production by the late George Rose, is a consistent hoot as the jocular host; the ageless Rivera kicks up her heels in fine fashion as the wicked Puffer (and even scored a young lover at the performance attended, thanks to the voting audience); and the rest of the ensemble fully gets into the anarchically silly spirit.

Less felicitous is Holmes’ score which--although it impressive as it apes its music hall inspirations--fails to be memorable, save for the pretty ballad “Moonfall” and the rousing showstopper “”Don’t Quit While You’re Ahead.”

Adding greatly to the production’s effectiveness are the playful choreography by Warren Carlyle, the lavish, picture-book style set design by Anna Louizos, and the elaborate period costumes by William Ivey Long abetted by the fun wigs created by Paul Huntley.

Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St. 212-719-1300. www.roundabouttheatre.org. Through Feb. 10, 2013.

Yes, the sun will come up tomorrow, but it sure doesn’t shine as brightly in the new Broadway revival of Annie. James Lapine’s staging of this clockwork-perfect musical somehow manages seriously reduce its quotient of joyfulness to the extent that audiences new to the show may well wonder what all the fuss is about. The ebullient glories of Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin’s classic score remain intact, but this Depression-set musical here seems to be suffering from depression itself.  

With the stage festooned with voluminous amounts of laundry hanging on clotheslines, the show begins with a short film documenting the horrendous conditions of the period in which it’s set, establishing a grim mood that seems incongruous for its cartoon-strip origins. Even the sure-fire number “It’s the Hard Knock Life” that follows shortly thereafter seems lackluster.

The problems are myriad. Lapine, a director far better suited to more cerebral material (Sondheim’s Into the Woods, Passion), fails to put the proceedings over with the requisite punchiness. David Korins’ set--featuring endlessly moving panels suggesting such locales as the decrepit orphanage and Oliver Warbucks’ palatial mansion--seems cheap and lost on the vast Palace stage, with the theater itself not conducive to the relatively intimate show’s charms. And the less said about Andy Blankenbuehler’s awkward, wrongheaded choreography, the better.

Even more problematic is the casting. Two-time Tony Award winner Katie Finneran (Noises Off, Promises, Promises) seemed an ideal choice for the comically villainous, boozy Miss Hannigan, but the normally reliable performer seems off her game, barely managing to muster up the laughs that were so abundant when the late, great Dorothy Loudon played the role in the original production. (Check her out on YouTube if you don’t believe me.) Eleven-year-old Lilla Crawford is a sweetly sympathetic Annie, but she has a tendency to screech her songs. Clarke Thorell and J. Elaine Marcos barely make an impression as the scheming Rooster and his female accomplice, and Brynn O’Malley is similarly unmemorable as Warbucks’ assistant Grace. Even the dog playing Sandy seems stilted and unconvincing.

It’s only Australian star Anthony Warlow, here making his Broadway debut, who truly impresses. His gorgeously sung Warbucks beautifully conveys the character’s combination of stuffy gravitas and underlying warmth tinged with social awkwardness. Not only will audience members desperately want him to adopt Annie, they’ll want to go home with him as well.

You won’t exactly have a bad time. How could you, listening to such tuneful numbers as “N.Y.C.,” “Easy Street,” “Maybe,” “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile” and, of course, the modern standard, “Tomorrow.” But for that, you could stay at home and listen to the classic cast album of the original 1977 Broadway production, and for a whole lot less money.

Palace Theater, 1564 Broadway. 877-250-2929. www.anniethemusical.com.

Did Broadway really need another revival of Edmond Rostand’s 1987 romantic classic Cyrano de Bergerac a mere five years after the highly successful production starring Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner? Not really, but this rendition by the Roundabout Theatre Company does at least provide a sterling showcase for Douglas Hodge in the title role. The veteran British actor, who won every award under the sun for his thrilling Broadway debut as Albin in the most recent La Cage Aux Folles revival, here delivers a stirring performance that is the highlight of this otherwise workmanlike production.

As usual, the Roundabout delivers excellent production values in the form of Soutra Gilmour’s lavish sets and gorgeous 17th century costume designs. But too much on display is otherwise prosaic, starting with a translation by Ranjit Bolt that, despite being in verse, sacrifices much of the work’s poeticism in a failed attempt at accessibility.

There’s a dullness that permeates the proceedings, including the bland performances by French actress Clemence Poesy, here making her Broadway debut as Roxane, and Kyle Soller, a young American actor who has spent most his career working in England, as Christian. While both performers possess the requisite good looks and handle the language well, neither delivers the sort of galvanizing turn that would fully invest us in their characters.

Among the large supporting cast, only the ever-reliable Patrick Page, recently released from his physically grueling chores as the Green Goblin in Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark, brings a stylish panache to his turn as the vengeful Comte de Guiche.

British director Jamie Lloyd has delivered a steadfast but lackluster staging that fails to fully capitalize on such fail-safe scenes as when the inarticulate Christian woos Rosalind on her balcony with Cyrano providing the romantic language.

Hodge, brandishing a impressively grotesque false proboscis, is the production’s true saving grace. He has a tendency to occasionally rush his lines and he’s both less overtly comic and tragic than such predecessors as Kline, Derek Jacobi and the Oscar-winning Jose Ferrer. But he cuts a truly dashing figure, handling both the swordplay and the florid language with consummate ease, and he’s particularly effective in conveying the character’s intense feelings of inferiority that prevent him from ever claiming the love that he rightfully deserves. He’s particularly moving in the play’s shattering final scene, when the aged Cyrano succumbs to his injuries as Roxane finally realizes that it was he who truly loved her all along.  Among the matinee ladies, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St. 212-719-1300. www.roundabouttheatre.org. Through Nov. 25.  

A fine cast acts their hearts out in Grace, Craig Wright’s drama now receiving its Broadway premiere. While this play about the collision between an Evangelical Christian couple and a pair of non-believers seems to have a great deal on its mind, its melodramatic plotting and artificial-sounding dialogue ultimately have little resonance.

Previously seen in productions in Washington, D.C. and Chicago, it’s set in a tacky Florida rental complex in which Steve (Paul Rudd) and his wife Sara (Kate Arrington) live next door to reclusive neighbor Sam (the white-hot Michael Shannon of Boardwalk Empire, here making his Broadway debut). Wearing a half-mask to conceal his horribly disfigured face as a result of a recent car accident that killed his wife, Sam is seen in an early, extraneous scene loudly arguing with a telephone customer service agent over the mysterious loss of his photographs from his digital camera.

Steve and Sara have recently moved from St. Paul, Minnesota, in the hopes of starting a chain of “gospel hotels” whose funding is apparently tenuous. So when Sam finally agrees to a casual social get-together, he finds himself both in a heated debate over the existence of God with the proselytizing Steven and on the receiving end of a fevered pitch to invest in his fledgling business.

Making a pair of brief but memorable appearances is Karl (television veteran Ed Asner), an elderly German exterminator who has little use for the couple’s religiosity. Derisively addressing Steve as “Jesus freak,” he explains his atheism with a harrowing account of a tragic childhood encounter with the Nazis in his hometown of Hamburg.

The play begins with a nightmarish scene in which Steve fatally shoots both Sam and his wife, with the rest told as an explanatory flashback. As the play develops, we become witness to the series of calamities—personal, business and even physical, with Steven developing a debilitating rash over most of his body—that caused him to snap.

The play includes plenty of arguments about the nature of faith, including a surprising last-minute conversion by the truculent Karl, but they seem like mere padding to the ultimately simplistic tale. It’s hard to imagine that it would have received a high-profile Broadway production without the enlistment of the starry ensemble.

That said, the actors do very well by the thin material. The always riveting Shannon brings complex shadings to his role even while wearing his Phantom of the Opera-style concealment; Rudd is convincing both in his character’s messianic zeal and his eventual derangement; Arrington is highly appealing as the wife who finds herself irresistibly drawn to her physically and emotionally scarred neighbor; and Asner makes the most of his brief but highly colorful role, adding much needed comic relief to the often stilted proceedings.

Cort Theatre, 138 W. 48th St. 212-239-6200. www.telecharge.com. Through Jan. 6, 2013.

Jim Parsons works magic in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of Harvey. I had my doubts that this old chestnut would have much impact these days. But Mary Chase’s 1944 comedy, which won the Pulitzer Prize and enjoyed 1,775 Broadway performances in its original run, sparkles anew thanks to this talented actor’s ineffable charms.

He certainly had tough competition from Jimmy Stewart, whose performance is immortalized in the classic 1950 film version. But the Emmy-winning star of The Big Bang Theory manages to make the part his own and then some--no small feat.

The play, which hasn’t been seen on the Great White Way since a 1970 production starring Stewart and Helen Hayes, concerns Elwood P. Down, an exceedingly courtly, mild-mannered man who happens to have a particular eccentricity. His constant companion is the title character, a 6’3” white rabbit who no one else seems able to see.

The situation naturally concerns his family, including his sister Vera (Jessica Hecht) and niece Myrtle (Tracee Chimo). But when Vera attempts to have her brother committed to a sanitarium, she’s the one who’s mistakenly committed instead of him.

Naturally, this leads to all sorts of complications, especially since Elwood charms the bejeesus out of everyone with whom he comes into contact. And, judging by the doors opened and pages turned by the invisible creature who Elwood describes as a “pooka,” he may not be so imaginary after all.

But when things are eventually straightened out and Elwood is about to receive an injection that will forever rob him of his delusions, Vera is forced to decide whether that’s such a good thing after all.

The play’s theme of carefree insanity versus reality’s hard truths has since been echoed in any number of works, including A Thousand Clowns and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. But it still has a resonant poignancy that is beautifully captured in director Scott Ellis’ moving and funny production.

That it succeeds to the extent that it does is largely due to its star, who delivers a portrayal that is only comparable to his Big Bang character in its off-the-wall quirkiness. But unlike the obliviously obnoxious Sheldon, his Harvey is so charming that he immediately wins the audience over. There was no doubt about Parsons’ chops and perfect comedic timing, but his ability to so effortlessly shift gears here, not to mention seem perfectly credible for the period, is a revelation.

He’s well supported by the excellent supporting cast, which also includes such veterans as Charles Kimbrough as an increasingly flustered psychiatrist and Carol Kane as his wife. Rich Sommer also scores big laughs with his blustery turn as a sanitarium attendant resistant to Elwood’s charms.

But it’s Parsons who carries the revival on his shoulders, and he succeeds magnificently. But evening’s end, you’re likely to find yourself seeing an invisible white rabbit as well.

Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St. 212-719-1300. www.roundabouttheatre.org. Through Aug. 5.