Reviewed for GaySocialites.com.

I’ve really been looking forward to The Royal Family, more than any other show at the Friedman Theatre since Manhattan Theatre Club reopened it (as the Biltmore) in 2003. It’s a classic by Georgre Kaufman and Edna Ferber, and Kaufman is one of my favorite comic playwrights of all time. Although it feels like director Doug Hughes has let a handful of sure-fire laughs get away from him and his cast, this production is nevertheless as solid and rewarding as anything MTC has done in years.

We are in the lavish Manhattan apartment of the Cavendishes, a famous family of stage stars, not so loosely based on the Barrymores. And what an apartment it is: Scenic designer John Lee Beatty delivers a magnificent jewel box of a set that could only belong to a truly histrionic family of actors.

The Cavendishes exchange scripts like other families trade glances, going through personal problems between matinees and evenings, trying to balance the need for love with the need for the stage, not always with success. The cast is uniformly wonderful, right down to downtown queer marvel David Greenspan in the small but plummy role of Jo the butler.

The wonderfulness starts at the top, with Rosemary Harris glowing as matriarch Fanny, definitely a creature breathing the air of the 19th century elegance and melodrama. Also terrific are John Glover and Ana Gasteyer as Herbert and Kitty Dean, the somewhat less successful relatives. And Reg Rogers is great fun as the clan’s swashbuckling Hollywood prodigal son.

But the play belongs to Julie Cavendish, the biggest star in the family. Comic stalwart Jan Maxwell finally gets to play a part worthy of her talent in a production that’s up to her standard. Maxwell locates both Julie’s deep, almost spiritual love of the stage and her longing for a more leisurely life, and plays them beautifully and effusively. Truly one of the more satisfying nights I’ve spent in a Broadway theatre in a while.

For tickets, click here.

As celebrity one-person autobiographical shows on Broadway go, Wishful Drinking doesn’t suck. That may not be saying much, but thankfully Carrie Fisher’s abundant wit as a writer and her staunch refusal to take even her worst problems that seriously (for the purposes of this show anyway) make this a reasonably enjoyable evening in the theatre.

In spite of a comfy set of furniture on the Studio 54 stage, there’s precious little that’s spontaneous. That’s understandable, since Fisher’s life was incredibly complicated from birth, and making any sense of it takes a lot of structure. In one of the show’s most entertaining moments, Fisher tries to narrate the complicated love lives of her parents Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, for which she needs an intricate chart and a pointer to keep score.

Of course, Fisher is best known as Princess Leia in the original Star Wars. And so naturally, the end of Act One is devoted to Fisher deconstructing her relationship to that “asinine hairdo” as she calls it, the affected English accent that comes and goes in the course of the movie, and her merchandising as everything from shampoo to a Pez dispenser. To say nothing of the gold bikini in The Return of the Jedi.

Much of Act Two is devoted to Fisher’s struggles with alcoholism and bipolar disorder. She doesn’t so much talk about these problems as dance jokily around them, which I must admit is a refreshing approach when compared to the maudlin self-indulgence of most celebrity confessionals. I had the nagging feeling that this would be better poured into a fictional form, as she did so successfully with Postcards from the Edge. Still, this show is clearly a crowd pleaser, and I wish Her Craziness well.

For tickets, click here.

Is Tracy Letts a “Great American Playwright” in the tradition of Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams? Or is he simply a playwright with a gift for engaging, entertaining characters who gives them just enough grit to make his plays seem weighty?

The truth probably lies somewhere in between, and we probably won’t actually know until he’s written a few more plays. His August: Osage County flirted with greatness enough to deserve the term “masterpiece,” putting him in a harsher spotlight than most playwrights ever have to face.

Superior Donuts artfully dodges the issue: it’s a comedy with more than a little sentimentality (but then again didn’t O’Neill write Ah Wilderness and Williams The Rose Tattoo). While things aren’t tidied up in a contrived way at the end, we can see the last few plot points coming (to Letts credit, the exact way they arrive is actually satisfying).

It is above all a very successful character sketch. Michael McKean plays Arthur, the owner of a Chicago donut shop who has cocooned himself away from the world. A Vietnam draft dodger, he suffers from the gnawing feeling that he’s a coward.  But a bright-eyed, very intelligent young black kid named Franco (Jon Michael Hill) asks Arthur for a job, beginning an unexpected friendship that will change both their lives in ways that neither expects. 

McKean delivers a knockout performance, really getting under Arthur’s skin. If there’s anything great about Donuts it’s the lead role, and McKean should definitely get his share of nods come award time.

For tickets, click here.

Originally reviewed for Gay Socialites.com.

Make no mistake, A Steady Rain is the hottest ticket in town because it features two of the hottest male movie stars on the planet. Sure, the first few minutes I found myself mostly admiring Hugh Jackman’s broad figure and striking face and Daniel Craig’s square jaw and brooding demeanor.

After that, however, the show revealed itself to be a gripping, if not particularly deep, psychological thriller. And Jackman and Craig proved themselves to be masterful stage actors, not merely slumming movie stars. We already knew from The Boy from Oz that Jackman could rule the stage, but it’s really nice to find him equally matched with Craig.

Our strapping twosome portrays two Chicago cops and lifelong friends going through a rainy summer. During this time, their respective flaws catch up to them in traumatic and tragic ways, as the more macho of the two (Jackman’s Denny) is hounded by a pimp he has harassed, and Craig’s more conscientious Joey finds himself making some bum choices in both his personal and professional life.

A Steady Rain relies on a lot of familiar formulas about hard-nosed cops, but mixes them up just enough to keep you guessing, to keep the suspense taut. All in all, a superbly acted, reasonably substantial evening of theatre.

For tickets, click here.