Peter and the Starcatcher (2 ½ stars)
One Man, Two Guvnors (5 stars)
Clybourne Park (2 stars)
The prequel to J.M. Barrie’s classic Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, Rick Elice’s Peter and the Starcatcher is a sweet story with a hardworking cast. We learn how Peter, Captain Hook and the Lost Boys ended up in Neverland in a rollicking staging by directors Roger Rees and Alex Timbers that will nevertheless grow wearying for anyone who’s ever done children’s theater. It’s cute, but monotonous. Similarly, watching adults acting like children gets tedious, despite the best efforts of the lovely Celia Keenan-Bolger (as Wendy’s mother, Molly) and the self-conscious Adam Chanler-Berat (as Peter). The best thing in Peter… is the deliciously hammy performance of Smash star Christian Borle as Black Stache, a fey pirate who’s surrounded by a terrific cast of supporting players like Kevin Del Aguila as Smee and the delicious Arnie Burton as Molly’s chaperone, Mrs. Bumbrake. Unfortunately, there’s a steady stream of lazy writing that manifests itself in contemporary anachronisms. They get big laughs but chip away at the play’s credibility.
The National Theater’s hilarious new farce, One Man, Two Guvnors, is simply one of the funniest shows you’ll ever see. Written by Richard Bean and directed by Nicholas Hytner, the play stars James Corden (History Boys) as Francis Henshall, a man vexed and flummoxed from trying to keep his two criminal bosses happy. The wildly convoluted plot is ridiculous and isn’t important in the least. All you need to know is that it’s set in the swinging ’60s of Britain in the seaside resort town of Brighton and that Francis will do almost anything for food and sex. Set to a rockabilly score somewhere between Buddy Holly and The Beatles, One Man, Two Guvnors is the perfect opportunity to laugh long and hard for two hours—and who couldn’t use that? For his part, Corden is a comic genius who’s a shoe-in for the Tony.
I’m in the minority disliking Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park, but I still think it’s an overrated play. With a first act set 1959 and the second in 2009, Norris and director Pam MacKinnon have a strong cast, particularly Frank Wood who takes center stage as a frustrated, grieving father in the stronger, more successful first act. But Clybourne Park goes completely off the rails in the second act when a meeting between a white couple and a black couple turns ludicrously divisive and Norris gets his biggest laughs with racial jokes that have been around for years.
Peter and the Starcatcher plays at the Brooks Atkinson (256 W 47th St, PeterAndTheStarcatcher.com). One Man, Two Guvnors plays at the Music Box (239 W 45th St, OneManTwoGuvnorsBroadway.com). Clybourne Park plays at the Walter Kerr (219 W 48th St, ClybournePark.com).