Archives for July 1, 2010

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:

• La Cage aux Folles (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• Fela! (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• Million Dollar Quartet (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)

• South Pacific (musical, G/PG-13, some sexual content, brilliantly staged but unsuitable for viewers acutely allergic to preachiness, closes Aug. 22, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, suitable for bright children, original Broadway production reviewed here)

• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

• Our Town (drama, G, suitable for mature children, reviewed here)

IN ASHLAND, ORE.:

• Hamlet (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Oct. 30, reviewed here)

• Ruined (drama, PG-13/R, violence and adult subject matter, closes Oct. 31, reviewed here)

• She Loves Me (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, closes Oct. 30, reviewed here)

IN CHICAGO:

• The Farnsworth Invention (drama, G, too complicated for children, closes July 24, reviewed here)

IN GLENCOE, ILL.:

• A Streetcar Named Desire (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Aug. 8, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN CHICAGO:

• Killer Joe (black comedy-drama, X, extreme violence and nudity, closes July 18, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:

• Fences * (drama, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, closes July 11, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY IN EAST HADDAM, CONN.:

• Annie Get Your Gun (musical, G, child-friendly, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN PHILADELPHIA:

• Sunday in the Park with George (musical, PG-13, far too complex for children, reviewed here)

“Things were said on both sides which might be regretted afterwards, and both felt the perverse satisfaction which is to be got from saying things of precisely that kind. It is very seldom that we can tell our friends exactly what we think of them; for some the occasion never presents itself, and they are perhaps the poorer for not having experienced the exultation of flinging the buried resentment and the usually irrelevant insult at a dear friend.”
Barbara Pym, Less Than Angels