June 26, 2014 | About Last Night

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.

BROADWAY:
• Bullets Over Broadway (musical, PG-13, reviewed here)
• Cabaret (musical, PG-13/R, nearly all performances sold out last week, closes Jan. 4, reviewed here)
• A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder (musical, PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Of Mice and Men (drama, PG-13, nearly all performances sold out last week, closes July 27, reviewed here)
• Once (musical, G/PG-13, reviewed here)
• Rocky (musical, G/PG-13, reviewed here)

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

IN CHICAGO:
• Juno (musical, PG-13, closes July 27, reviewed here)

IN GLENCOE, ILL.:
• The Dance of Death (drama, PG-13, closes Aug. 3, reviewed here)
• Days Like Today (musical, PG-13, closes July 27, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:
• The Cripple of Inishmaan (serious comedy, PG-13, closes July 20, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• Ayckbourn Ensemble (three serious comedies playing in rotating repertory, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:
• Casa Valentina (drama, PG-13, reviewed here)

“He did not like to think that he was different from other people when he was writing. He did not want to ask for special consideration, he only wanted to explain why he was more vague at such times than he was ordinarily and why he was less patient with detail and why he seemed oblivious to the ordinary facts of life. You were living in two worlds when you were writing. You were trying, very unsuccessfully, to be omnipotent in the region of the imagination. You had delusions not so very unlike those of some man in an asylum who thought he was Napoleon Bonaparte. The main difference was that you never possessed the inmate’s sublime conviction. If you had any modesty at all—a very bad thing for a writer—you lived in a little hell of your own uncertainty.”