The Audience Has Its Say During the Performance By JASON ZINOMAN

If talking about a play can be more enjoyable than seeing it, then why not make room for both? That's part of the idea behind the avant-garde experiment "Venice Saved: A Seminar."

Theater Review | 'Must Don't Whip 'Um'
Mama Was a Rolling Stone By GINIA BELLAFANTE

Cynthia Hopkins's latest piece is a triumph of disciplined thinking, narrative fluidity and musical accomplishment.

The Modern Woman (1909 Vintage), Debated by Men By JASON ZINOMAN

Harley Granville-Barker's drama of ideas from 1909 receives an eloquent but musty production by the Mint Theater.

THEATER REVIEW | 'HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE'

A Professional Failure Faces Certain Doom: Success By SARAH LYALL
Since Toby Young, by his own account, has made a career out of being a hapless loser, it is fitting that his play - about what a loser he is - is not so bad.

Travels With Hemingway: That's Not All She Wrote By WILBORN HAMPTON

While "The Maddening Truth" is fascinating as a character study, its weakness as a play is the paucity of dramatic conflict.

THEATER REVIEW | 'LA CAGE AUX FOLLES'
A Trouper Embarks on a Voyage Over a Frothy Peach By CHARLES ISHERWOOD

In the role of Georges, Robert Goulet stands as a beacon of determined restraint amid the frantic vulgarity that surrounds him in the Broadway revival of "La Cage aux Folles."

From Prison to Freedom, and Telling Their Tales By ANDY WEBSTER

"The Castle," a simple, fascinating production, describes the obstacles that criminal offenders face upon their release.

Whips and Scorns of Time, Stinging All They Touch By BEN BRANTLEY

As played by Michael Stuhlbarg, Hamlet is unavoidably watchable and on occasion quite entertaining, but never for an instant moving.

THEATER REVIEW | 'PERFECT CRIME'
Still Kicking After 18 Years of Homicide By JASON ZINOMAN

Catherine Russell provides the little spark still generated by this middlebrow murder mystery that has been onstage for 18 years.

A Very Long Cab Ride Into the Land of Back Stories, by Anita Gates

Though it stretches plausibility at times with coincidences and parallels, Kate McGovern's Blue Before Morning is a quirky, personable little one-act with a warm heart.

Contagious Disturbances on the Home Front, While War Rages Over There By CHARLES ISHERWOOD

Adult actors playing children onstage is usually about as appealing as adults acting like children offstage. But Gio Perez handles this delicate task with an aplomb.

Molière, Avec le Slapstick By WILBORN HAMPTON

The Pearl Theater Company's revival of "Tartuffe" is more in the nature of burlesque than of traditional farce.

Theater Review | 'No Great Society'
Jack Kerouac, in His Cups, on a Tear and on TV By JASON ZINOMAN

Elevator Repair Service's show is a joy from start to finish, featuring excellent performances and the loose-limbed spirit of work born out of improvisation.

An End Tale, Through the Eyes of Saramago By JONATHAN KALB

"Blindness," an adaptation of the best-selling 1998 novel by José Saramago, is a disappointingly ordinary horror-thriller that seems to aspire to more trenchant mystery than it holds.

Theater Review | 'Radio'
Travels With Charlie, From Kansas to the Moon By NEIL GENZLINGER

The main character in this one-man play is a generic middle-American child of the baby boom, someone you have already heard from repeatedly in films and literature.

Torn Between Two Loves: The Oboe and the 'Hot Mess', by Charles Isherwood

No amount of actorly nuance could paper over the shortcuts and disjunctions of Sarah Treem's new play.

THEATER REVIEW | 'THE STRAITS'

Only a Gifted Young Briton Gets This Mad at Britain By BEN BRANTLEY
Gregory Burke's harshly predetermined drama about four rudderless teenagers surely deserves an award for most efficient use of a title.

Theater Review | 'Dogugaeshi': The Veils Give Way to Veils as an Art Comes Into Focus

THEATER REVIEW | 'THREE SISTERS'

Forget Moscow; These Sisters Are More the Wal-Mart Type By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
The director Pavol Liska opts for a loud, heavy-handed and very modern sarcasm in his stylishly updated interpretation of Chekhov's play.

Support for Irish Who Aren't So Lucky By NEIL GENZLINGER

"The Irish Curse" is an often funny but formulaic play about a support group for men with notably small penises.

One Evening, Five Works for Final Leg of the Spring, by Jason Zinoman

The final collection of short plays produced by the Ensemble Studio Theatre features a few good ideas but not one completely satisfying work.

Radiohole's 'Fluke' Splashes Around in a Sea of Ambiguity By JASON ZINOMAN

Radiohole's new play, "Fluke," a collage of enigmatic riffs on "Moby-Dick," brings the wide blue ocean into P.S. 122.

An Immigrant Family's Three Survivors, Traveling Together, Alone By CHARLES ISHERWOOD

Nothing in Julia Cho's tender-hearted play feels particularly new, but nothing in it feels contrived or dishonest, either.

History, Schmistory! Just Sing! By JASON ZINOMAN

Who knew that a musical about the life of the inventor of the printing press could have so many laughs?

Theater Review | 'Confidence, Women!'
Swindlers With a Sense of Style By JASON ZINOMAN

It's something of a surprise that Robert Cucuzza's new period piece, set in a brothel at the turn of the 20th century, seems so sedate.

THEATER REVIEW | 'WAR AND PEACE'

First Course of a Grand Russian Banquet By NEIL GENZLINGER
The Russian director Piotr Fomenko and his troupe, Theater-Atelier, returned to the Lincoln Center Festival on Tuesday with a stage adaptation of Tolstoy's "War and Peace."

Theater Review | 'Stealin' Home (A Baseball Fantasy)': A Baseball Legend Playing a New Position: Flawed Human

Choosing Gay Identity in Old Hollywood By ANITA GATES

"Looking for Billy Haines" follows two threads, one about a gay movie star in the 1920s, the other about an aspiring young actor today.

THEATER REVIEW | 'OUTWARD BOUND'
Thrown Together on a Cruise Ship, Destination Unknown By NEIL GENZLINGER

In the Keen Company's revival of Sutton Vane's drama, the focus shifts from the story to the acting, which seems to suit this energetic group just fine.

THEATER REVIEW | 'FLAT!'
Rm for Rent: Lodger, Enter at Your Risk By JASON ZINOMAN

This happily crass sendup of a BBC family drama would never make it past the Federal Communications Commission.

Theater Review: 'Guardians' Evokes Abuses of Abu Ghraib and of Fleet Street by CHARLES ISHERWOOD

Peter Morris's new play is disappointing as a dramatic exploration of the large questions it obliquely raises.