Dog Day Afternoon (August Wilson Theatre)

By Harry Forbes

This engrossing stage adaptation of the classic 1975 film places Jon Bernthal (The Bear) in the Al Pacino role of Sonny, a desperate, ill-fated bank robber attempting to hold up a Brooklyn Chase Manhattan Bank. At his side is his volatile accomplice Sal, played by Bernthal’s Bear co-star Ebon Moss-Bachrach, while a third partner, the jittery Ray Ray (Christopher Sears), loses his nerve and bolts almost immediately.

Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Adly Guirgis, adapting both the film and P. F. Kluge and Thomas Moore’s Life magazine article “The Boys in the Bank” (itself based on true events), has crafted a script that proves highly effective on stage. It injects more humor than the film without sacrificing tension, and under Rupert Goold’s taut direction, the piece sustains a gripping momentum throughout.

There have been earlier stage versions—I recall a modest 2008 Off-Broadway staging by the Barefoot Theatre Company—but this production operates on an entirely different level.

Bernthal, making his Broadway debut, is onstage nearly the entire time and delivers a commanding, deeply felt performance. Moss-Bachrach, also new to Broadway, matches him with a vividly drawn Sal. The supporting cast is uniformly strong: Michael Kostroff as the beleaguered bank manager Butterman; Danny Johnson as security guard Mr. Eddy; and the bank tellers, including Elizabeth Canavan (doubling effectively as Sonny’s wife Gloria), Paola Lázaro, Wilemina Olivia-Garcia, and Andrea Syglowski; and especially Jessica Hecht, who gives a gem of a performance as the tightly wound, domineering Colleen.

Outside the bank, John Ortiz’s NYPD detective Fucco and Spencer Garrett’s FBI hardliner Sheldon -- both actors convincing -- spar over how to handle the crisis—Fucco favoring empathy, Sheldon pushing for force—adding another layer of tension to the standoff.

A standout among the supporting players is Esteban Andres Cruz as Leon, Sonny’s partner, whose desire for gender-affirming surgery provides the robbery’s emotional impetus. Their second-act phone conversation—tender, awkward, and marked by painful miscommunication—is one of the production’s most affecting moments.

David Korins’ revolving set, evocatively lit by Isabella Byrd, shifts between the bank interior and the surrounding streets, creating a vivid sense of place. Occasional action spills into the aisles, and while there’s no formal audience participation, the crowd is invited to join Sonny’s iconic cry of “Attica,” the production’s most direct nod to the film’s charged public spectacle.

Set in 1972, the production benefits from Brenda Abbandandolo’s spot-on period costumes and Guirgis’s commitment to era-authentic language, free of contemporary overlay. Goold sustains that period texture throughout. Cody Spencer’s richly detailed sound design, along with well-chosen music from David Bowie and Marvin Gaye, further enhances the atmosphere.

Some may argue that the production cannot match the film, but that misses the point. Working in a different medium, Guirgis has created a piece with its own integrity and theatrical force. Judging by the enthusiastic response at the performance I attended, audiences are more than willing to embrace it on its own terms.

(August Wilson Theatre, 245 W. 52nd Street; dogdayafternoon.com) 

Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman: (l.-r.) Jon Bernthal, Danny Johnson, Jessica Hecht

Every Brilliant Thing (Hudson Theatre)

By Harry Forbes

Daniel Radcliffe returns to Broadway in Every Brilliant Thing, his first stage appearance since his Tony-winning turn in Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. As he has in each of his New York outings, Radcliffe proves himself a formidable stage presence.

Here, however, his skills are tested to the limit: Every Brilliant Thing is a one-man show. Even with generous audience participation, it is Radcliffe who must guide—and control—every moment.

Written by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe and directed here by Jeremy Herrin and Macmillan, the play first premiered to great success a decade ago at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe before transferring to New York, where Donahoe also starred. Since then it has been performed in some 80 countries and filmed for HBO with Donahoe. The current production stems from a recent West End run that featured stars including Minnie Driver and Lenny Henry.

The premise is simple but affecting. Radcliffe plays an unnamed narrator reflecting on how his mother’s suicide attempt when he was a child shaped the course of his life. When she returns home from the hospital, he begins compiling a list of everything—small or large, trivial or profound—that makes life worth living. Over the years, as he grows up, falls in love, and marries, the list grows as well, helping him cope not only with his mother’s recurring crises but with his own bouts of melancholy, until he finally arrives at a kind of reckoning.

Before the performance begins, Radcliffe and several stage managers circulate through the theater, distributing numbered cards—each bearing an item from the list, ranging from “ice cream” to “a really good sneeze.” Audience members call these out when Radcliffe cues the numbers. A handful of volunteers seated onstage take on slightly larger roles, portraying figures such as the narrator’s father, his teacher, and eventually his spouse.

While the device creates an atmosphere of inclusivity that many in the audience clearly relish, it can also grow a bit wearisome, particularly when some participants deliver their lines flatly or inaudibly. Still, at a brisk 70 minutes, the show hardly overstays its welcome.

Radcliffe remains the evening’s undeniable engine, shifting nimbly from breezy good humor to moments of genuine emotional reflection. Yet the production’s buoyant, participatory tone sometimes sits uneasily alongside its darker themes of suicide and depression.

Along the way, the script offers some pointed observations about how we speak—or fail to speak—about suicide. In keeping with that focus, the production has partnered with the mental-health nonprofit Project Healthy Minds, which provides resources for those who may need them.

Vicki Mortimer designed both the thrust stage (effectively lit by Jack Knowles) and Radcliffe’s increasingly sweat-soaked costume, while Tom Gibbons supplies the sound design.

For all its structural quirks, Every Brilliant Thing ultimately rests on Radcliffe’s shoulders—and he proves more than capable of carrying it.

(The Hudson Theatre, 141 W 44th Street; everybrilliantthing.com; through May 24)

Photo by Matthew Murphy: Daniel Radcliffe.

The Monsters (Manhattan Theatre Club)

By Harry Forbes

Don’t be put off by the possibly alarming title or the martial-arts milieu. At heart, The Monsters is a tender and highly absorbing story about the reunion of a brother and his much younger half-sister, separated for 16 years, and it serves as a showpiece for two extraordinary performances.

In the Off-Broadway premiere, beautifully written and sensitively directed by Ngozi Anyanwu, Aigner Mizzelle plays Lil and Okieriete “Oak” Onaodowan plays Big. During their long separation, Lil has developed a fascination for fighting and has followed her older brother’s exploits on the local mixed-martial-arts circuit. She has done so from afar—until the moment the play begins, when she unexpectedly appears in Big’s locker room.

Big is wary at first, assuming she must want something from him. But Lil insists she has come only to reconnect. Though the taciturn Big is hardly the most demonstrative of men, he gradually begins to trust her and to reclaim the role of protective older brother. Later, when Lil reveals her own interest in fighting, he offers to train her.

What unfolds is a sibling love story, one which builds to a redemptive and satisfying ending.

Dialogue scenes are interspersed with flashbacks to the pair’s childhood, deftly performed by the actors as they seamlessly shift from adults to ages six and sixteen in an instant. The play also incorporates workout and boxing sequences superbly choreographed by Rickey Tripp and executed with convincing intensity.

Andrew Boyce’s scenic design, effectively lit by Cha See, captures the sweaty ambience of the boxing world, while Mika Eubanks’ costumes are perfectly suited to the characters. Sound designer Mikaal Sulaiman provides atmospheric original music. Equally crucial to the production’s authenticity are the contributions of fight director Gerry Rodriguez and MMA consultant Sijara Eubanks.

The Monsters is a world-premiere co-production with Two River Theater.

(NY City Center Stage II, 131 West 55th Street; www.nycitycenter.org; through March 22)

Photo by T. Charles Erickson:  (l.-r.) Aigner Mizzelle as Lil, with Okieriete Onaodowan as Big

Zack (Mint Theater Company)

By Harry Forbes

The Mint has followed up last season’s superlative revival of Lancashire playwright Harold Brighouse’s “Garside’s Career” with a lesser Brighouse work, but in its way, still a charmer, his 1916 comedy “Zack.”  The play has been revived three times by the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, the first time with an impressive cast including Patricia Routledge, Trevor Peacock, and Lindsay Duncan. 

The titular character, played here by Jordan Matthew Brown, is a sweet natured loafer treated with dismissive disdain by his widowed mother Mrs. Munning (solid Melissa Maxwell) and arrogant brother Paul (David T. Patterson nailing his character’s villainy) who runs the family’s faltering catering business. 

Mrs. Munning sets her sights on her well-heeled niece Virginia (aka Jenny) (Cassia Thompson) for Paul, and invites the young woman to stay with them as she convalesces after a recent illness. But it’s clear from the start that it’s the uncalculating Zack who charms her with his guileless ways.

Complications ensue when Paul coldly sacks worker Joe Quigley (superbly gruff Sean Runnette), when the latter suffers a broken arm. Before long, Joe bursts in, hellbent on revenge, one that will involve forcing Zack to marry Joe’s lovelorn daughter Martha (Grace Guichard). 

Brown makes an impossibly clueless (and frequently annoying) character tolerable, and Thompson is a constant delight in her highly sympathetic role. (The dynamic between Zack and Jenny will remind seasoned theater and filmgoers of the central characters of Brighouse’s most famous play, “Hobson’s Choice.”) 

There’s good work too from Caroline Festa as Sally, the pretend-maid hired by Mrs. Munning to impress the wealthy Jenny, and Guichard as Martha who engage in a second act verbal slugfest over Zach. David Lee Huỳnh and Douglas Rees round out the excellent cast as Joe’s cronies. 

If I have a gripe, it’s that British accents, particularly of the Northern variety, so essential in Brighouse’s works, are curiously eschewed here. As a result, the play loses much of its texture, and the dialogue sometimes has a flatness without the Lancashire lilt. The essentials of the play are all intact but could have been that much more characterful. If you’re curious, you can hear a more authentic sounding performance in this vintage BBC Radio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7yPVKVzptA&t=237s

That said, Britt Berke directs a tight performance -- one hour and 45 minutes without intermission -- with attractive contributions from Brittany Vasta (sets), Kindall Almond (costumes), and Jane Shaw (sound & arrangements).

(Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street; bjany.org;  through March 28)

Photo by Todd Cerveris: (l.-r.) Cassia Thompson, Jordan Matthew Brown

Chinese Republicans (Roundabout Theatre Company)

By Harry Forbes

Playwright Alex Lin’s satirical comedy takes aim at misogyny and racism in the corporate workplace—familiar targets, perhaps, but Lin’s characters give the material a distinctive twist. While some of the plot’s turns feel scattershot, the play builds to a conclusion that lands with genuine force.

Set in 2019, the story centers on four Chinese women who meet monthly for an affinity-group lunch at a Chinese restaurant. All work at the investment bank Friedman Wallace, and their gatherings function as a kind of support group where they compare notes on navigating a predominantly white, male corporate culture. Yet solidarity only goes so far: each woman is also keenly aware of her own ambitions and the compromises that advancement may require.

Ellen, played with steely composure by Jennifer Ikeda, is a managing director who has achieved considerable success but still finds herself stalled short of partnership. Her protégé, Katie—portrayed by Anna Zavelson, memorable to many from Light in the Piazza at Encores—is a 24-year-old wealth strategies research associate whose trajectory takes an unexpected turn when she abruptly pivots toward activism. Jodi Long brings authority to Phyllis, now 65, once Ellen’s mentor and the first Asian woman to become a managing director in New York, currently working as a consultant. Completing the quartet is Iris, played by Jully Lee, a lower-level employee in the firm’s software division—an immigrant still awaiting a green card.

All four performers acquit themselves well, capturing both the camaraderie and the underlying tensions within the group. There is also amusing support from Ben Langhorst as a knowingly campy waiter who briefly punctuates the action.

Lin structures the play with occasional flashbacks and dream sequences, devices that sometimes add texture. Despite the title, the “Republican” aspect of the play is not emphasized as heavily as one might expect; the drama’s focus remains more squarely on questions of identity, advancement, and belonging within elite corporate spaces.

Visually, the production is solid if not showy. Wilson Chin’s revolving set proves practical, with the red-hued restaurant environment emerging as the most striking element. Hana Kim supplies projections that help mark shifts in time and perspective. Under Chay Yew’s brisk direction, the evening rarely drags, even when some of Lin’s plot developments stretch credibility.

If “Chinese Republicans” doesn’t always fully cohere, its sharp observations about ambition, loyalty, and the costs of corporate success keep it engaging—and its final moments suggest a more resonant play just beneath the surface.

(Roundabout Theatre Company’s Laura Pels Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, 111 West 46th Street; RoundaboutTheatre.org; through April 5)

Photo by Joan Marcus: (l.-r.) Jodi Long (Phyllis/Young Phyllis), Jennifer Ikeda (Ellen/Ailin), Anna Zavelson (Katie) and Jully Lee (Iris)

The Dinosaurs (Playwrights Horizons)

By Harry Forbes

Playwright Jacob Perkins’ compact 75-minute drama takes a familiar theatrical premise—a support group—and quietly reshapes it into something more observational than overtly dramatic. Structured as a series of meetings in a women’s sobriety circle and told in a non-linear sequence, the play unfolds less as a conventional narrative than as an accumulation of moments. In a program note, Perkins acknowledges his own history with sobriety, a disclosure that seems to inform the work’s careful, empathetic tone.

The setting is spare: a mostly bare stage, folding chairs arranged for the meeting, and a table set aside for the group’s modest refreshments. The play begins almost tentatively, as Rayne (Keilly McQuail), a prospective newcomer, hovers at the threshold while Jane (April Mathis) prepares the room. Their brief exchange about donuts and cupcakes establishes the play’s naturalistic rhythms—casual, lightly humorous, and attentive to the small talk that often fills the edges of more serious conversations.

Rayne soon retreats, apparently losing her nerve, leaving the regulars to gather: Joan (Elizabeth Marvel); Jolly (Kathleen Chalfont), an elderly sponsorship coordinator; Janet (Mallory Portnoy); and Joane (Maria Elena Ramirez). Nearly everyone bears a name beginning with “J”—a detail that initially feels like a wry joke but also subtly blurs distinctions among the characters, an effect the play itself occasionally acknowledges.

The meetings yield glimpses of the women’s inner lives rather than full confessions. Janet describes a dream in which a driver urges her to shed excess baggage—literal and emotional—including, improbably, a man tucked into her duffel bag. Joane discusses difficulties with her son, while Joan voices lingering doubts about her progress. Yet some stories remain conspicuously untold. Jane, who seems the picture of composure as she organizes the room, is revealed in solitary moments to be carrying burdens she has not shared with the group.

If the play withholds the kind of dramatic escalation audiences might expect from this premise—recent ensemble dramas like Liberation build more overtly toward confrontation—that restraint appears to be the point. Perkins is less interested in climaxes than in the subtle ways people circle their truths. His writing observes these women with notable compassion, and the performances are so unforced that the scenes often feel overheard rather than staged.

The production, directed with understated assurance by Les Waters, leans fully into that quiet realism. Humor surfaces naturally, often in passing remarks that momentarily lighten the room before the conversation settles again into something more reflective.

The design supports the play’s unadorned approach. The scenic elements evoke the plain functionality of a meeting space, while Yuki Link’s flat fluorescent lighting captures the slightly institutional atmosphere familiar to anyone who has spent time in such rooms. The work was commissioned and developed by Clubbed Thumb, whose mission to produce “funny, strange and provocative new plays by living American writers” finds a thoughtful, if deliberately modest, example here.

(Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42 Street; tickets@phnyc.org or 212 279 4200; through March 8)

Photo by Julieta Cervantes: (l.-r.) April Matthis, Kathleen Chalfant, and Elizabeth Marvel 

Angry Alan (Studio Seaview)

By Harry Forbes

It’s a treat to watch John Krasinski deliver such a bravura performance in Penelope Skinner’s (mostly) one-man show about Roger, a disaffected former executive whose life has come unglued. He lost his high-ranking job at AT&T (a sore point he won’t let go), his wife left him, he’s estranged from his son, and he’s barely holding on to his current relationship.

Enter Angry Alan, an internet men’s rights guru whose inflammatory, self-proclaimed “manosphere” message proclaims that most men are good and have been unfairly diminished by the so-called gynocracy. Roger is captivated. Alan’s views—logical and irrefutably correct in Roger’s eyes—feel like a mirror to his own. Enthusiastically, he shares Alan’s videos with anyone who will listen.

Krasinski makes Roger’s good-natured, humorous persona so charming that Alan’s increasingly toxic ideology goes down disturbingly easy. Roger comes off as a laid-back, likable guy, which makes his descent all the more unsettling.

When he learns of an Angry Alan conference in Detroit, Roger impulsively pays the steep admission fee—along with a hefty “generous” donation—despite needing the money for his monthly child support payment.

Krasinski is virtuosic as he navigates Roger’s emotional shifts, ultimately revealing the darker undercurrents of his character with fearless precision.

Smartly directed by Sam Gold—his strongest New York work in recent memory, surpassing recent productions like Romeo + Juliet, An Enemy of the People, and Macbeth—the play, first produced in 2018 after development at the Aspen Fringe Festival, delivers a chillingly timely exploration of social media’s corrosive influence. Don Mackay, identified in the program as Skinner’s husband, is credited as co-creator.

The revolving set by dots vividly conjures Roger’s shared home with girlfriend Courtney and later, the Detroit conference venue. Qween Jean’s costumes, Isabella Byrd’s lighting, and Mikaal Sulaiman’s sound design are all top-tier.

The program lists five cameo performers, though four are seen only as projected photographs of people in Roger’s life.

This production also marks the debut of the newly restored former Second Stage space—the lounge area especially spiffy and inviting.

(Studio Seaview, 305 West 43rd Street; studioseaview.com; through Aug. 3)

Photo: Jonny Cournoyer – John Krasinski

The Picture of Dorian Gray (The Music Box)

By Harry Forbes

To cut to the chase, Sarah Snook --  known best globally for her role as Shiv Roy in HBO’s “Succession” -- is absolutely stupendous in this riveting adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s 1891 work, his only novel. 

Though technically a one-person show, the Australian actress brings to life 26 diverse characters by dint of her virtuosic acting skills and an astonishing video component that allows her to interact seamlessly with the myriad versions of herself on the LED video screens which float over the stage. The precision of it all is quite astounding. If you were blown away by the use of projections and roving cameras in Jamie Lloyd’s current revival of “Sunset Boulevard,” writer/director Kip Williams' work here goes several steps further.

Even Snooks’ mobile phone comes into play in a most creative, dextrous way, though the device was the cause of the one (brief) technical snafu of the evening at my performance.

Williams’ production was first mounted to acclaim by Sydney Theatre Company in 2010, and Snooks assumed the role in London where she won the Best Actress Olivier Award.

Marg Horwell’s scenic and costume designs were also so honored, and  -- coupled with David Bergman’s video design -- are simply dazzling. Williams’s direction keeps things going at a feverish, suspenseful pace that is nothing short of thrilling. Clemence Williams’ propulsive music adds to that excitement, and her sound design is superbly balanced. 

But for all the bravura technical effects -- and one does really focus on the screens more than the live actress underneath -- what really hooks you is Snooks’  mesmerizing storytelling technique, for this is narrative theater at its most accomplished. Even without the costume and wig changes, her facility at changing her voice and her persona from character to character is astonishing. Besides the foppish Gray (bedecked with a wispy blond wig (one that reminded me of the child actor Steven Warner in “The Little Prince” movie of eons ago), she conjures the decadent Lord Henry Wotton and the effete artist Basil Hallward, and a host of others, male and female. 

And, of course, Wilde’s tale of the beautiful young man whose increasingly dissipated and immoral behavior is reflected in the painting he keeps hidden in a locked room, while he himself retains his youthful beauty, is so beautifully adapted by Willaims and compulsively gripping that the dramatization registers with a rare intensity.

Williams directs with a humorously sardonic approach (reflected in Snooks’ often playful asides), and there are some occasional meta interjections, including concerning the video technique, and there’s one rather startling use of a Broadway musical song which I won’t spoil here which buffs will pick up on, but the themes of the story are related with appropriate gravitas right up to its devastating conclusion.

Snook is not alone on stage but aided by an unobtrusive crew of camera operators in black who manipulate the props and the cameras. They deservedly share the bows with her at the end.

(The Music Box, 239 West 45th Street; doriangrayplay.com; through June 29)

Photo by Marc Brenner: Sarah Snook

Vanya (Lucille Lortel Theatre)

By Harry Forbes

Andrew Scott is certainly riding a career high: the Irish actor’s much praised turn as Garry Essendine in an updating of Noel Coward’s “Present Laughter” at the National Theatre (also streamed); his starring role in the gripping Netflix “Ripley” series; his extraordinary performance in “All of Us Strangers” on the big screen; and this, his one-man performance of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” in which he takes on all nine parts.

The last played London’s West End, and also streamed in cinemas, courtesy of NT Live, and has now come to town where we get to see Scott’s amazing tour de force in person. Scott actually trod the boards in New York in 2006 with a supporting role in David Hare’s “The Vertical Hour” with Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy in their respective Broadway debuts but now he’s very much center stage. 

Adapter Simon Stephen, director Sam Yates, and designer Rosanna Vize all share co-creator credit with Scott himself, and in all, they’ve done a masterful job of distilling the action to the concept at hand. Though it’s clear things have been updated from the 19th century, the names have been Anglicized --Mikhail Astrov, the doctor, is called Michael, Marina the nanny is Maureen, Waffles is called Liam, Yelena is Helena and so on -- and all the accents are Irish, “Vanya”is in essence scrupulously faithful to its source. The most blatant alteration is Helena’s elderly pompous husband Alexander is now a filmmaker rather than a retired professor. 

So, too, there are some 20th century music cues.There is a sprinkling of f-words, a revision that even David Mamet, never one to shy away from an expletive, eschewed in his excellent adaptation of decades ago.

Otherwise, Chekhov is treated with due reverence, and the adaptation seems far more authentic than many other “Vanyas” we’ve had of late, including last season’s starry revival at Lincoln Center. 

Scott morphs effortlessly from character to character, sometimes leaving the stage through an upstage door to emerge two seconds later as with a different persona. And sometimes just changing position, or throwing his voice like a deft ventriloquist.

Much of Scott’s delivery is in a naturalistically quiet, conversational tone, requiring us to listen intently,  though he rises to dramatic heights in the scene of Vanya’s violent outburst. 

Which is not to say that there isn't an occasional confusion as to who is speaking even with a minimal use of props that sometimes help with character identification. Vanya initially wears shades. Michael compulsively bounces a ball. Sonia, Alexander’s daughter, plays with a cloth. Helena fiddles with her necklace. But more often everything is accomplished purely with body language and vocal delivery.

Still and all, a familiarity with "Uncle Vanya" makes a richer experience, and if you plan to see it, I would bone up on the play. (Helpfully, there are several superb productions on YouTube.)

Fabulous as Scott is, I won’t pretend that there weren’t moments I longed for a full cast but Scott’s dexterity and skill are more than compensation. So, too, his assumption of all the roles makes clear the commonality of their loneliness and sense of unfulfillment. 

Vize’s set gives Scott ample playing space, but one not rooted in a specific time or place: a table, some chairs, a swing (favored by Helena), a player piano (poignantly used to invoke the memory of Vanya’s late sister who had been married to Alexander before Helena). 

(Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher Street, vanyaonstage.com, through May 11)

Photo by Julieta Cervantes: Andrew Scott

Ghosts (LIncoln Center Theater)

By Harry Forbes

The first few minutes of director Jack O’Brien’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s once controversial and still provocative 1881 classic had me bracing for my second high concept deconstruction ot the week; the other being Rebecca Frecknall’s defiantly untraditional “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

For at the start of “Ghosts,” the actors shuffle out on stage in street clothes, and casually begin to mumble the first lines of the play. Then again but in a more outgoing manner. And then again until, presto, the lighting changes, and we’re suddenly “in” the play proper with the rest proving itself nicely conventional after all. Why the play needed that prologue, I still haven’t the foggiest notion, but no matter. 

As it happens, I had recently rewatched the 1987 BBC version directed by Elijah Moshinksy with a knockout cast including Judi Dench, Michael Gambon, Freddie Jones, Kenneth Branagh, and Natasha Richardson, and feared this couldn’t measure up by half. But happy to report that O’Brien’s sturdy staging holds its own. And Irish playwright Mark O’Rowe’s adaptation -- first done at the Abbey Theatre a couple of years ago -- is an exemplary one.

The cast here is excellent across the board. Lily Rabe is predictably compelling as the wealthy widow Mrs. Alving who lives on an island off the coast of Norway, and who is about to have an orphanage dedicated to the memory of her late husband. This coincides with the return of her long-absent and now mysteriously enervated son Oswald (Levon Hawke), and a visit from an old family friend Pastor Manders (Billy Crudup) who will officiate at the impending ceremony. Mrs. Alving has lived alone in the house with her housekeeper Regina (Ella Beatty) whose ne’er-do-well father Engstrand (Hamish Linklater) is the orphanage carpenter who wants Regina to return to him and help start some sort of hostel for visiting sailors. 

Into this basic setup, revelations soon abound, in the standard Ibsen way, and without giving any spoilers, as the play is arguably not so well known as some of his other works, suffice to say that incest, venereal disease, infidelity, substance abuse, debauchery, euthanasia,  and blackmail are all part of the whole, as well as all around disparaging of conventional morality. The Manders character  is the self proclaimed moral compass of all that unfolds. 

Rabe’s dry and acerbic delivery makes all her lines land sharply, and Crudup proves an expert sparring partner in Mrs. Alving’s scenes with the sanctimonious Manders. Linklater skillfully walks the line between earnest sincerity and fawning calculation, particularly in his dealings with Manders.  Relative newcomers Hawke and Beatty are excellent, and though I wouldn’t normally mention it, they are perhaps both early enough along in their careers to point out that Hawke is the son of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman; and Beatty, the daughter of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening. They’ve each learned -- or inherited -- their crafts impressively.

Hawke plays his enigmatic part well, and convincingly rises to the high drama of his final scene with Rabe. Beatty is likable and unsentimental when she has to show her mettle.

John Lee Beatty’s simple set establishes the locale beautifully, aided by Japhy Weidenman’s atmospheric lighting, and Scott Lehrer and Mark Bennett’s rain-dominated sound design. A mid-play catastrophic event is particularly well handled by all. Jess Goldstein’s period costumes likewise add to the verisimilitude of the action.

The play runs one hour and 50 minutes without an interval, and rivets your attention throughout.

(Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse; lct.org; through April 26)

Photo by Jeremy Daniel: (l.-r.) Lily Rabe, Billy Crudup