Mrs. Warren’s Profession (Roundabout Theatre Company)

By Harry Forbes

As Mrs. Kitty Warren, Cherry Jones cuts a fine figure of a Victorian madam – even if her Cockney accent is a little dodgy – in Doug Hughes’ generally fine production of George Bernard Shaw’s once scandalous – and still provocative – play about the repression of women in Victorian society, and the sociological and financial circumstances that might push a decent woman into prostitution.

Sally Hawkins – best known here for her intentionally grating heroine in Mike Leigh’s film “Happy-Go-Lucky” – is her Cambridge-educated daughter Vivie. She talks so fast, though, that her lines are sometimes difficult to hear.

But she grows in strength (and verbal clarity) as her strong-willed character, learning the truth about Kitty's brothels, determines to break free of her mother and the men pursuing her.

Mark Harelik is particularly on the mark as one of the latter, Sir George Crofts, Mrs. Warren’s smarmy business partner who confidently tries to woo Vivie away from Frank (Adam Driver), son of the local rector (a solid Michael Siberry) who has some secrets of his own. Reliable Edward Hibbert makes a fine Mr. Praed.

Hughes’ staging is commendably ungimmicky, and he keeps the play – like much of Shaw, on the talky side – moving at a decent clip, even if he pitches the play’s confrontation scenes sometimes too high. The mother-daughter shouting match at the end is the most egregious example of that.

Catherine Zuber’s lovely costumes, including the sumptuously red number Jones wears upon her entrance, and Scott Pask’s multiple realistic sets, continually please the eye.

(American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St., 212-719-1300 or www.roundabouttheatre.org)

The Pitman Painters (Manhattan Theatre Club)

By Harry Forbes

The making of art can sometimes make awfully good theater. Last season’s Mark Rothko drama, “Red,” proved that point, if occasionally on the talky side. And I’m pleased to report that “The Pitmen Painters” turns out to be an even more accessible look at the creative process.

Lee Hall, the writer of “Billy Elliot,” explores another aspect of the Northern England mining country, this time dramatizing the true story of the Northumberland miners who, breaking the stereotypical mold, became painters of some repute and were known as the Ashington Group. And their first exhibition was the first such of working class artists in Britain.

Hall begins in 1934 with art instructor Robert Lyon (Ian Kelly) vainly attempting to teach a traditional art course to the rough hewn Ashington men who have elected to educate themselves on art appreciation. Da Vinci and Michelangelo hold little interest to the men, so Lyon, in frustration, suggests they try their hands with a brush and canvas themselves.

Paintings of mine-related activity give way to other themes with growing expertise and widening horizons. There’s crusty George Brown (Deka Walmsley), the head of the group, Harry Wilson (Michael Hodgson), a socialist dental technician, Jimmy Floyd (David Whitaker), a character known as Young Lad (Brian Lonsdale), and the miner with the most promise, Oliver Kilbourn (an outstanding Christopher Connel) who, though this is an ensemble work, is the nearest to what would be considered the central character.

Two female characters add variety to what could have been an all-male talkfest. There’s Phillippa Wilson as Helen Sutherland, an empathetic patron of the arts who wants to sponsor Oliver, and Susan Parks (Lisa McGrillis), a no-nonsense art study model who momentarily upsets the men’s equanimity. All are superb (and indeed have been playing these roles off and on for three years). Lonsdale doubles most impressively as the Young Lad with a heavy Yorkshire accent and artist Ben Nicholson with a posh upper crust one.

Hall’s play – inspired by a book by William Feaver --is never static and he cleverly meshes the artistic and sociological elements. Under Max Roberts’ direction, moves fluidly, as the action spans through 1947.

Gary McCann’s period costumes and scenic design – including helpful projections of the men’s work on three overhead screens – and Douglas Kuhrt’s lighting add pleasing visual interest.

(Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47 Street, 212-239-6200 or www.Telecharge.com)

Brief Encounter (Roundabout Theatre Company)

By Harry Forbes

Having seen the Kneehigh Theatre’s highly imaginative, impressionistic take on the classic Noel Coward/David Lean film in London, I feared that its transfer to these shores – particularly at a large house like Studio 54 – would result in a loss of the charm and authenticity of the British mounting.

The recreation of a 1930s British cinema with cast members doubling as audience buskers and ushers, serenading the patrons, and then assuming parts in the story is, in fact, slightly diminished simply given the size of the theatre – by all accounts, not a problem at the more intimate St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn last year – but thankfully, in every other respect, the impact of this lovely production is undiminished.

Despite the novelty of the multi-media staging – characters stepping out of a black and white movie screen, breaking into song and stylized movement -- and the occasional slapstick (augmenting Coward’s original light moments), this isn’t meant to be a send-up of the film like that other British import, “The 39 Steps.”

The central love story here – a housewife and a doctor (both married) meeting in a train station when he removes a bit of grit from her eye, and in that and subsequent meetings falling more deeply in love, while grappling with increasing guilt – is played with utmost seriousness. Hannah Yelland and Tristan Sturrock as lovers Laura and Alec are as repressed and tenderly impassioned as Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in the film.

Director Emma Rice (artistic director of Kneehigh) has adapted the film script – itself taken from Coward’s one-act “Still Life,” one of the playlets comprising his three-evening “Tonight at 8:30” anthology – and done so in a way that I think would have pleased Coward very much. Her work doesn’t distort the source material, in the way of, say, Ivo van Hove’s bizarre deconstruction of “The Little Foxes” at New York Theatre Workshop, but enhances it cleverly and movingly.

In fact, with crashing waves and symbolically liberating water projected on the drop, and a pulsating musical score, the romance is heightened to the nth degree.

A cast of merely nine players – many doubling – does stellar work here, including Annette McLaughlin as the refreshment center barmaid Myrtle, Joseph Alessi as amorous ticket taker Albert, and Dorothy Atkinson and Gabriel Ebert as young lovers waitress Beryl and porter Stanley.

The use of music – all Coward lyrics but, in some instances, excellent new tunes by Stu Barker – provides amusing and poignant counterpoint to the action. A gorgeous rendition of “Go Slow, Johnny” accompanies an unconsummated tryst between Alec and Laura, as they undress after getting soaked in a rowboat, and then chastely resisting their impulses, dress again. That sequence is one of many breathtaking moments.

Neil Murray’s period sets and costumes, Malcolm Rippeth’s mood setting lighting, Simon Baker’s adept use of sound, and Gemma Carrington and Jon Driscoll’s powerful projections enhance this truly unique theatrical experience, one that should not be missed.

(Roundabout Theatre Company at Studio 54, 254 West 54th Street, 212-719-1300 or www.roundabouttheatre.org)

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (Twentieth Century Fox)

By Harry Forbes

At the start of Oliver Stone’s sequel to his 1987 “Wall Street,” Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko is being released from prison in 2001 having served eight years time for securities fraud and insider trading. Fast forward to 2008, and a variant of his iconic motto from the first film -- “greed is good” -- is now the subject of a best-selling book, "Is Greed Good?"

But Gekko is no longer a player in the financial system that brought him down. When young proprietary trader Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf) -- who just happens to be dating Gekko’s estranged daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan) -- turns to Gekko for guidance, after the death of Jake’s boss and mentor Louis Zabel (Frank Langella), Gekko agrees to help Jake.

In return, he wants Jake to help bring about a rapprochement with Winnie who blames her father for the death of her brother. Having turned her back on her father’s world, she works as a reporter for a leftist Web site. Though Jake is, of course, in the same business as Gekko, what compensates in Winnie’s eyes is Jake’s genuine zeal for alternative energy.

Jake is wooed by ruthless investment banker Bretton James (James Brolin) whose machinations led to the plummeting of stocks of Keller Zabel Investments and subsequent easy takeover by the investment bank Churchill Schwartz of which James is a partner.

Nonetheless, Jake allows himself to be momentarily swayed from his course of vengeance on James whom he holds responsible for Zabel's death, and joins James’ team. Meanwhile, you just know Gekko is planning to get back to his power broker position.

Douglas gives another dynamic performance, even if this is a mellower – and, in some respects, nicer -- Gekko than in the first film. LaBeouf makes an empathetic protagonist and we follow the events of the film through his eyes. Mulligan – channeling Samantha Morton’s brand of moist vulnerability – shows another facet of her talent after her Oscar-nominated turn in “An Education” with a plausible American accent, too.

Brolin – his second film of the week (after Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger”) – skillfully blends charm and ruthlessness.

Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff’s script includes references to the banking crisis of a couple of years ago, the results of deregulation, but it’s the human dynamic among Gekko, Winnie and Jake that predominates.

This is one of those films where New York looks absolutely splendid, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Central Park Zoo, and iconic skyline really sparkling.

(The film is rated PG-13 for brief strong language and thematic elements.)

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Sony Pictures Classics)

By Harry Forbes

Spiritualism is bunk, and life is nothing but random luck and misfortune, followed by nothingness. Those are the not surprising underlying themes in this latest cinematic permutation of Woody Allen’s nihilistic world view. But until the end of the film, he’s fairly light-handed about it, and thematic material aside, “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” is one of the writer-director’s most consistently enjoyable films.

Returning to the London setting of “Match Point” and “Scoop,” Allen’s story focuses on two couples Alfie and Helena (Anthony Hopkins and Gemma Jones) and Roy and Sally (Josh Brolin and Naomi Watts). The wealthy Alfie keenly senses the passage of time and his youth and perhaps the onset of the grim reaper (the symbolic titular figure).

He has left Helena to marry a spirited but common call girl (Lucy Punch). Roy’s a novelist who’s failed to replicate the success of his first book, and has gone to seed, while Sally’s mother (Helena) pays their bills.

Sally, daughter of Alfie and Helena, desperate to have a child and fed up with Roy’s inertia, develops a crush on her gallery owner boss (Antonio Banderas), while Roy pines for the attractive woman (the fetching Frieda Pinto) he watches from his window across the alley.

In her loneliness and confusion, Helena becomes smitten with Jonathan (Roger Ashton-Griffiths) the rotund owner of an occult bookshop. But all are, in one way or another, ill-matched to the people they desire, and are deluding themselves by thinking otherwise.

Allen has assembled a spot-on cast, all of whom deliver some of their finest work, as actors generally do in an Allen film. Watts is particularly outstanding as the frustrated wife pinning her goals on something unattainable. The scene where she finally tries to confess her pent-up feelings to Banderas is a highpoint.

Versatile Brolin, who put on considerable weight for the role, demonstrates anew what an adept character actor he is.

PBS “Masterpiece Theatre” diehards will fondly recall Jones as “The Duchess of Duke Street,” and will relish seeing her all these years later in such a meaty screen part. And speaking of PBS, “Upstairs Downstairs” alumna Pauline Collins plays the charlatan fortune teller to whom the vulnerable Helena turns when she’s abandoned by her husband.

But it’s almost unfair to single out anyone, as the ensemble cast is so uniformly excellent.

Allen uses some of his trademark narration here, which I’ve sometimes felt has been a lazy substitute for dialogue, but this script is solidly constructed, and gives his actors a solid foundation. The plot consistently holds your interest with a delectable O. Henry-like twist late in the film.

(Rated R by the MPAA for some language.)

The Town (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Ben Affleck returns to the same gritty Boston milieu with which he found success as a director in 2007’s “Gone Baby Gone” in “The Town,” a gripping action-drama and love story.

This time he also plays the lead, and he impresses mightily on both counts, much like Clint Eastwood whose mantle Affleck seems poised to inherit.

He plays Doug MacRay, the leader of a gang of bank robbers from Boston’s notorious Charlestown neighborhood which, we are told, has spawned more bank and armored car robbers than anywhere in the country. In the opening scenes, he and his partner and closest friend, Jem (Jeremy Renner from “The Hurt Locker”) and their accomplices break into a bank disguised in skeleton suits, terrorize the workers and leave with cash and the bank manager Claire (an especially fine Rebecca Hall) as temporary hostage, though they soon set her free.

Later, loose canon Jem learns Claire lives nearby and fears she may finger them and suggests he might permanently silence her, so Doug – not wanting to add murder to their crimes -- contrives to watch her himself. In short order they fall in love, and Doug sees a way out of his dead-end life, and the chance he blew years before when he was a promising hockey player.

Meanwhile, the gang is pursued by FBI agent Frawley (Jon Hamm) who, though he knows the identities of the masked criminals repeatedly fails to nail them.

The sharp script, co-written by Peter Craig, Affleck, and Aaron Stockard was based on Chuck Hogan’s 2004 novel, “Prince of Thieves.” Affleck filmed the story on location with locals taking parts, but the authenticity of the entire cast is most impressive.

There are many compelling scenes including one almost worthy of Hitchcock in which Jem happens upon Doug and Claire at an outdoor café and learns that Doug has been secretly dating her. But Doug knows that Claire saw Jem’s tattoo on the back of his neck during the robbery, and worries that if Jem turns his head, Claire will see it.

The relationship between Doug and Claire is beautifully limned by Affleck and Hall, though the love story aspects are balanced by the extremely violent – but not, I think, gratuitous -- heist scenes.

Renner, a sort of modern-day James Cagney, makes a compelling counterpart for Affleck. His Jem has served nine years in prison and is determined never to go back. He’s like a brother to Doug, further bound to him by Doug’s off-again, on-again relationship with his sister Krista (Blake Lively) who holds a torch for Doug.

Hamm gives a polished performance as the relentless agent, though perhaps through no fault of his own, it’s difficult to forget his “Mad Men” character, Don Draper. Chris Cooper is marvelous as Doug’s father, doing time at Walpole’s maximum security prison. He has only has one scene, but he makes it count. And Pete Postlethwaite is aptly frightening as a crime kingpin with a florist business.

The action scenes – car chases through the Beantown streets, shootouts, narrow escapes – are all excitingly done, but it’s the human story that stays with you after.

“No matter how much you change, you still have to pay the price for what you’ve done” someone says late in the film, underscoring the movie's redemptive theme. But "The Town" is as much about the validation of Ben Affleck’s impressive talent as that of the character he so memorably portrays here.

(The film has been rated R by the MPAA for strong violence, pervasive language, some sexuality and drug use.)

Going the Distance (New Line Cinema)

By Harry Forbes

It’s difficult not to like Drew Barrymore even under the worst of circumstances – and I’m sorry to say that “Going the Distance,” a lumbering romantic comedy considerably short of both descriptors, is pretty much the worst of circumstances – but she stretches our tolerance to the limit here.

She plays 30-something aspiring reporter Erin who, during an internship at a New York newspaper, meets mid-level record company guy Garrett played by her real life off-and-on-again real-life beau Justin Long. When her internship ends, and she must return to the west coast, they decide to continue the relationship long distance, staying faithful to each other across the miles.

However his friends, smart-alack co-worker Box (Jason Sudeikis) and sad sack roommate Dan (Charlie Day), with a penchant for sitting on the john with the door wide open, and Erin’s protective sister (Christina Applegate) do everything they can to undermine the relationship, while the couple – whose onscreen chemistry is, sorry to say, pretty much nil – hang tough.

What keeps them going is the hope they’ll eventually be together, but when Erin gets a job offer from the San Francisco Chronicle, their plans threaten to derail.

What truly sabotages the film is the leaden dialogue, with its unremitting sophomoric vulgarity. “We’re not afraid to…hear F-bombs,” Day declares proudly in the press notes. It’s distressing to see Barrymore saddled with a drunk scene in a bar, and yelling at a burly bully “Suck my d--k, bitch,” while being unceremoniously bundled off the premises.

Throughout, Geoff LaTulippe's script runs the gamut from soppy sentiment to the crudest of language. The film’s nadir finds Erin and Garrett engaging in split screen bi-coastal phone sex, a far cry from Doris Day and Rock Hudson’s truly witty bathtub repartee in “Pillow Talk” with a similar split screen presentation. The scene is even more offensive than Applegate’s character catching the couple (including a bare-assed Long) having sex on her dining room table.

Like Barrymore, Long is a basically likable presence, and certainly Sudeikis, Day, and Applegate are pros, but they’re fighting a losing battle with the material, which continually undermines what I presume is meant to be, at heart, a sweet romance.

In fact, wit is the crucial element that’s entirely absent here. In the press notes, the producers brag like naughty children about the film’s subversive humor and the freedom for the characters to “talk the way that people really talk.” No one I know!

The proceedings are unremarkably directed by documentary maker Nanette Burstein.

(The movie is rated R by the MPAA for sexual content including dialogue, language throughout, some drug use and brief nudity.)