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Curtains looks like a rearguard action from an establishment on the run. This backstage murder mystery from John Kander and the late Fred Ebb (with libretto by Rupert ­Holmes, based on one by the late Peter Stone) has a pleasant score, a couple of solid jokes, and some fine performances—including one from Debra Monk, who, as the brassy producer of the show-within-the-show, overcomes having to say lines like “Aaron and Georgia, you keep writing tunes that bounce; Oscar, you keep writing checks that don’t.” Most years, a musical that commits no graver sins would be welcome. But in 2007, I found myself sitting there wondering why I was sitting there watching this in 2007. So really: Another Broadway musical, with big sets and lots of costumes, about Broadway musicals? The detective (David Hyde Pierce, amiable as ever) loves show people. Wouldn’t you know it, everyone loves show people. (They sing about it, in a song called “Show People.”) The Drowsy Chaperone proved there’s life left in this genre if you treat it with enough comic brilliance. If you don’t, it tends to look like you’re writing about Broadway because that’s the one subject a Broadway audience has self-selected itself to be interested in: I think the term for this is narcissism. — Jeremy McCarter

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New York Magazine Reviews

• Jeremy McCarter's Full Review (4/2/07)