The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is almost too much title for a wispy little musical that hangs on the horns of a dichotomy.

How, I wonder, could one salvage the presently disastrous musical Good Vibrations, which is based on the preexistent songs of the Beach Boys?

At the National Theatre, Trevor Nunn updates Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" with ingenious panache (despite a few lapses).

Seussical; Old Money

In “Master Harold” . . . and the boys, Athol Fugard turns a fox-trot into a haunting allegory of racial equality; Humble Boy has bees in its stylish bonnet.

Try as they might, Catherine Keener and Edward Norton can't set off many sparks in a revival of Lanford Wilson's Burn This; keep an eye on Adam Rapp (well, on his next play, maybe).

John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, a nearly flawless work, suffers not a bit in the transfer to Broadway.

Neil Simon's "The Sunshine Boys," with Klugman and Randall, scores by hitting the comic basics -- insults, old age, New Jersey.

Critic John Simon reviews Frank McGuinness' new play: "The American actors were so good at their Irish that I often lagged behind. The bigger problem, though, was what the play was trying to say."