Broadway Trip Report: May 2026
Just returned from a trip to New York and wanted to check in on the five plays we saw. Three great plays and two stinkers. I'm still licking the wounds from when I trashed "Merrily We Roll Along" a couple of years ago, but I'm back for more. BONUS: I took notes on the comfort of the seating at each theater.
THREE GREAT PLAYS
Maybe Happy Ending - After the first ten minutes, I was afraid I was going to be subjected to a long romcom about two clunky robots falling in love. But it was much more sophisticated, and unfolds in a way that raises a lot of questions about human love and modern technology. I also liked the unique moveable “framing” of the set, which kept things moving. Lots of great twists and turns packed into a relatively short play. (Belasco - reasonably comfortable seating on orchestra aisle.)
Dog Day Afternoon - I love the film - I’ve seen it at least a dozen times - so I was a little trepidatious about this play, given the mixed reviews from critics. But after seeing this play, I’ve learned that the critics are idiots. The play, the cast, the staging, and the script were great. I’ve never seen The Bear in my life, so I had no idea who the lead actors were. But I’m a fan of theirs now. The settings and characters were the same as in the film, but the whole incident was creatively reimagined in this version. Surprisingly little was used from the movie; no mention of Wyoming at all. The audience laughed a lot more than I expected, but that doesn’t necessarily make this version a comedy. (August Wilson Theater - okay seating - row H mezzanine - a bit knee cramped for a 6-footer but not torture.)
Giant - Exactly what a great new Broadway drama should be. Not just John Lithgow, but the whole cast was amazing. So was the script. It was a very interesting look at a complicated writer. Lithgow’s character (real life author Roald Dahl) seemed to be a very prickly but often insightful commentator on controversial issues of the day as well as the personalities of the people around him, until it took a surprisingly dark turn at the end. (Music Box - very comfortable seating - partial view for a few scenes but nothing terrible - two on the orchestra far aisle.)
TWO STINKERS
Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York - Two characters I couldn't care less about, singing endlessly about their own feelings. Little plot and virtually no plot-driven action. I know Christmas songs earn a lot of royalties, but the one in this play was clumsily shoved into the story with a bulldozer and had nothing to do with the rest of the play. A couple of side characters who were crucial to the play were never present. They were mostly on the other side of one-sided telephone calls, so it was hard to get a read on them, aside from all the strong opinions the lead characters sang and talked about. But if you like to watch two very talented singers sing their way through a lot of sometimes disconnected songs, with a lot of sitcom-style jokes to link them together, this might be the play for you. (Longacre - comfortable seating, great view - front row aisle mezzanine.)
Oh Mary - The play that answers the question, “What if a bunch of well-known historical characters were sex-crazed and very often gay and acted like a bunch of lunatics?” If you like cheap naughty jokes, told with wild gestures, loud voices and funny faces … no, even then, your tastes may still be too elevated for this show. A lot of elementary school humor. They also seemed to run out of play after about an hour, so they threw in a bunch of vaudeville at the end to fill it out. I didn’t get what the attraction is. (In fairness, I went to a performance that Maya Rudolph called out of at the last minute, but her understudy did a good job with a pretty impressive Maya Rudolph spin, so I don’t think Rudolph being MIA was a significant factor.) (Lyceum - front row mezzanine - very comfortable with good sightline.)