Eliana Willis

Our guide to plays and musicals coming to New York stages and a few last-chance picks of shows that are about to close. Our reviews of open shows are at nytimes.com/reviews/theater.Previews & Openings‘CHEKHOV/TOLSTOY: LOVE STORIES’ at Theater Row (in previews; opens on Feb. 10). Will two great Russians’ tales taste great together? The Mint Theater continues its relationship with the English playwright Miles Malleson, staging two of his adaptations: Chekhov’s story of an artist and Tolstoy’s tale of a peasant couple. Jonathan Bank and Jane Shaw direct a cast that includes Vinie Burrows. 212-239-6200, minttheater.org‘DANA H.’ at the Vineyard Theater (previews start on Feb. 11; opens on Feb. 25). Lucas Hnath often writes about famous figures — Isaac Newton, Walt Disney, Hillary Clinton. His subject this time: his own mother, Dana Higginbotham. Hnath adapted the play from interviews that were conducted with her about the time she was held captive by a psychiatric patient she ministered to as a chaplain at a mental institution. The Obie winner Diedre O’Connell brings the harrowing true story to life.212-353-0303, vineyardtheatre.org‘DARLING GRENADINE’ at the Roundabout Underground (in previews; opens on Feb. 10). A cocktail of a musical, Daniel Zaitchik’s romantic comedy is about a guy, a girl, a friend, a dog and the ravages of addiction. Adam Kantor plays Harry, a composer, with Emily Walton as the chorus girl he loves and Jay Armstrong Johnson as a loyal friend. Michael Berresse directs. 212-719-1300, roundabouttheatre.org‘HAMLET’ at St. Ann’s Warehouse (in previews; opens on Feb. 10). Hamlet’s inky cloak? Ruth Negga is wearing it now. The Ethiopian-Irish actress plays the prince in Yaël Farber’s production of Shakespeare’s tragedy. “It nearly killed me,” she told The New York Times, describing an earlier run. Guess there’s nothing like a Dane. With Aoife Duffin as Ophelia. 718-254-8779, stannswarehouse.org‘THE HEADLANDS’ at the Claire Tow Theater (previews start on Feb. 8; opens on Feb. 24). A writer of puzzle-box plays, Christopher Chen (“Caught,” “Passage”) unspools a new mystery for LCT3. In this detective drama, directed by Knud Adams, a grown son, Henry (Aaron Yoo), pieces together memories to try to solve the murder of his father (Johnny Wu). Laura Kai Chen portrays Henry’s mother in the past; Mia Katigbak, his present one. 212-239-6200, lct3.org[embedded content]‘HOT WING KING’ at the Pershing Square Signature Center (previews start on Feb. 11; opens on March 1). A saucy comedy, Katori Hall’s new play, part of her Signature Theater residency, unfolds during the Hot Wang Festival in Memphis, with family and romantic conflict cooking alongside the chicken. Steve H. Broadnax III directs a cast that includes Toussaint Jeanlouis and Korey Jackson. 212-244-7529, signaturetheatre.org[Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead.]‘THE PERPLEXED’ at New York City Center Stage I (previews start on Feb. 11; opens on March 3). Before Richard Greenberg goes to the ballgame with the Broadway revival of “Take Me Out,” he premieres this uptown comedy about two families, alike in indignity, and the wedding that unites them. For Manhattan Theater Club, Lynne Meadow directs a cast that includes Margaret Colin and Frank Wood. 212-581-1212, nycitycenter.org‘72 MILES TO GO …’ at the Laura Pels Theater at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theater (previews start on Feb. 13; opens on March 10). When Anita is deported — from Tucson, Ariz., to Nogales, Mexico — family life goes on with and without her. Hilary Bettis’s border-crossing, decade-spanning drama stars Maria Elena Ramirez as Anita, with Triney Sandoval, Tyler Alvarez, Jacqueline Guillén and Bobby Moreno. Jo Bonney directs. 212-719-1300, roundabouttheatre.org‘SIX’ at the Brooks Atkinson Theater (previews start on Feb. 13; opens on March 12). In a time before marriage counseling and no-fault divorce, the much-married Henry VIII racked up six wives. And in this rock musical by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, they come together to debate who had it worst. “‘Six’ delivers pure entertainment throughout its headlong 80 minutes,” Jesse Green wrote of the Chicago production last summer. 877-250-2929, sixonbroadway.com‘THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN’ at Abrons Arts Center (previews start on Feb. 8; opens on Feb. 26). Can the 1960 Meredith Willson musical about a Titanic survivor float? The book writer Dick Scanlan’s update for the Transport Group pushes the show toward the actual history of the lifeboat queen Margaret Tobin Brown, played here by Beth Malone. Kathleen Marshall directs and choreographs the show’s Off Broadway premiere. 866-811-4111, transportgroup.orgLast Chance‘AMERICAN UTOPIA’ at the Hudson Theater (closes on Feb. 16). A knockout concert and an occasional meditation on civics and community, David Byrne’s musical theater experience, choreographed by Annie-B Parson, drops its chain curtain for the final time. The erstwhile Talking Head frontman’s show, Ben Brantley wrote, “repositions a onetime rebel as a reflective elder statesman, offering cozy cosmic wisdom.” 855-801-5876, americanutopiabroadway.com‘TIMON OF ATHENS’ at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center (closes on Feb. 9). Fashioned for this age of inequality, Simon Godwin’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s (and Thomas Middleton’s) vexed semitragedy ends its run. Starring Kathryn Hunter as a plutocrat who goes broke, the production adds in fragments from other Shakespeare plays, plus a sonnet. Jesse Green called it an “energetic and somewhat Frankensteined revival.” 866-811-4111, tfana.org More

Where would plays go if they died? I could imagine “A Streetcar Named Desire” frolicking with “Mother Courage” in the Elysian fields, while David Mamet’s recent works would most likely be getting toasty in the underworld.But what about those that weren’t good enough for heaven, but not bad enough to deserve hell? If there is a purgatory for them, that’s surely where Tom Dulack’s “Paradise Lost” will reside.The play is inspired by John Milton’s epic poem imagining a history before history, with God and his angels waging a battle for heaven and, eventually, for the souls of Adam and Eve. But unlike Milton’s work, this is neither epic nor particularly poetic.We all know how the story went: Eve couldn’t resist the forbidden fruit, Adam followed her lead, and humanity ended up destined to feel shame and die. But Milton evoked complex inner worlds for his characters. “The mind is its own place,” he wrote, “and in itself, can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.”In the Fellowship for Performing Arts production at Theater Row, Dulack’s paradise is reduced to pure plot.Banished from heaven, Lucifer (David Andrew Macdonald, with the gravitas of George C. Scott) and Beelzebub (Lou Liberatore, like a villainous Disney sidekick) scheme over how to ruin God’s plans.The delicious opening scene is made all the better when Alison Fraser’s Sin arrives, dressed as Lady Gaga on her way to prom. (Sydney Maresca did the imaginative costumes, which include a skirt made of hanging intestines for Sin.)The idea that villains have all the fun comes to life when Adam (Robbie Simpson) and Eve (Marina Shay) show up, to name creatures, talk about angels and praise creation. They play the first man and woman as wide-eyed blank canvases — childlike, but without the playfulness.They mostly share scenes with the archangel Gabriel (Mel Johnson Jr.) who reveals plot points we know by heart, making for quite a laborious experience. Scenes in Eden feel more lifeless than joyful in this production by a company dedicated to “producing theater from a Christian worldview to engage a diverse audience.”It’s in the especially dull moments that the eye wanders to Harry Feiner’s detailed set design, his Botticelli trees in beautiful contrast with John Narun’s rich projections. Nighttime scenes, where we watch Adam and Eve sleep, are given depth by Phil Monat’s lighting, which through its soft hues suggests divine protection.The director, Michael Parva, doesn’t stray from the flat tone of the script, giving “Paradise Lost” the feel of a school production that students were forced to attend.Paradise LostThrough March 1 at Theater Row, Manhattan; 212-239-6200, fpatheatre.com. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. More

PARIS — Can you admire a stage production if its director’s choices hardly register? In France, where directorial vision is generally considered the driving force in theater, it’s a conundrum.By local standards, the Comédie-Française debut of “Angels in America,” Tony Kushner’s epic play about the AIDS crisis in the United States, is a curious success. Onstage, a chorus of voices — including both the actors’ and the playwright’s — converge with clarity yet also seem unfiltered, as if the director had taken a back seat.Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise: The director, Arnaud Desplechin, whose background is in film, is essentially new to theater. Although he has released a dozen highly individual screen dramas since the early 1990s — including “A Christmas Tale” and last year’s “Oh Mercy!” — “Angels in America” is only his second project for the stage after a rather staid 2015 production of August Strindberg’s “Father,” also for the Comédie-Française.With its modern setting and sprawling story lines, “Angels in America” was always going to look different from “Father,” which relied on period costumes and static sets. Still, Desplechin’s reading of Kushner’s play is similarly literal. When characters wander around New York City, the city’s skyline, Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge appear in graceless video projections. As soon as the action moves inside someone’s home, walls are dutifully wheeled in.Desplechin has little instinct for theater’s visual shortcuts and never quite finds an overall concept to tie the production together. Even the play’s fantastical apparitions don’t spark his imagination. In case the audience doesn’t realize there are angels in Kushner’s America, Desplechin spells it out: Florence Viala is lowered from the ceiling while wearing a long white robe and unwieldy wings.Add to that an abridged text, and it feels a little like watching a CliffsNotes version. Kushner’s play — in two parts, “Millennium Approaches” and “Perestroika” — typically runs to nearly eight hours. Under the Comédie-Française’s rotating repertoire system, however, productions are limited to three hours to allow for quick turnover. And instead of staging the diptych over two days, Desplechin has condensed it into one evening.From a storytelling perspective, it works. The pace precludes boredom, and the loss of Kushner’s digressions about American history won’t be felt too keenly by French viewers.The Comédie-Française is also the right environment for Desplechin’s self-effacing approach to stage direction. For much of the company’s history, directors played second fiddle to playwrights and actors. While stars of the field, including Thomas Ostermeier and Ivo van Hove, have made their house debuts in recent years, “Angels in America” harks back to a model that has its merits.For starters, it may afford the cast greater freedom: They bring a sense of individual spontaneity to the protagonists’ inner lives and contradictions. As Joe, the closeted gay Mormon, Christophe Montenez is oblivious to his own pain and that of others, including his wife, Harper (Jennifer Decker, who veers between childlike torpor and lucidity). The verbal sparring between the hateful Roy Cohn (Michel Vuillermoz, on blistering form), who hides his AIDS diagnosis, and his gay nurse, Belize (Gaël Kalimindi), isn’t just brutal: Somehow, it carves a space for empathy.Most of the characters are frustratingly complex rather than likable, and morality is far from black and white in their world. “Angels in America” paints a murkier reality, and if nothing else, Desplechin proves that the play deserves a spot in the hallowed repertoire of the Comédie-Française.While the treatment of Kushner’s “gay fantasia” remains fairly conventional, other French directors are taking more radical cues from the L.G.B.T.Q. world. Two productions currently playing in Paris — Johanny Bert’s “Hen” and Joël Pommerat’s “Tales and Legends” (“Contes et légendes”) — take gender fluidity as a starting point to bring unsettling creatures to the stage: a shape-shifting puppet, and humanoids that may be just a little too friendly.The acclaimed Pommerat, who returns to theater for the first time since his runaway 2015 hit, “Ça ira (1) Fin de Louis” (which translates roughly as “It Will Be Fine (1) End of Louis”) can’t be accused of lacking a directorial stamp. The shadowy aesthetic and self-contained vignettes of “Tales and Legends,” which had its premiere at the Théâtre de Nanterre-Amandiers, are unmistakably his, yet he also explores intriguing new ground. In the production’s world, children grow up alongside robots who act as their companions and learning aids.The result is futuristic and eerily intimate. Teenagers become highly attached to these “artificial people” and can’t let them go when adulthood nears. Flickers of emotion pass across the humanoids’ faces. And Pommerat adds another layer of illusion to these stories through the casting, since nearly all of the roles — humans and robots, adults and children — are played by adult women.Their transformation into boys is especially impressive, and allows “Tales and Legends” to take on the social roots of male violence with sensitivity.In one scene, a teacher tries to “reprogram” a group of teenagers into warriors by goading them to be bolder and angrier. Yet the audience knows he’s addressing female actors, fostering critical distance. Much like the robots, who can turn male or female at the flick of a switch, the episode shows gender stereotypes for the performance they are.Bert’s “Hen” achieves the same result without a single human actor. Presented on the small stage of Le Mouffetard, a venue specializing in puppetry, it is a witty, playful one-puppet cabaret performance. Its star character is named after a gender-neutral Swedish pronoun, and their bald head (save for a thin ponytail) is alternately attached to a feminine or masculine body from one number to the next.The distance that puppetry creates from real bodies makes it ideal to defuse any tension around sexuality, and “Hen” is painstakingly articulated by two puppeteers (Bert is one of them) who remain hidden in black clothes. Bert also sings the musical numbers, whose lyrics, while uneven, are often amusingly, bluntly sexual. There is a “Clitoris Tango,” an army of dildos of all shapes and sizes, and even a handful of introspective moments that serve to lend the character depth.Gender fluidity in “Hen” mostly means seesawing between extremes, with the puppet moving from hyper-feminine to muscleman looks, and some of the political commentary feels didactic. Still, on the night I attended, the young audience included a class of high school students who guffawed in disbelief throughout, before giving the performers a standing ovation.Sex education classes are so passé: Just take teenagers to see “Hen,” and throw in “Tales and Legends.”Angels in America. Directed by Arnaud Desplechin. Comédie-Française, through March 27.Contes et légendes. Directed by Joël Pommerat. Nanterre-Amandiers, through Feb. 16.Hen. Directed by Johanny Bert. Le Mouffetard — Théâtre des arts de la marionnette, through Feb. 8. More