Outside Mullingar ***

If you are willing to turn off your critical faculties and yield to the skillful manipulations of a master, you can have a good time at John Patrick Shanley's new play at Manhattan Theatre Club. Not for nothing has it been called the Irish "Moonstruck." It too is a rather slight but enjoyable rom-com with a prickly couple at the center. Fortunately Anthony and Rosemary are played by Shanley veteran Brian F. O'Byrne and, in her Broadway debut, Debra Messing, who play well off each other and are joined by two wonderful actors, Peter Maloney and Dearbhla Molloy as Anthony's father and Rosemary's mother. The wisp of a plot involves a spiteful real estate transaction 30 years prior, the alienation between father and son, the loneliness of Irish farm life and a long-smoldering unrequited love. There are some fine set pieces that allow each actor to shine, but for me, a ludicrous revelation in the final scene undid some of the good will the play had earned. John Lee Beatty's set design is topnotch and Catherine Zuber's costumes are fine. Doug Hughes's direction is assured. Running time: 80 minutes, no intermission.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner **

In this stage adaptation of Alan Sillitoe's 1959 story about class in England, now at Atlantic Stage 2, playwright Roy Williams has moved the action to the present and changed the race of the protagonist to black to add an additional level of conflict. This transposition might have worked better if it had been more fully developed. Sheldon Best plays the title character Colin with more stamina than clarity of motivation. The flashbacks that punctuate the play, showing him in short scenes with his parents, best friend, girl and fellow residents of the juvenile facility seemed scatter-shot and did not have cumulative impact. There are several scenes between Colin and Stevens, the social worker who urges him to run in a race against a local private school. Granted that Stevens is supposed to be smarmy, in his portrayal by Todd Weeks he comes across as little more than a buffoon given to bombastic declamation. A general lack of nuance hurts the production. In the strong supporting cast, Zainab Jah, Joshua E. Nelson and Jasmine Cephas Jones stood out. The spare set by Lauren Helpern and projections by Pauline Lu and Paul Piekarz are effective, as are the costumes by Bobby Frederick Tilley II. Leah C. Gardiner directed.  I really wanted to like the play, but even at 80 minutes felt it dragged.

The Tribute Artist ***

If you are not a fan of Charles Busch's brand of female impersonation or of the kind of silliness that is often based on vulgarity, you can skip this play and the rest of this review. If, on the other hand, you enjoy high camp, you'll want to get to 59E59 for his newest play's Primary Stages premiere. To call the plot "convoluted" would be to oversimplify it; "preposterous" is a closer fit. The characters are Adriana (Cynthia Harris), a dying dowager with a townhouse in Greenwich Village; Jimmy (Busch), a drag queen --- oops, forgive me, celebrity tribute artist -- who stays with Adriana when he is in town; Rita (Busch stalwart Julie Halston), their lesbian friend who is an unsuccessful real estate broker; Christina (Mary Bacon), Adriana's feckless estranged niece; Oliver (Keira Keeley), Christina's teenage son who until recently was Rachel; and Rodney (Jonathan Walker), Adriana's shady long-lost lover. The madness does not reach the inspired level of Busch's "The Divine Sister" and it drags in spots [pun intended] but there are lots of funny lines along the way. Anita Louizos's townhouse living room set is sumptuous, Gregory Gale's costumes are droll, and Katherine Carr's wigs are perfect. Carl Andress, Busch's long-time director, does the honors again here. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes including intermission.

Machinal****

My theatergoing year got off to a very promising start with Roundabout Theatre's dazzling revival of Sophie Treadwell's expressionistic 1928 play. Helen (Rebecca Hall), a woman in her 20s who lives with and supports her unloving widowed mother (Suzanne Bertish), suffers from what used to be called neurasthenia, a kind of mental exhaustion brought on by the stresses of the impersonal, mechanistic, modern urban world. The stylized opening scene, set in the office where Helen works as a stenographer, brilliantly captures the relentless monotony and banality of the workplace. After Helen's older self-absorbed boss (Michael Cumpsty) takes a shine to her, she reluctantly marries him even though she cringes at his touch. When she visits a speakeasy with a friend, she meets a sexy young man (Morgan Spector) and begins an affair. Her powerful attraction to her lover makes her loveless marriage seem ever more intolerable. Complications ensue. Supporting the four excellent leads, 14 actors deftly handle multiple roles. A great deal of the success of the play is owed to its outstanding production design -- Es Devlin's set of beige geometrically etched panels mounted on a large turntable seems to bring us to a new location each time it revolves. It functions almost like one of the characters. When the set turns between scenes, we get fleeting vignettes choreographed by Sam Pinkleton which Jane Cox has dramatically lit by moving horizontal bands of light. The excellent sound design by Matt Tierney underscores the emotions onstage. Michael Krass has costumed the supporting cast in appropriately bleak monochromes. Director Lyndsey Turner has skillfully blended all these elements with brilliant results. Bravo to Roundabout for bringing us this rare treat. Running time: 95 minutes, no intermission.

Disaster! ***

The subtitle "A 70s Disaster Movie Musical" is an accurate description of what this entertaining show at St. Luke's Theatre offers. Imagine a blend of all the disaster movies of that decade rolled into one complete with earthquake, tidal wave, fire, killer bees, rats and sharks and set to the disco music of the period and you've got an inkling of what writers Seth Rudetsky and Jack Plotnick have wrought. Part of the fun is to see how cleverly the lyrics of 70s songs are incorporated into the action. An energetic cast of 15 that includes Rudetsky and the always amusing Mary Testa keeps this ship afloat. Some of the sight gags are inspired and the wait for the next laugh is never long. Josh Iacovelli's set is appropriately cheesy and Brian Hemesath's costumes are hilarious. Plotnick also directed. At 2 hours 5 minutes including intermission, it's a little too much of a good thing.

The Ten Best and Ten Worst Plays I Saw This Year

Here, in alphabetical order, is a list of the ten plays I enjoyed most in 2013:

All in the Timing, Buyer and Cellar, The Explorers Club, Fetch Clay Make Man, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Kinky Boots; Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812; Old Hats, Small Engine Repair, The Winslow Boy

Here, also alphabetically, are the ten plays I enjoyed least this year:

Breakfast at Tiffany's, Bull, Clive, Lying Lessons, The Madrid, The Model Apartment, The Patron Saint of Sea Monsters, Snow Geese, Somewhere Fun, The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin

Plays in italics are still running as of today.

The Night Alive ***

The Atlantic Theater Company continues its role as New York home of contemporary Irish playwrights Martin McDonagh and Conor McPherson (The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Cripple of Inishmaan by the former; Port Authority and Dublin Carol by the latter) with this production of McPherson's latest play, imported from London's Donmar Warehouse and directed by the playwright. We meet five marginal Dubliners -- Tommy (Ciaran Hinds), a man-with-van, divorced and alienated from his children; his needy sidekick Doc (Michael McElhatton), who may be a bit slow; Tommy's disapproving uncle Maurice (Jim Norton), in whose house Tommy rents a room; Aimee (Caoilfhionn Dunne), the prostitute Tommy brings home after rescuing her from a beating; and Kenneth (Brian Gleeseon), her ex-boyfriend/pimp with anger issues. At a very leisurely pace, we are introduced to the first four characters, whose banter is often very funny. We are jolted to attention when the play takes a sudden violent turn with the arrival of Kenneth. Complications arise. The combination of humor, pathos, dread, violence and possible redemption did not blend easily for me. Tommy, Doc and Maurice come across as well-developed characters, but Aimee is underwritten and Kenneth is an enigma. The actors are simply superb; in lesser hands, their roles would be reduced to cliches. Soutra Gilmour's set and costumes are very effective. McPherson seems to be that exceptional playwright who is the best possible director of his own work. The play has much to admire, but I wish it ended one scene sooner. The ending seemed sentimental and unearned. Running time: one hour, 45 minutes; no intermission.