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A little of the humor in The Play What I Wrote goes a long way; too many inexperienced hands have made Urban Cowboy as mechanical as the famous ride at its center.

Kids haunt three new shows: Antonio Banderas’s younger self, in Nine; a brain-damaged daughter, in < i>A Day in the Death of Joe Egg; and a squawking brat, in Life (x) 3.

Molière’s steamy potboiler Don Juan gets a crude revival; the RSC’s epic treatment of Midnight’s Children is no more comprehensible than the Salman Rushdie novel.

Pulitzer winner Suzan-Lori Parks riffs on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s A, but the letter she really deserves is an F. David Ives returns in top comic form with Polish Joke.

A high-energy musical about the late street artist Keith Haring nevertheless fails to make the case for his work; another new musical takes Proust to its deathly heart.

Director Joe Mantello creates a powerful ensemble for Richard Greenberg’s baseball play, and the shower scenes don’t hurt; Vincent in Brixton delivers an earful.

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."

All the events in Dublin Carol take place offstage, and the characters reveal little of interest about them. Encores! presents a rare misfire, but Schnitzler still pierces the soul.

A revival of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom reaffirms its power; Michael John LaChiusa’s latest is just notes.

Lanford Wilson’s Vietnam-ruined Talley clan seems a little dated in an imperfect revival of Fifth of July; David Lindsay-Abaire’s glibness runs riot in Kimberly Akimbo.