It's as simple as this: If you've got a play called The Heiress, it's absolutely obligatory that whoever assumes the eponymous role is utterly persuasive. Unfortunately, that's not the case at the Walter Kerr.

The next question in any Annie concerns the comic-cruel Miss Hannigan role. This frame, it's the usually divine Katie Finneran. No third Tony seems to be waiting in the wings for the work here -- or perhaps "overwork" is the better word.

Families -- usually described as dysfunctional -- are the meat-and-potatoes of the best (and not infrequently the worst) American dramas. Now consider adding to them the Chekhovian quintet Richard Nelson has introduced.

Austin Pendleton's production of Anton Chekhov's Ivanov at the Classic Stage Company is something of an unsolved puzzle. And that status probably isn't entirely due to Pendleton's direction of a highly competent cast. More likely, it's traceable to the tough challenge posed by the Russian playwright himself.

Charlie weighs in at somewhere between 550 and 600 pounds and conducts his online course in literary criticism and composition lying on his besieged sofa like an Idaho-Mormon-country beached behemoth.

There's a huge difference between sketch-writing and playwriting, but Christopher Durang often seems to have trouble remembering what it is.

Whether singing, dancing or acting, not a man or woman among the ensemble submits less than an effervescent performance. Rivera, who knows every trick in her personal book, gleefully pages through it. Chase is amusingly dastardly.

Maybe that reminder of good parts compensating for the less-than-successful whole -- along with a stageful of singers shining in individual scenes that catch fire -- will and should work for Giant. At the moment, it, sho' 'nuff looks like show enough.

Did August Wilson deliberately place The Piano Lesson in 1936, because that was the same Great Depression year Gone With the Wind was published? Did he intend it as a counter-balance to the version of slavery and its legacy depicted in Margaret Mitchell's best-seller?

Even the best theater craftspersons can't make something from nothing, but give them at least a smattering of palpable elements to work with and it's startling what wonders they perform.