This Week on Stage: Marisa Tomei can't save 'Marie and Bruce', Sutton Foster leads a fantastic 'Anything Goes'

The boards made very few creaks this week. La Cage aux Folles producers revealed the sad news that the musical will close on May 1 after 433 performances and 15 previews. Billy Elliot celebrated its 1,000th show. The four-night-only star-studded (think: Stephen Colbert, Neil Patrick Harris, Patti LuPone, Christina Hendricks, Jon Cryer, and more) New York Philharmonic production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company began at Lincoln Center. And our reviewers saw Marisa Tomei return to off-Broadway in a ho-hum revival beneath her talents and Tony winners Sutton Foster and Joel Grey tap the light fantastic in Anything Goes (known now as The Play that Made Mandi Bierly Cry). Check out the highlights from our reviews below.

Marie and Bruce: EW writer Adam Markovitz gives a C- to this off-Broadway revival of Wallace Shawn’s drama about a married New York couple whose relationship crumbles loudly through lots of poorly articulated, dark dialogue. Even Oscar winner Marisa Tomei and “likable” Frank Whaley couldn’t save the show from its alienating negativity: “Shawn’s wry dirge into a dying relationship,” writes Markovitz, “turns out to have just one note: scorn.”

Anything Goes: “This gorgeously crafted revival is simultaneously sly and sweet,” says EW film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum about the newest version of Cole Porter’s beloved musical. “The gleaming, grown-up, witty, doodad-free production values” make the A-rated production a “deeply satisfying salute to the best traditions of Broadway.”