5 Must-See Shows if You’re in New York This Month

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/theater/5-must-see-shows-in-new-york-in-march-2017.html

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March shows every intention of being more lion than lamb in the New York theater, as a roaring host of new productions churn up tensions between haves and have-nots, smothering mothers and oppressed children, Yanks and Britons. Adding fuel to the wide range of conflicts: a set of rivalrous blue-collar workers, a resentful stoker on an ocean liner and, oh yes, one very angry barber.

SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET You may have been at this cannibal’s banquet before. But have you ever had the occasion to attend it on the intimate terms provided by the Tooting Arts Club? The site-specific production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s masterly and macabre musical, at the Barrow Street Theater, directed by Bill Buckhurst and much feted in its original London incarnation, places the audience in the very midst of the Victorian-era pie shop run by Mrs. Lovett, the title character’s confederate in the related arts of killing and cuisine. Audiences have the option of eating on set before the show (yes, meat pies will be served), which should give a whole new savor to the idea of dinner theater.

Tickets: Thebarrowstreetheater.com

THE GLASS MENAGERIE At last, New York gets to see Sally Field as Tennessee Williams’s great steamroller of a mother, Amanda Wingfield, a role she created to acclaim in Gregory Mosher’s production at the Kennedy Center in Washington in 2004. Don’t expect a carbon copy of that performance, though. This latest revival is directed by Sam Gold (the director of last year’s inspired “Othello,” starring Daniel Craig and David Oyelowo), who has a knack for knocking the stuffing out of upholstered classics. Joe Mantello appears as Amanda’s wayward son, Tom, and Finn Wittrock is the gentleman who comes calling on her fragile daughter, Laura (Madison Ferris).

Tickets: Glassmenagerieonbroadway.com

946: THE AMAZING STORY OF ADOLPHUS TIPS As the head of the enchanting Kneehigh troupe and Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, the British director Emma Rice has specialized in theater so fantastical it seems to levitate, and sometimes literally does. (She was responsible for the airborne lovers in the delightful stage adaptation of “Brief Encounter,” on Broadway in 2010.) Her “946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips,” adapted from Michael Morpurgo’s children’s novel, uses jazz, British music-hall-style pantomime and cunning puppetry to summon coastal England during World War II, where residents are evacuated for a D-Day rehearsal by the Allied Forces, and a 12-year-old named Lily befriends an American G.I. The word is that Lily’s cat (named Tips) is a serious scene stealer.

Tickets: Stannswarehouse.org

SWEAT As in the moisture that arises from hard work and cold anxiety. The title reflects the tension in this offering from the boldly topical dramatist Lynn Nottage, who won a Pulitzer Prize for chronicling the price of survival in a Congolese brothel in “Ruined” (2009). Here she ventures into a Pennsylvania steel town for a portrait of working-class strife in an era when jobs are scarce, alliances are strained and racial frictions run high. Previously seen at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Public Theater in New York, “Sweat” moves to Broadway with most of its highly praised ensemble intact. Kate Whoriskey, who teamed with Ms. Nottage for “Ruined,” is the director.

Tickets: Sweatbroadway.com

THE HAIRY APE One of the American theater’s most unforgettable big palookas is being reincarnated by Bobby Cannavale — who has a sterling track record for acting tough and aggrieved – in the British director Richard Jones’s reimagining of this Eugene O’Neill Expressionist classic from the 1920s. Staged in an earlier version at the Old Vic Theater in London, this production was hailed for the mesmerizing spectacle and visceral charge it brought to O’Neill’s tale of a ship stoker and the society girl who makes him doubt his very humanness. The designers Stewart Laing (set) and Mimi Jordan Sherin (lighting) have reconceived their acclaimed work for the Old Vic version in a hallowed hall of the Park Avenue Armory, not the sort of place the title character would ever feel comfortable.

Tickets: Armoryonpark.org