Broadway Bound 

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The silent hulk of a Commodore might as well be called the Commendatore from Don Giovanni — the monster we all remember from the movie version of Amadeus. Sondheim and Weidman show the West raping and ravaging Japan. But the all-Asian cast, helmed by the first-ever Japanese director of a Broadway show, get the satisfaction of taking revenge on their exploitive conquerors, ingesting their technology and building a dominant economic powerhouse.

B.D. Wong is outstanding as the Reciter. But too much of the evening dwells on the provinciality of Japan, scurrying around in panic as the Commodore lies anchored in Tokyo Bay. That leaves too little time to tap into Japan's rich culture, their resilience, and their strength. And too few satiric salvos against the Occident.

Dame Edna: Back With a Vengeance (***) — I had managed to steer almost totally clear of Dame Edna before my first live dose, reading lightly about Australian actor Barry Humphries' creation and skimming exactly one interview with milady. So I enjoyed myself immensely during my first exposure.

The tacky glasses, the silky lavender hair, and the dopey gladiolas were all new to me. These would all probably become less amusing if I had to swallow them nightly. But I love Dame Edna's magnanimous, patronizing cruelty, showered with equal glee upon President Bush and the clueless electorate who keep him in office. Fresh rations of insult were doled out to victims plucked out of the front rows for humiliation and, yes, to those poor old paupers who must content themselves with balcony seats.

Even more adorable was the delight people in the audience took to being insulted by her ladyship. There was a Montel Williams-Jerry Springer crassness to this appetite for public mortification. My favorite segment came when the erstwhile Everage took a young couple onstage and commiserated with them on the impending dissolution of their marriage.

Edna sustained this pretense even after she had the kids phone Mom in New Hampshire and the audience shouted hello to her. TV used to have such zany moments fairly frequently in the old days, so it was welcome to see such frolic finding refuge on Broadway.

A day after Christmas, Edna was still showing motherly concern for President Bush, suggesting gifts that might help him through his struggles. A word-a-day calendar could strengthen the boy's vocabulary. A world atlas could help him master geographical concepts beyond "abroad" and "overseas." Sweet.

'Night, Mother (**1/2) — The last night Jessie Cates spends at home is pretty much like the rest of her life: she makes plans but they don't work out. Before her suicide, she plans to give her mom Thelma a manicure and enjoy a cup of hot cocoa. The cocoa doesn't turn out to be satisfying, and there isn't enough time to do the manicure before Jessie is scheduled to pull the trigger.

Such is life, you say, but Jessie has leaped to the conclusion that nothing will ever work out for her. She wants to get off now before the train proceeds to a worse place. Thelma is horrified, angry, and guilty. Worst of all, she is physically powerless to stop her daughter from carrying out her suicide.

So she must convince Jessie that her life is worth prolonging — supply the reason for living that Jessie herself can't find. Or she must somehow demolish the reason Jessie has found for quitting on life.

Well, perhaps no one reason is sufficient either way. But Jessie's action might have been plausible enough if Edie Falco, of Sopranos fame, had animated her with some sort of mania, impulsiveness or instability. A more steely determination would have helped. Instead there's a gray serenity too rarely pierced by frustration, anger, or passion.

In her Broadway debut as Thelma, British actress Brenda Blethyn's accent wandered from the South to the Midwest and to parts unknown. But when she forgot about sounding American in the heat of the moment, unleashing a mother's primal plea for what was hers — her child! — I felt Blethyn ripping out pieces of my heart.

Maybe this wasn't the right time to revive such a bleak, despairing play. Or maybe back in 1983, playwright Marsha Norman gave Jessie one reason too many for her decision, namely her epilepsy. Watching Falco and Blethyn playing out their battle, I kept hearing a repellent suggestion that an epileptic's life wasn't worth living.

Whatever the reason, this revival gave up the ghost on January 9.

Off-Broadway

Doubt (****) — Cherry Jones is Sister Aloysius and Brian O'Byrne is Father Flynn in a classic struggle at a Catholic school between the Sister's dogmatic conviction and the Father's progressive compassion. Or is that compassion a smokescreen for child molestation? With priestly hanky-panky so much in the headlines these days, we're apt to jump on board the bandwagon with the Sister's suspicions even before there are solid facts powering it forward.