One of the perks of being a theater critic, in those dog days of the season when you find yourself struggling to sit through the latest Chekhov revival or pretentious little comedy about tightly wound New York singles, is the Broadway-musical revival. Yes, you can complain — as I often have — about unimaginative commercial producers who keep recycling surefire classics like Gypsy or Guys and Dolls. But there’s good reason they’re recycled so often: they are surefire — unfailingly entertaining, no matter how uninspired the production, the indomitable high points of a genre that is America’s great contribution to world theater.
