The line between anger and rage is difficult to pinpoint, but it's a line that Nathan Lane doesn't cross at any time in the acclaimed production of Butley that Nicholas Martin has brought to Broadway from Boston's Huntington Theatre after a three-year delay. The step is crucial, since it's rage -- fury, even -- that drives Simon Gray's play. The white heat of frustrated brilliance and self-loathing is the fuel that moves Butley to the level of shocking character study. If this ingredient is absent, the play impresses as no more than a clever but redundant look at a puzzlingly nasty man. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it's also not a full realization of Gray's intentions.

Lane, who arr[...]