Cynthia Nixon is wrestling with the impulse to be a single mom again. She faced that quandary on Sex and the City last season and now she's giving it intense thought in the Ensemble Studio Thatre production of Jacquelyn Reingold's String Fever. Maybe Nixon is attracted to this subject matter because she's a new mother in real life; or maybe, in this case, she's genuinely taken with Reingold's script. That would make sense, since the comedy-drama has been prepared with large dollops of warmth and a bittersweet view of contemporary living that has an authentic ring.

Before getting to the script's good points and its odd flaw or two, more about Nixon: She's the latest in a line of theater lead[...]