The Understudy

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The Roundabout Theatre Company's production of The Understudy, now at the Laura Pels Theatre, bears but a surface resemblance to the one that premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival a summer ago. Textually, little has changed: Playwright Theresa Rebeck had only to toss in a passing reference to "mercury poisoning" to give her backstage comedy a topical tweak. What has been radically altered is the actors' approach to the material -- and, in fact, the actors themselves. Where Williamstown's production had a good cast -- Kristen Johnston, Reg Rogers, and Bradley Cooper -- the Roundabout's staging has a superb one in Julie White, Justin Kirk, and Mark-Paul Gosselaar.

The play takes plac[...]