The Coast of Utopia, Tom Stoppard's critically acclaimed (and Tony-winning) three-play cycle about 19th century Russian radical philosophers, was, well, maybe one or two critically acclaimed plays too many, there's a sense of reassurance about Rock 'n' Roll. Stoppard's latest London hit to transfer to Broadway begins and ends in a gratifying one evening. It takes place in slightly more familiar times and places — Cambridge, England, and Stoppard's native Czechoslovakia, from 1968 to 1990, when a rock-'n'-roll band comes to symbolize resistance to the Soviet-backed regime. And it doesn't require a reading list. Even better, the key figures in the London cast — Rufus Sewell, above, Brian Cox and Sinead Cusack, as well as director Trevor Nunn — are reprising their roles here. All of this means that come Nov. 4, Stoppard's intellectual theater games have a good chance of surviving the transatlantic voyage without the jet-lag feeling.
—RICHARD ZOGLIN