NEW YORK -- The stars are out on Broadway. That's what they always say, but consider a list of Jude Law, Julia Stiles, Hugh Jackman, Angela Lansbury, Daniel Craig, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sienna (scourge of Pittsburgh) Miller, Richard Thomas, Carrie Fisher, Lynn Redgrave and more, all now up-and-running or in previews.

Among the starriest is the charismatic Law, playing the starriest of parts, Prince Hamlet, in that play by the prince of playwrights, Bill Shakespeare, in a production from London's admirable Donmar Warehouse. That may sound unbeatable, but in spite of Law's ability, charisma and solid background on the London stage, it proves only adequate -- which is to say it's a disappointment, given the level of expectation.

The best non-musical of this season falls, instead, on Tracy Letts' "Superior Donuts," which boasts its own star, although he doesn't quite measure up to the list above. That's Michael McKean of the Christopher Guest movies and "Hairspray" on Broadway. McKean's performance is so skilled he melts into his ensemble; of course you wouldn't expect that of anyone playing Hamlet, but it is admirable.

I reviewed Jackman and Craig in "A Steady Rain" several weeks ago, but here are compact reviews of "Hamlet" and "Superior Donuts," with brief notices of "The Royal Family" and "Oleanna," with a coda on off-Broadway's "The Understudy," where this business of stars on Broadway is tackled head on.

You probably don't need to hear about the play itself. But just in case, it's about a Danish prince who sets out to avenge the death of his father. The task is emotionally charged and dangerous because the guilty party has married Hamlet's mother and now wears the crown. Hamlet must also contend with the king's chief minister, Polonius, as well as his children, including the girl with whom Hamlet has been in love.

It all ends pretty badly, as you know, with some seven dead. That's what they mean by a tragedy, and this is the big one, with soaring verse and probing anguish.

But it just doesn't pay off. To its credit, it's as clearly spoken and intelligible as any of the two dozen or so "Hamlets" I've ever seen. But where's the heart of its mystery? You can't especially blame Law, who is a model of responsibility, hammering home every poetic point. But it feels more like an illustrated lecture on the character than the impassioned thing itself.

I lay more of the blame elsewhere, starting with the director, Michael Grandage, because the others all stand by, as if in awe of the star. I expect better of Geraldine James, playing Gertrude. The most embarrassing is Guqu Mbatha Raw, whose Ophelia seems to have wandered in from a college production. Only the veteran Ron Cook holds up his end, playing a Polonius more conniving than doddering.

The sets have a certain grandeur. You do get more out of the play than you do just reading it. But that's about all.

At Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th St., through Dec. 6; 800-432-7250.

It's comparing plaster to marble to set Letts' modest comedy up against "Hamlet," but at least it fulfills its possibilities, giving you more than you could expect, not less. McKean plays Arthur, the burned-out owner of a marginal Chicago doughnut shop, whose life is changed by the arrival of an engaging young black man (Jon Michael Hill). In the manner of August Wilson, the play meanders engagingly for most of Act 1 until the young man's indebtedness to the mob provides its central conflict.

Eventually that conflict engulfs Arthur, forcing him back into life. It doesn't sound like much of a plot, and there are tendencies toward sitcom pathos, with a woman (Kate Buddeke) to aid in Arthur's rebirth. But the characters feel true, director Tina Landau keeps them on track, Letts' ear for dialogue is great and he refuses to ladle out sentiment too thickly. I like it better than his bigger, more widely praised "August: Osage County."

At Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St.; 800-432-7250.

George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber's fictionalized comic take on the Barrymore family is delicious and takes place on a gorgeous, palatial set such as you rarely see these days. Not all of the actors measure up to the brilliant Rosemary Harris as the family matriarch, but this warmhearted American classic holds the stage with classy conviction.

At Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47th St.; 800-432-7250.

David Mamet's painful 1992 play about a prickly female student and conceited male professor has all its shocking force intact. Status abuse meets political correctness in a conflict where both are right and both are also, horrendously, wrong. Julia Stiles (in a role she played five years ago in London) and Bill Pullman are fit adversaries. It's not for the faint of heart.

At Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45th St.; 800-432-7250

Just off-Broadway, "Understudy" provides trenchant comic comment on this business of casting movie stars on Broadway. In Theresa Rebeck's ingratiating and invigorating backstage comedy, a young action movie star doing a two-person Kafka play on Broadway with an even bigger star, whom he is also understudying, is called to rehearse with an actor who is to understudy him.

At least I think that's it. (Any murky details fit right into the murky complexity you'd expect of Kafka.) In rehearsal, the young star plays the older star's multiple roles, while the new understudy plays the young star's role of hapless victim. Supervising is the stage manager, who it turns out was once engaged to be married to the understudy.

Comedy results, replete with sharp commentary on the stage actor's dicey lot and the theater's subservience to film. But the result, which begins to mirror Kafka (basically "The Castle," with touches of "The Trial"), is also surprisingly poignant. Justin Kirk and Mark-Paul Gosselaar are fine as the feuding and eventually bonding men, but the gem is Julie White as the raddled stage manager. If you don't get to see it in New York, expect it in Pittsburgh with, say, Sam Turich, Patrick Jordan and Rebecca Harris.

Roundabout at Laura Pels Theatre at Steinberg Center, 111 W. 46th St., through Jan. 17; 212-719-1300.

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