STAGE

Mixed Reviews: “La Bete,” the $2.5-million mock-Moliere David Hirson satire, opened Sunday at Broadway’s Eugene O’Neill Theater to mixed reviews. Daily Variety called it “the most audacious Broadway debut for a playwright since that of David Henry Hwang.” The New York Post wrote that it “all but makes a silk purse out of an ear of corn.” Frank Rich of the New York Times conceded that it is “brilliantly designed” and “takes brave chances” but said that “the author never offers any intellectual corollaries or counter-arguments to his initial, unassailable ideological position.” New York Newsday praised it.