STAGE

Dancing All the Way: Jane Anderson’s provocative play about the problems of surrogate parenthood, “The Baby Dance,” which premiered at the Pasadena Playhouse Balcony Theatre in February 1990, and traveled to Massachussetts’ Williamstown Theatre last summer, has opened at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven to mixed but compelling reviews. The Hartford Courant’s Malcolm L. Johnson found the play had “lightened its touch, but deepened its emotional pull,” becoming “funny, real and agonizing.” Mel Gussow in the New York Times wrote, “The fact that the work is flawed does not decrease one’s interest in the arguments raised.” The New Haven Register found the production “blessed with a superb ensemble cast” while the Bridgeport Post cheered “a gripping drama.” The cast includes Linda Purl, Richard Lineback, Stephanie Zimbalist, Joel Polis and John Bennett Perry.