But Carmen Jones has fallen into disrepute due to the now wince-inducing Amos’n’Andy vernacular Hammerstein gave his characters (although in many other ways Hammerstein made them supremely sympathetic). But the strength of both the music and tragic romance are enough to motor John Doyle’s typically stripped-down staging—the first in New York since its 1943 Broadway bow—especially when it’s studded with muscular singers and powerhouse performers.

Carmen is a force of nature, a sensual dynamo with untrammeled power over men, particularly soldier Joe, who desperately wants a nice, dull life with hometown sweetheart Cindy Lou, but who cannot escape Carmen’s clutches. Luckily for Doyle, Anika Noni Rose fills Carmen’s form-fitting clothes (the adroit costumes are by Ann Hould-Ward) to perfection. An equally smoldering Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway a decade ago, Rose is spectacular as she seductively prowls the small stage, singing in a lusciously creamy voice that alternately caresses and attacks Joe and the other men in her life: Joe’s superior Sergeant Brown and boxer Husky Miller.

Although Rose’s star turn is Carmen Jones’s obvious asset, the other performers complement her superbly. Clifton Duncan’s Joe, Tramell Tillman’s Brown and David Aron Damane’s Husky make a trio of formidable rivals for Carmen’s attention. As Cindy Lou, Lindsay Roberts is all beguiling sweetness and innocence, and Soara-Joye Ross joyously leads the ensemble’s majestic singalong “Beat Out Dat Rhythm on a Drum,” a song that—as its title shows—could easily have become a sore spot.

Doyle smartly allows his cast to roam the Classic Stage Company’s tiny space with authority, Bill T. Jones’ graceful and athletic choreography—often subtle in its movements, particularly in the final, fatal embrace between Carmen and Joe—makes the tragedy visceral as well as emotional, and a tight six-piece ensemble plays Bizet’s well-known score as passionately as the remarkable Rose and the rest of the cast sing it.

That Carey Mulligan is astonishing in Dennis Kelly’s one-woman play Girls & Boys is no surprise. For the past decade, Mulligan has given full-throttle portrayals in movies as varied as An Education (her Oscar-nominated breakthrough), Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Shame, Suffragette and Far from the Madding Crowd. Onstage she’s distinguished herself on Broadway in The Seagull and David Hare’s Skylight (for which she received a Tony nomination) and off-Broadway in a failed adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly, in which she shone above the moribund goings-on around her.

What Mulligan does in Girls & Boys—a monologue by a wife and mother who has undergone a traumatizing, devastating event—is to consistently rivet us with an alternately hilarious and emotionally shattering performance, despite the shopworn material Kelly gives to her. For much of the play, this nameless woman describes her life since meeting her husband (cutely, of course, while queuing to board a flight) in a monologue that has humorous asides, as when hubby-to-be deals with a pair of gorgeous models trying to cut the queue. 

Scattered amid her conversations are scenes showing her miming everyday dealings with her two (invisible) children, in a room that—in designer Es Devlin’s clever hands—looks like a sterile dream state, everything in it a kind of cool blue that occasionally bursts into colorful vibrancy. This woman’s life moves along parallel tracks: she’s doing brilliantly at making documentaries, and she, her husband and kids make up a lovely family. Until….

When Woman describes—in exceedingly and unnecessarily explicit detail—how her idyllic life is destroyed, Kelly’s writing can’t hope to keep up with the devastating direction he wants to take to kill his protagonist’s happiness. There’s something schematic about the way her life is ripped apart, as if Kelly simply wanted to give her (and us) the most shocking thing he could think of. Even Lyndsey Turner’s initially solid direction turns soggy, as if she couldn’t figure out a plausible way to get past it. 

Whatever emotional power is wrested out of this exercise in dramatic shortcuts is due to Mulligan’s thoroughly charming, persuasive and incisive portrayal of an ordinary woman living a full life (kids, marriage, job) that’s suddenly torn from her. Mulligan gives the early light-hearted parts sardonic bite, balanced by her increasingly harried interactions with the children; when unspeakable tragedy finally rears its head, Mulligan maintains her composure and does the heavy lifting that keeps us captivated even when the writing lets her down.

We first meet two couples that are close friends: Ezra and Chris, recently married after the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision to legalize same-sex marriage; and Pam and Jules, in whose well-appointed Brooklyn apartment (with a balcony!) the play is set. Pam and Jules decide to have a baby, and the baby monitor never gives anyone peace when the men come to visit. One day, Henry, a friend of Ezra (they went to the high school prom together when Henry was female), comes over with his girlfriend Myna—what a terrible name to give to someone!—in tow. 

Henry’s arrival discombobulates everyone, since the two couples have finally won their equal rights but Henry reminds them that the fight is far from over for others like him: will they help out trans people or be content with their own gains?

Harrison’s script—filled with zingers flying in all directions, like Ezra being uncomfortable with the term “cis” because “it sounds like sissy”—is basically out of a sitcom, where the characters are mainly differentiated by how quickly they can hurl the next witticism at the others. But Harrison also tosses in a surrealistic curve ball when the women’s baby, Hartley, in his bedroom, is played by one of the actors. (Later, when another in the group gives birth, we get two adult actors playing infants, to fairly unilluminating returns.) 

Despite contrivances involving overheard conversations from the baby monitor and the convoluted family dynamics among the group following a second pregnancy, Log Cabin—whose title evokes the gay Republican organization founded in 1977—manages to be entertaining and thought-provoking at the same time. Pam MacKinnon directs adroitly on Allen Moyer’s handsome apartment set, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Ezra), Phillip James Brannon (Chris), Cindy Cheung (Pam), Dolly Wells (Jules) and Ian Harvie (Henry) make up a first-rate comic cast.