STAGE

Author! Author!: Herb Gardner has won praise for the writing in his new memory play, “Conversations With My Father,� which opened Sunday at Broadway’s Royale Theater. “Conversations� has “some of its author’s most flavorful writing,� said the New York Times critic, who noted, however, that Gardner “may be honest to a fault,� being “so scrupulous about refusing to sentimentalize his title character that he hardly dramatizes him.� The New York Post called the work “pungent, deep-felt and very powerful,� and the Associated Press labeled it Gardner’s “most heartfelt work, an unflinching, fascinating portrait of a man who turns his back on his Jewishness in order to succeed.� The Daily News said that while the play “conveys the voice and the nerves,� there’s “too little of the soul of the patriarchal generation.� Judd Hirsch stars in the play that spans 40 years, from before World War II until 1976.