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.