Broadway shows are becoming embarrassingly cheap-looking
an unfurnished “Doll’s House” starring Oscar winner Jessica Chastain (top ticket $299), which features only a few chairs positioned on a turntable that’s lit like a hospital broom closet. The no-frills revival of the musical “Parade” (top ticket $297), which began as a City Center Encores concert, has just a raised platform surrounded by lamps and more chairs. The return of the Bob Fosse revue “Dancin’” (top ticket $297) has a projection screen and a few metal towers — appropriate for jazz hands, but flimsy all the same.“Into the Woods,” another City Center concert that has since closed at the St. James Theater and gone on tour, had some wooden steps and simple birch tree trunks, because the main event was its sizable 15-person orchestra and stars such as Sara Bareilles and Patina Miller.Meanwhile, “& Juliet” (top ticket $323), a jukebox musical comedy from London featuring Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys songs, is glitzier than the above, goes to multiple locales and features garish lighting, but is still designed to look like a bricky rehearsal space.Everywhere you look, there’s nothing.That’s not to say these shows are all bad.