John Patrick Shanley's latest play, "Outside Mullingar", opened last night (Jan. 23) at Manhattan Theater Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theater.

The work is something of a "Doubt" homecoming. Shanley's 2005 Pulitzer and Tony-winning drama was directed by Doug Hughes and featured actor Brian F. O'Byrne, both of whom are part of the new play's team. Also in the cast: Emmy winner Debra Messing, the Grace of TV's "Will & Grace". She's making her Broadway debut, though she was part of the Broadway world of TV's "Smash" and appeared off-Broadway in "Collected Stories" and Paul Rudnick's "The Naked Truth."

In "Outside Mullingar," O'Byrne and Messing play middle-aged misfits who, despite warring families, embark on a cautious romance. Now that the New York critics have had a look at the show, did they find it a misfit for Broadway or did romance blossom?

For her part, Variety’s Marilyn Stasio was besotted: “It may not be as dramatic as “Doubt” or as funny as “Moonstruck”, but John Patrick Shanley has not written a more beautiful or loving play than “Outside Mullingar… Debra Messing and Brian F. O’Byrne are a match made in heaven.” Stasio also applauds “the harsh beauty of Shanley’s dramatic voice” and the final reconciliation scene that is “so tenderly written and beautifully played that it would melt a stone.”

In his *** review for the Daily News, Joe Dziemianowicz is less over the moon but still calls “Mullingar” “a modest and quirky little heart-tugger.” Though the story “ultimately leads to predictable rom-com territory…if you’re simply looking to be entertained…you won’t be disappointed.”

Jesse Green, writing for Vulture.com, also found the play “comforting in its theatrical familiarity.” “In lengthy, looping scenes,” adds Green, “Shanley maintains a fairly constant level of enjoyability.” However, the big revelation for O’Byrne’s character proves “so ludicrous that it undermines all the beautiful work O’Byrne has done to create a dignified and sympathetic character from materials that, in other hands, might have resulted in an insufferable prig.” Ultimately, Green notes that “individual scenes go like gangbusters [and] will be used in acting classes for decades. Just not in playwriting classes.”

Hollywood Reporter scribe David Rooney notes the Ireland-set drama proves “a tender paean to rural life,” is “suffused with melancholy humor, …and provides wonderful roles” for O’Byrne and Messing. Echoing the Daily News review, Rooney notes, “Any fool who’s ever seen a romantic movie can guess where `Outside Mullingar’ is headed, but that doesn’t lessen its pleasures.”

NBC New York’s Robert Kahn lauds Messing (“a fine ensemble actress”) and her co-stars but notes that the show’s various moods left him “a touch whipsawed.” “The erratic, or at least elastic nature of the script almost doesn’t matter, though, because the dialogue is so colorful…and the acting so sharp, that the 95-minute, intermission-less rom-com, or whatever-this-is, seems to fly by.” He closes by saying, “Outside Mullingar is unruly enough that you wish someone had been there to tame it a little more, but it’s still an easy play to adore.”

Not so for the New York Post’s Elisabeth Vincentelli, who gave the show two stars and complains that the show “isn’t much fun at all… [because] it can’t seem to decide if it’s a rom-com or a drama and wastes too much time on exposition and badly paced, maudlin scenes.” Worse, “when we finally do come to the courtship, the leads don’t quite gel.”

Newsday’s Linda Winer disagrees, trumpeting, “Debra Messing and Brian F. O'Byrne are so, what's a more grown-up word for adorable? -- charming? irresistible? combustible? -- together that we wish this romantic comedy would go on for hours.” She finds Messing “delightful” and that O’Byrne “makes us care deeply for this increasingly strange, touching, crushing man.”

Theatermania's David Gordon also fell under the show's spell, kvelling, "Even with an odd turn during the denouement (which does morph into a beautiful moment) and a bit too much time focused on the parents, Shanley has written a compelling will-they-won't-they story with sweet dialogue and an awwwwww-inspiring conclusion."

Even the generally prickly New York Times critic Charles Isherwood was held in "Mullingar's" embrace. Though the play, more lightweight than "Doubt", is a "softhearted comedy freckled with dark reflections on the unsatisfactory nature of life and the thorns of love...Mr. Shanley’s lyrical writing, and the flawless production, directed by Doug Hughes for Manhattan Theater Club, give such consistent pleasure that even though we know the equations that define romcoms will add up to the familiar sums, we are happy to watch as they do."