One of the sleepers of the off-Broadway season, Stephen Karam’s The Humans snagged the kinds of reviews that lead to Pulitzer talk (well, if Hamilton weren’t in the race) and uptown aspirations. Sure enough, the dysfunctional family comedy-drama, which ran this autumn at the Laura Pels Theater, has now made its way to Broadway’s Helen Hayes, where it opened tonight, Feb. 18, after starting previews Jan. 23.

The play tells of a holiday-dinner gathering for mom, dad, far-gone demented grandma, one depressed lesbian daughter and another daughter recently married but coping with a cheap apartment that makes really weird noises all hours of the day and night. To be honest, the mix of realistic family squabbling/reconciliations (which I liked a lot) and Albee-esque, other-worldly elements (meh) left me a bit cold when I caught the show off Broadway, but other critics raved and found much to admire in both the family dynamics and the show’s deeper themes.

Now that the play, directed by Joe Mantello, has reached Broadway with its cast intact (Reed Birney, Sarah Steele, Joyce Van Patten, Cassie Beck, Lauren Klein, Jayne Houdyshell, and Arian Moayed), will the scribes be just as humane to The Humans?

The answer is yes if you’re NBC New York’s Robert Kahn, who calls the play “eloquent and wholly relatable” and the production “monumentally affecting.” He adds, “Karam paints such a dynamic portrait of real life that I could only sit and absorb the insecurities and frailties batted around on stage . . . something for which theatergoers should be oh-so-very thankful.”

Giving the show *** (out of ****), AM New York’s Matt Windman agrees, noting that the show “makes for a compelling and often terrifying character portrait.” He admits the play isn’t as appealing as such other Karam works as Sons of the Prophet, but the actors’ “vulnerable, truthful performances” help the production, especially Jayne Houdyshell’s “razor-sharp delivery of her character’s witty responses.”

Variety critic Marilyn Stasio notes that what makes the play work is that instead of bitterness driving its unhappy characters, the family members respond with “deep love.” As such, the early parts of the play are “extensively mined for laughter by a wonderful cast” who make “each and every character . . . enormously appealing.” Stasio singles out Cassie Beck (as the older daughter) for her “smooth and subtle performance.”

Even more effusive is Chicago Tribune scribe Chris Jones, who calls The Humans “exceptionally moving” and “inestimably kind, rich, and beautiful.” He lauds the show’s “plethora of superb ensemble actors” and its ability to be compassionate without being condescending or indulging in “excessive sentiment.”

Charles Isherwood, who raved about the off-Broadway staging for the New York Times, returns with more huzzahs, calling the play “piercingly funny [and] bruisingly sad.” He continues: “The finest new play of the Broadway season so far — by a long shot” features “a peerless cast” that, under Joe Mantello’s direction navigates the piece’s journey “from witty domestic comedy to painful conflict, and from there to something resembling a goose-pimply chiller.” He concludes: The Humans is a major discovery, a play as empathetic as it is clear-minded, as entertaining as it is honest. For all the darkness at its core . . .a bright light shines forth from it, the blazing luminescence of collective artistic achievement.”

Equally happy she went back for another look at The Humans, Newsday’s Linda Winer opines, “On second viewing, the retelling of bad dreams now seems woven into a richer psychological carpet and the few plot threads that seemed undeveloped now feel beautifully wrought.” She also wishes there were a Tony Award category for “sublime ensemble.”

Add to the chorus of acclaim Broadway World’s Michael Dale, who writes that the play is “fresh, funny, and chilling” and makes special note of David Zinn’s “wonderfully detailed and realistic two-level set” and Fitz Patton’s aptly “nightmarish” sound design.

The play’s “aura of lingering dread” struck a chord with TheaterMania’s Zachary Stewart, who notes that seeing a post-9/11 New York family in economic and spiritual crisis will likely resonate with “so many American lives today.” He concludes: “For too many Americans, that situation alone will feel painfully uncanny — so much so that you won't be able to look away.”

“In a mere 95 minutes,” writes Washington Post reviewer Peter Marks, “the playwright — bolstered by a whip-smart director, Joe Mantello, and pitch-perfect cast of six — delves into the dynamics of this clan with a gentleness that feels like compassion and a scrupulousness that borders on the forensic.” He adds that Reed Birney “does remarkable work” while Jayne Houdyshell, as his wife, offers “a simply brilliant turn.”

Granting the show ***1/2 (out of four), USA Today’s Elysa Gardner calls The Humans “bleakly funny” and “deeply affecting.” It’s a play that has “great compassion but offers no easy answers, casting a spell that's unsettling but also strangely reassuring.”

In his ****1/2 (out of five) review, Joe Dziemianowicz of the New York Daily News calls The Humans “fresh, funny, piercing and perceptive.” He also offers plaudits to everyone involved: Joe Mantello’s direction is smart and subtle, making excellent use of the bi-level stage. In an ensemble of all aces, a few actors stand out. Beck, a wonderful rising star, nails the hapless Aimee’s black humor. Houdyshell tickles and stings as an undervalued wife and mother. Birney anchors everything as a middle-class Everyman terrified of losing what he loves.”

The only dissenting voice so far (besides, to some extent, my own) comes from the Wall Street Journal’s Terry Teachout, who wonders “what all the shouting was about” when the play emerged off Broadway. He finds the piece “passably well made” but saddled with “a spookily melodramatic coda” and characters who say “obvious” things and make “sitcommy jokes.” Unlike other reviewers who found deep themes in The Humans, Teachout shrugged through the “off-the-shelf unhappy-family chitchat [and] left the theater feeling that I’d just spent two whole hours there for no good reason.”

Disagreeing is Jesse Green of The Vulture, who loved the play at the Pels and admires it even more now. “It is still the most, well, human play I’ve ever seenm” he writes, “about fear and disappointment and the attachments that transcend them.” He also kvells that “the performances, all already excellent, now seem both more natural and more detailed” and the play feels “even tighter and sharper.”