After Seven Seasons on 30 Rock As TV Exec Jack Donaghy, a Controlling Blowhard with Parent

After seven seasons on “30 Rock” as TV exec Jack Donaghy, a controlling blowhard with parent issues, Alec Baldwin returns to Broadway in “Orphans.” He plays aging crook Harold, a controlling blowhard with parent issues.

Baldwin, never shy about speaking his own mind offstage, is fully in his comfort zone. He delivers a wily magnetic star turn.

Baldwin’s not alone. Broadway rookies Tom Sturridge and Ben Foster, who replaced ShiaLaBeouf after his high-profile exit from the show during rehearsals, match the Emmy winner moment-by-moment as siblings whose lives collide with Harold.

The trio’s sirloin-juicy performances bring out the best in Lyle Kessler’s 1983 drama, now on Broadway for the first time. During those 30 years, “Orphans” became an Albert Finney film and a go-to show for regional companies.

The play is built on a hoary foundation: A stranger enters a home and rearranges everybody’s lives along with the furniture.

The setting is a shabby North Philadelphia row house, designed here in crummy, off-kilter detail by John Lee Beatty. Treat (Foster) steals to support himself and his dim baby brother, Phillip (Sturridge). Kept under Treat’s thumb, Phillip leaps around from couch to stairs to window ledge like he’s in a monkeyhouse.

Treat escalates his criminal ways when he kidnaps Harold, a Chicago gangster, who, like the young men, is an orphan and haunted by that fact. He looks like an easy mark. In a twist, the tables turn on who’s captive. Things evolve.

“Orphans” is a modest and contrived play, but it courses with sly ironies (i.e., benevolence can backfire) and succeeds in cleverly compressing truths and conveying big ideas. A pair of new shoes signals freedom, a discarded mayonnaise jar points to a major change.

Daniel Sullivan directs and creates a visceral environment and an entertaining production. Foster (“Six Feet Under,” “3:10 to Yuma”) brings a perfect volatile-vulnerable mix as Treat. London-born Sturridge (“Being Julia”) delivers a performance filled with energy and surprises and free of sentiment.

Baldwin, a 1992 Tony nominee for “A Streetcar Named Desire,” knows how to command a stage. Harold is built to be showy. A dash more danger would have added tension, but his blustery glibness works for the role.

Like when Treat appears in new pants and asks Harold how they fit. Baldwin wrings a huge laugh from his character’s terse response: “The crotch is fine.”

Ditto Baldwin’s stage comeback.