The Katie Holmes Road Show and Protester Revival landed last night near Times Square, where the star made her Broadway debut amid a devoted crowd of tourists, family and Scientology nemeses flanking 45th Street. The reviews — and the heartfelt pleas for calm — are in after the jump.No one was anticipating miracles from the Schoenfeld Theater, where Holmes joined John Lithgow, Patrick Wilson and Dianne Wiest for the premiere of Arthur Miller's 1947 breakthrough All My Sons. So no one seemed disappointed that they didn't get them: Despite his best, unfailingly self-promotional intentions, Fox's Roger Friedman dampened expectations earlier this week, and the word so far from New York's more authoritative drama critics took care to treat Holmes as just another distinguished board-treader: · "The very different leading actresses — the stage veteran Ms. Wiest and the neophyte Ms. Holmes, in her Broadway debut — are sad casualties of [director Simon] McBurney’s high-concept approach. [...] Ms. Holmes delivers most of her lines with meaningful asperity, italicizing every word. This Ann is straight from the school of the Erinyes (those avenging furies from Greek mythology), and I didn’t believe for a second that she really loved the honorable, naïve Chris." — Ben Brantley, The NY Times

· "A starry cast has been assembled to yell their lungs out, including the distinguished John Lithgow and, in her Broadway debut, Katie Holmes, known in her (less than) private life as Mrs. Tom Cruise. [...] Lithgow starts in a sunny, benign fashion, but eventually finds himself screeching alongside Holmes, looking tough under a glossy wig, and the all-American Wilson." — Clive Barnes, NY Post · "Holmes, a TV and film vet, makes a fine Broadway debut. Her rather grand speech pattern takes getting used to, but she seems comfortable and adds a fitting glint of glamour. Dancing with Lithgow, kissing Wilson, she makes you forget about her being Mrs. Tom Cruise. At times, however, Holmes is strangely shrill." — Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News Meanwhile, Miller's daughter Rebecca praised Holmes (sort of) on the red carpet preceding the performance, and the camera-toting folks who schlepped in from New Jersey and elsewhere left without their coveted Tom and Suri Cruise sightings (both were reportedly no-shows, but his blurb-tossing mother dropped in for the hell of it). They did get a glimpse at Anonymous's scathing review of Holmes's offstage performance, however, as more than 30 cops kept watch over a masked crowd barking "Scientology Kills" and waving "Run Katie Run" signs outside the Schoenfeld. And run Katie did — straight into the fluffy, waiting arms of People, whose probing inquiry following the show revealed that Suri has her own dressing room "transformed into a playroom." A diva in the making! Somewhere in the distant cosmos, we know Arthur Miller positively sobs with pride. [Photos: AP]