Best Of 2017 – Theatre/Dance/Opera

“…the river that goes
nowhere, that has survived the
astonishments and will never
venture close to that heat again, is
cool here, looking up at what,
looking back down, how is it
possible the world still exists, as it
begins to take form there, in the not
being, there is once then there is the
big vocabulary, loosed, like
a jay’s song thrown down when the
bird goes away”
-Jorie Graham, “Mother’s Hands Drawing Me”

This was a rough year for me personally and those choppy waters were dwarfed by the world on fire outside my window. The big positive was finally getting sick of years of attrition and making my world smaller through meanness and casual cruelty and disregard for other people’s feelings and numbing myself instead of feeling.

With some stumbles, I aggressively committed to therapy and tried other tools to try to get back in touch with the me who genuinely likes things. I won’t know until retrospect if I was successful. I hope being open about it – here and elsewhere – helps me stick with it. These exercises in looking-back are key to that: it’s an astonishing reminder of how much great stuff I’m lucky enough to experience every year. I talk about theatre as being the form of art most closely aligned with empathy for me: it’s impossible to ignore other living, breathing people on stage creating this feedback loop between artist and audience.

In the actual (ostensible) topic of this blog, Columbus theatre seemed to rebound after last year’s lull (with the huge exception last year of the August Wilson Festival that was the tide lifting all boats). Available Light, MadLab, Red Herring and CATCO mounted seasons that rank with their best work, The Wexner Center in Chuck Helm’s valedictory season imported the finest work from NYC and elsewhere, OSU and Otterbein continue to be fountains that refresh and replenish our cultural lives as well as the overall theatrical world. I still bemoan no new companies, no wildly new intensity, but in a year that included maybe my strongest theatrical trip to New York, Columbus brought work on our stages that went toe to toe with everything I saw in the Apple.

Everything in Columbus unless stated otherwise. If I reviewed it elsewhere, there’s a link to the original review.

1. Sunday in the Park With George, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine (St. James Theater, NYC) – There wasn’t much chance the best performance I’ve ever seen of my favorite musical of all time wouldn’t top this list. Director Sarna Lapine refined her approach to this play since her fine mounting at our own Short North Stage. The questions about why we make art and how we damage people around are sharper this time out and everything hums with a fresh intensity. Part of that feeling springs from the marvelous performances of Jake Gyllenhaal and especially Annaleigh Ashford. Much comes from the fact that this is the first production I’ve seen to make the contemporary act as strong as the Seurat act; even the chromolume doesn’t come off jokey. This was everything Broadway can and should be.
2. Pass Over by Antoinette Nwandu (Steppenwolf, Chicago) – This was every single thing I want out of theatre: a searing new voice; brilliant acting by Jon Michael Hill, Julian Parker, and Ryan Hallahan; and direction, from Dayna Taymor that gripped me by the throat and held tight. A riff on Waiting for Godot with liberal sprinklings of the Book of Exodus that didn’t require knowledge of either of those primary sources. A textbook case for using genre tools and historical references to make something undeniably about now. The cri de coeur we need that knows the value of a scalpel and a machete in ripping the skin off the oppression and dehumanization of our age. I don’t think I heard muffled sobs or riotous applause as fervent as I did at this matinee.
3. Hand to God by Robert Askins (Short North Stage) – One of the funniest comedies to hit Broadway in years came to the Short North Stage and destroyed. Edward Carignan’s razor-sharp direction and effective use of the chimerical Green Room space created a backdrop to bring to life one of the Columbus performances for the ages: Danny Turek as meek, troubled Sunday School student Jason and his possessed puppet Tyrone. Turek’s dazzling, scabrous virtuosity meets its match in energy and intent by phenomenal performances from Kate Lingnofski, Jonathan Putnam, Barbara Weetman, and Chad Goodwin. All my Top 5 made me cry at least once, this one made me cry because I was laughing so hard. Review at Columbus Underground.
4. Sweat by Lynn Nottage (Studio 54, NYC) – The criticisms that Sweat was a little too pat and a little too clean, too constructed are valid. But I didn’t care one whit while engrossed in this new-classic social drama. Nottage understands how people talk and she understands how that kind of little bar works. Heartbreaking performances from Michelle Wilson, Johanna Day, Will Pullen, and Khris Davis echoed behind my eyes for months after seeing this.
5. Angels in America by Tony Kushner (Short North Stage) – My favorite play of the last thirty years, maybe my favorite play full-stop got an amazing production of both its parts from Short North Stage to close their 16-17 season. Directed by Edward Carignan and JJ Parkey with collaborative help from Dayton’s Zoot Puppet Theater. The heartbreak at the heart of the world is sometimes best expressed with fabulism and this raw, dirty, kaleidoscopic ride left me staggering down High Street and babbling at the stars. Reviews at Columbus Underground: Part 1 and Part 2.
6. You Got Older by Claire Barron (Available Light) – Available Light presented an Off-Broadway play I liked when I saw it a few years ago in New York and improved on that production in subtle but key ways. Elena Perantoni gave one of the strongest performances I saw all year as Mae and her rapport with Verne Hendrick as her father glowed with all the weirdness and warmth of life, distilled. Icing on the cake comes from excellent performances from Eleni Papaleonardos, Kasey Meininger, and David Glover as Mae’s siblings, Danny Turek as her would-be love interest, and especially John Connor as the phantasmic cowboy in her fevered dreams. As I said at the time, Acacia Duncan’s direction “doesn’t let anyone off any easier than the material does, but everything is treated with a generosity and deference we should all envy.” Review at Columbus Underground.
7. The Antipodes by Annie Baker (Signature Theatre, NYC) – If you want to see someone who just gets better every time out of the gate? Annie fucking Baker. This takes her hyperrealism-with-the-color-knob-turned-up-to-bleed-weirdness to another level. A workplace comedy rife with creepiness and dread – what do these people do again? – and intimations of the end of the world outside the walls. Lila Neugenbauer has the perfect sensibility for this work I could have seen 100 times and still be unpacking. Intense heart and humor without for one second slipping into sap or cliché. Astonishing performances from Josh Hamilton, Josh Charles, and especially Will Patton as the manager and Nicole Rodenburg as the one actually running this circus.
8. In a Rhythm by Bebe Miller (Bebe Miller Group presented by the Wexner Center for the Arts) – Every single thing I love about contemporary dance done in a way so accessible that anyone would “get it.” By the end of this delicious 75-minute roller coaster, connections between Nelly, Zadie Smith, and David Foster Wallace, and Leonard Cohen and Steve Reich, were not only reasonable but impossible to ignore. The wonder and the danger in trusting our bodies. Hail, hail Bebe Miller and her ensemble. Review at Columbus Underground.
9. Samara by Richard Maxwell (Soho Rep, NYC) – Similar to the Miller, this was Maxwell at the height of his powers and a director, Sarah Benson, who pushes him and the cast out to the edge. A buddy comedy-tragedy on the fringes of the end of the world, wryly narrated by Steve Earle (who also provided spooky, dissonant music). People talk in epigrams about smaller and larger apocalypses and the crushing weight of the world but it all ends with dancing. If we can find it, there’s always redemptive dancing.
10. Fun Home, music by Jeanine Tesori, lyrics and book by Lisa Kron, adapted from Alison Bechdel. Bechedel’s autobiographical masterpiece got a perfect adaptation from Kron and Tesori and CATCO’s masterful production. Steven Anderson’s perfect direction brought the best out of this ideal cast, led by Meg Odell, Cari Meixner, and Sydney MacGilvray as the Alisons in varying ages, all grappling with her troubled father played by Peter Matthew Smith. I blubbered like an idiot here. Along with Hand to God, this is the thing I recommended to the widest range of people. Review at Columbus Underground.
11. Bootleg Radio by Jennifer Schlueter and Matt Slaybaugh (Available Light). This new work, written and directed by Schlueter and Slaybaugh from a magpie’s nest of allusions, found notes and other work. Forged in the fire of this magnificent ensemble with especially good work from Elena Perantoni, Amanda Loch, David Glover, and Todd Eckert (who also provided choreography) this was a complicated paean to hope and connection. Available Light at their best when we need a reminder that “Maybe hope is other people.” Review at Columbus Underground.
12. Top Girls by Caryl Churchill (Otterbein University). Otterbein gave us a new production, directed by Lenny Leibowitz of this acerbic British modern masterpiece that proved how much biting truth Churchill’s play still musters. Kara Jobe, Daria Reedus, and Isabel Billinghurst gave performances that made me see characters I thought I knew well in a brand new light. Review at Columbus Underground.
13. Six by Idris Goodwin (Actors Theatre’s Professional Training Company, Louisville). Goodwin’s new play luckily overlapped with a work trip to Louisville and this short, site-specific performance was pure magic.
14. Corpus Christi by Terence McNally (Evolution Theatre Company with CATCO). Evolution produced a lot of strong work this year but this magical co-production with CATCO of McNally’s transplanting of the Christ myth to the Texas coast he grew up along took the cake. Every performance here was nuanced and lovely, with special attention to James Harper’s Simon Peter, Davion Brown’s John the Baptist, David Vargo’s Matthew, and JT Walker’s Judas. In my review I said “[Director Joe] Bishara takes thirteen of the strongest actors in town and turns them loose on material that could, in lesser hands, feel coarse, too easy or cheap. The symbiosis between actors and director of tight control and letting a moment breathe makes this charming play soar.” Review at Columbus Underground.
15. Two Old Black Guys Just Sitting Around Talking by Gus Edwards (PAST Productions). The best example I saw all year of the way theatre can imply a whole life, or two, in just a few scenes and the way it gives us a look at an entire world, came in PAST Productions’ majestic slow-burn take, directed beautifully by Patricia Wallace-Winbush, on Gus Edwards’ Two Old Black Guys Just Sitting Around Talking. As the eponymous guys, Tony Roseboro and Truman Winbush, Jr., find every once of nuance, getting big laughs without having to reach for them and a deep understanding of how people can still find the good in one another even as we do terrible things. Review at Columbus Underground.