Tag: Stephen Sondheim

Categories
Best Of theatre

Best of 2023 – Theater/Opera/Dance

Brother/Hood/Dance, photo by Ryan Muir, courtesy of the Wexner Center

What a great year for theater – seeing 53 shows over four cities, with particularly good batting averages on the three New York trips. Also, every company in Columbus was hitting this year. Some of the best work I’ve seen in years from MadLab, Opera Columbus, and Evolution, lined up with front-to-back strong seasons from The Contemporary (formerly CATCO) and Available Light, a renewed interest in dance and theater from the Wexner Center, Short North Stage stretching its wings, all added up to more I wanted to see than I could make happen. Even when I didn’t love some of the work, almost every single thing I saw, I admired the effort and the swing they took. It’s a good time to be a fan of theater in town, get out and see as much as possible,

Everything listed here is in chronological order and in Columbus unless otherwise noted. The companies provided all photos for promotion, either sent to me directly or taken from websites.

Wilma Hatton and Ricardo Jones in ‘Snowville Cafe’, photo by Steve Malone
  • KL II by Kaneza Schaal, directed by Kaneza Schaal and Christopher Myers (Under the Radar Festival, NYC) – I only made it to one thing out of the three I had booked at Under the Radar this year – one canceled early, one canceled while I was at the Public – but this reaffirmed what a great thing the festival is for those of us who love experimental theater. Kaneza Schaal braided the text of Mark Twain’s King Leopold’s Soliloquy with a personal history with Patrice Lumumba’s independence speech with personal history with so much else and fused it to a blue flame of a performance and fascinating design and direction choices.
  • Snowville Cafe by Julie Whitney-Scott, directed by James Blackmon (MadLab) – Julie Whitney-Scott, one of my favorite theater artists in town, had an astonishing year directing a regional premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Lynn Nottage, classics like Lorraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun, leading her spectacular tradition of Columbus Black Theater Festival, writing her first novel, it was a dazzling record of work. But my favorite piece, the thing that I kept talking about months after it closed, was this luminous slice of life James Blackmon directed for MadLab. I called it “a poetic character study that also makes its setting a vibrant, fascinating character, with a real love for its characters but a sometimes unsparing eye for their faults. The empathy of the writing and direction are so perfectly in sync they almost seem invisible,” in my review for Columbus Underground.
  • Everybody by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by David Glover (Available Light) – Available Light continued their astonishing streak this year. Everything they did had the unshakable feeling of “I can’t picture anyone else doing this.” David Glover’s stunning production and brilliant cast were up to the challenge of fusing the technical difficulty – the main five actors pull their characters out of a hat – to the piece’s deep themes and rich humor. I said it, “[highlights the shifting volatility, the danger of using our friends as a mirror of ourselves, but the absolute necessity of friends,” in my review for  Columbus Underground.
  • Afro/Solo/Man by Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr. and Ricarrdo Valentine (Brother(hood) Dance, presented by Wexner Center for the Arts) – The Wexner Center also pulled itself up this year, drawing on some local talent and some far-flung relationships, to put out work I can’t picture any other presenting organization bringing to town. This gut-wrenching dance piece by Hunter and Valentine, about generational trauma and internalized shame but also abundant, bursting-at-the-seams joy, had me babbling about it for weeks after seeing it.
Monica Danilov-Marquez, Maria de Buenos Aires, Opera Columbus; photo by Terry Gilliam
  • Maria de Buenos Aires by Astor Piazzolla and Horacio Ferrer, directed by Christopher Darling (Opera Columbus) – Opera Columbus continues killing it and this Piazzolla operetta lined up with my tastes with sniper-like precision. I said, “The parallel singing and dancing choruses also set the world of the play, accentuating the collage aspects and the surging drama and eroticism. This riff on an opera-ballet with tango feels simultaneously organic and surprising,” in my piece for Columbus Underground.
  • Seven Guitars by August Wilson, directed by Ron OJ Parson (Playhouse in the Park, Cincinnati) – Finally got to see the last of the August Wilson Pittsburgh cycle with this sumptuous production at one of Ohio’s shining theaters, Cincy’s Playhouse in the Park. Bryant Bentley’s Red Carter and Dimonte Henning’s Schoolboy Barton are performances burned into my brain.
Sue Wismar in foreground, Elizabeth Girvin and Sydney Jordan Baker in background, When We Were Young and Unafraid, photo by Cat McAlpine
  • When We Were Young and Unafraid by Sarah Treem, directed by Michelle Batt (eMBer Women’s Theatre) – eMBer Women’s Theatre has come into its own over the last few years, and this year they blew me the hell away with a gorgeous, knife-twisting look at shifting social mores, pervasive sexual violence, the need to connect – and the way that can be a source of strength or twisted into something terrible, with astonishing performances, especially by Sue Wismar and Matthew Sierra. I said, “[The] characters’ arguments about the times changing and the chilling prescient words “They’ll change back,” resonate long after the lights go back on the play,” in my review for Columbus Underground.
  • The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe, directed by Aviva Helena Neff (The Contemporary Theatre of Ohio) – The second production of Sarah DeLappe’s magnificent coming-of-age play The Wolves I’ve seen in a few years, and I’m still knocked out by the play and the synchronicity in coming together and splitting apart personified by the cast hear left my jaw in my lap with awe and broke me in the right measures. For Columbus Underground, I said, “[It] reminded me of its ability to surprise through the quality and sharpness of its execution. It’s hard for me to picture seeing a better production of this beautiful, life-affirming, heartbreaking play.
  • Machinal by Sophie Treadwell, directed by Ryan Naughton (The Sound Company) – Ryan Naughton and Jessica Hughes gave the Columbus theatrical scene a powerful shot in the arm in their few years here, teaching at OSU, and their crowning achievement was a powerful production of landmark expressionist play Machinal by their Sound Company. I said, This production is rich with jagged beauty and a perfect example of how irony can be used to make something hurt more, not less. How much more potent can abstraction be at evoking a feeling than spelling something,” for Columbus Underground.
Jessica Hughes, Machinal, photo by Blake Mintz
  • Beautiful by Doug McGrath and the music of Carole King et al, directed by Dionysia Williams (Short North Stage) – I didn’t see a bad production by Short North Stage all year, but this jukebox musical – which might have had the hardest go with me walking in, given the depth of my familiarity and love of the Carole King-Gerry Goffin songs and the milieu around them, and this captured it so perfectly, anchored by brilliant performances by Britta Rae, Corbin Payne, and Nick Lingnofski. For Columbus Underground, I said, “The book has enough pain and richness to give ballast to the material, but Beautiful never lets anything get in the way of the power and beauty of these songs.”
  • The Comeuppance by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by Eric Ting (Signature Theatre Company, NYC) – Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is one of the playwrights I’ll see anything that comes out if I can at all make work. I was overjoyed that one of the last matinees overlapped with our middle trip to New York this year. I got there – after two hours a few blocks north of the Signature complex having some drinks and laughs at staple Rudy’s Bar and Grill- and was dismayed to find out the performance was over two hours with no intermission. I’m used to that meaning, “We don’t trust the material/we want to exert some dominance over the audience/people will leave.” But for 2:15, I was staggered, enraptured, blown away. Every tool Jacobs-Jenkins has carefully sharpened is deployed in heartbreaking, unsettling ways with a phenomenal cast in this mythopoetic riff on The Big Chill that tells a story about reckoning with youth, trauma, and who has the right to a story; to pain; that I haven’t heard before. I’m dying to see this again and have already pre-ordered the script in book form (coming out next summer). I saw a couple of things this year where I both immediately said, “This is the best thing I’ve seen,” and I still think that later in the year (you’ll see the other further down this list); this was one of them.
  • Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler, directed by Thomas Kail (Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, NYC) – I’ve seen a good number of the recent Sweeney Todd revivals, the first Sondheim I loved thanks to an introduction to the taped George Hearn/Angela Lansbury performance from childhood friend Matt Porreca, and I love the attempts at realism, psychological or otherwise. But it was an unalloyed joy to see this Thomas Kail-directed version that focused on the sumptuous music, playing the original orchestrations and with a dynamite lead from Josh Groban, in almost a sharp-edged comic book interpretation. And as with the Sunday Anne and I saw a few years ago, Annaleigh Ashford’s Mrs. Lovett runs away with the whole goddam show, just a dynamite performance.
The Comeuppance photo by Monique Carboni
  • The Inheritance by Matthew Lopez, directed by Joe Bishara (Evolution Theatre Company) – Evolution has been swinging for the fences the last couple of years, and, in my eyes, it’s really paid off. The ambition of this huge cast recasting of Howard’s End to deal with the aftermath of the AIDS crisis, which was the play everyone was talking about when Anne and I were in London (and I couldn’t fit it into the schedule), follows great work Evolution has done with Lopez’s writing like the intimate character-driven Poz and gets to luxuriate in this over two three-hour parts. I called it, “About how we tell stories, how stories bring us together, give us a framework for living, and in the same breath – and sometimes the same story – let us delude ourselves and others, build walls, and slowly (or slowly-then-suddenly) rot us from the inside,” as I reviewed Part 1 and Part 2 for Columbus Underground.
  • POTUS by Selena Fillinger, directed by Leda Hoffmann (The Contemporary Theatre of Ohio) – Fresh off Broadway, POTUS affirmed Hoffmann’s commitment to brand new work and stewardship as CATCO transitioned into The Contemporary Theatre of Ohio. It’s a crackling burlesquing of the highest hallways of power and riotous, hilarious entertainment. It may have been the hardest I laughed all year. I said the production was “A springloaded machine of everything getting worse in ways we see coming, but at just enough of an angle, the wind is knocked from our lungs as a precursor to the following laughs. Hoffmann and her cast excel at this, ratcheting in the tension up, weaving in call-backs (if there’s another inflection you can put on “ass play” we don’t see in this play, I can’t think of it) so they embed in our brains and still getting that jolt of surprise when they detonate, with just enough release to make the pace feel frenzied without being exhausting,” in Columbus Underground.
  • What the Constitution Means to Me by Heidi Schreck, directed by Dakota Thorn (Available Light) – Dakota Thorn, who I’ve long admired as an actor, hit it out of the park with her first – I think – directing and Available Light member Michelle Schroeder-Lowrey is the perfect fit for this funny, intensely moving snapshot of a slice of America from Heidi Schreck. I said, “Hilarity – starting with the 15-year-old Heidi talking about the constitution in bodice-ripper terms (“a sweaty, steamy document”), deep dives into specifics of language, and abject horror bump right up against one another, without feeling unbalanced. In the late-play discussion of Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, the play draws a clear line between an abstraction being the point, the nitpicking of “shall” as a dodge, a way to avoid letting people into the argument being seen by the court, and the breathless, sometimes delirious love of words as a way to let people in, to truly see them, instead of shutting them out, as the play does,” in my review for Columbus Underground.
  • Infinite Life by Annie Baker, directed by James Macdonald (Atlantic Theatre, NYC) – I can’t think of a contemporary writer who burrows into the most banal – and simultaneously most intimate – spaces of modern life with more agility and a sharper knife than Annie Baker. This look at seven women in a spa/health retreat that’s not explicitly described is a master class in interweaving perspectives; the way we talk with the knob turned all the way up until it seems strange. Anne and I talked about this all the way down 8th Avenue to the Vanguard (see this year’s live music list), and I’m still turning it over in my head, trying to make sense of it in the best way.
Laurie Carter Rose, Arriah Ratanapan, Noelle Anderson, and Shanelle Marie, POTUS, photo by Terry Gilliam
  • Merrily We Roll Along by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth, directed by Maria Friedman (Hudson Theatre, NYC) – Everything you’ve heard about this is true. Easily the strongest, most fully realized version of this underdog of the Sondheim canon, directed with a sure hand and razor-sharp timing by Maria Friedman, who uses her storied history with Sondheim and her internalizing of those rhythms to make everything breathe and, crucially, peels back a little more of the onion on Franklin Shepherd (a stunning Jonathan Groff) to show the people pleaser quality at the heart of all that grasping – the first time I really believed that line, “I’ve only made one mistake in my life but I’ve made it over and over again: saying ‘Yes’ when I meant ‘No.’” Daniel Radcliffe kills me as the righteous purist Charley Kringus, and Lindsay Mendez, new to me, gives a more fleshed-out version of Mary Flynn, taking her out of the Dorothy Parker caricature while still nailing those lines than I’d previously seen.
  • Which Way to the Stage? by Ana Nogueira, directed by Edward Carignan (Short North Stage) – I didn’t realize how much I’d missed Short North Stage’s taste in non-musical plays until this breath of fresh air reminded me. It felt really good being back in the Green Room, laughing and thinking. In Columbus Underground, I said, “[It] treats these heavier themes with the gravity they need – how does this thing you love change, and what happens when it doesn’t? How do we look to other people? – but they never get in the way of the laughs. It’s a delightful comedy with a sniper-targeted sense of its audience.”
  • Ghost Quartet by Dave Malloy, directed by Drew Eberly (Available Light) – The other thing that stood out to me as the best thing I saw all year, a song cycle with theater running through its veins, that denied my easy understanding as much as it made me love it. For Columbus Underground, I said, “Malloy and the cast, under Eberly’s sure hand, dig into a purer emotional landscape, the way a song feels as it moves through you, and the late nights of wanting to one-up one another because you love the people you’re with so much; while still having all the insecurities and viciousness that makes us human.”
  • Good Grief by Ngozi Anyanwu, directed by Shanelle Marie and Alan Tyson (Contemporary Theatre of Ohio) – Shanelle Marie and Alan Tyson collaborated on directing this lovely meditation on loss, friendship, and growing up by Ngozi Anyanwu, a jewel in a very strong season from The Contemporary Theatre of Ohio. For Columbus Underground, I said, “The ability, starting in Anyanwu’s text and emphasized by Marie and Tyson’s direction, not to demonize anyone, to find drama without making anyone a villain, showing us people who are all doing their best is a rare gift and a pleasure I don’t get often enough in any medium.”
Amy Rittberger in the foreground, Katie Giffin and Jo Michelle Shafer in background on the bar, Ghost Quartet, photo by Kyle Long
Categories
Best Of theatre

Best of 2022: Theater/Opera/Dance

Cast from the Public Theater’s Fat Ham by James Ijames, photo by Joan Marcus

It felt this year – and this is not just me saying it, I had this conversation with actors, with artistic directors, with people in line at the bar – that theatre was back in a way we didn’t quite see in 2021. And for what’s become my favorite art form, that was a balm to my soul I couldn’t quite quantify.

I made it to 52 shows this year. In addition to Columbus, Anne and I saw quite good theater in St Louis (a terrific version of Assassins), Madison (the really fun Temptations jukebox musical Ain’t Too Proud) that didn’t quite make the list for me this year and stuff in New York that did, along with a couple NYC shows that had their hearts and minds in the right place but just didn’t land like I would have liked (a version of Company with a show-stopping lead performance by Katrina Lenk and a great comedic cast but was too uneven otherwise, and a 1776 with a stunning premise of having the founding fathers played by a cast without any cis men, but didn’t do anything with that premise).

It was a joy seeing Available Light back in a big way with a powerful shot across the bow in an exemplary performance of Jen Silverman’s Witch. CATCO built on their good work with Mr. Burns with my two favorite productions of the year, versions of School Girls and Indecent I have a hard time imagining being bettered. eMBer Women’s Theatre did a version of Margaret Edson’s W;t with a jaw-dropping performance by Sue Wismar at its heart that just wrecked me and made Anne say, “That’s the first great theater I’ve seen since we started going again.” Short North Stage – in addition to what was placed on this list – also had a production that turned me around on a show I never really liked Little Shop of Horrors, and one that re-invested me in a show I thought I was done with, Spring Awakening. The bench of choices to pick from was deep this year.

And these were the best of the best for me – the shows that made me want to grab a martini and talk about for two hours afterward (Sardi’s didn’t exactly make us use the elevator after Topdog/Underdog, but it was damn close) or hug whoever was near me. That lit me up and reminded me why I keep doing this.

But that’s not the whole story of the ecosystem. I want to call attention to the great work that MadLab and Evolution are doing: both of these companies take chances on plays no one else is and shine a light on voices that haven’t had many productions at the level of professionalism and care they both always bring to the table. Evolution did the almost unthinkable and brought a brand new musical to life.

For me, the finished products were mixed bags for both companies but you don’t find gems without taking the kind of bold risks they do. And also MadLab and Joe Bishara’s Abbey Theater (who host Evolution along with Original Production Theater, Stage Right, the Columbus Black Theatre Festival, etc) providing space and logistical support to other companies in a world where the rent’s too damn high and locations are thin on the ground for the needs of smaller troupes. They’re doing their part to nurture new, bold work. These are in chronological order and in Columbus unless otherwise stated. Photos are all taken from the theater’s websites or were provided by the production company for publicity purposes.

Sermontee Brown, Shauna Marie and Jacinda Forbes from School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play by Jocelyn Bioh, presented by CATCO. Photo by Terry Gilliam
  • School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play by Jocelyn Bioh; directed by Shanelle Marie (CATCO) – I’d read Bioh’s pitch-perfect dissection of the cruelties people inflict on each other, through the specific lens of a girls’ boarding school in Ghana, and seen the streaming version of Chicago’s Goodman during lockdown but the production of this still hit me like every beat was brand new. I said, “In twenty-five years of regularly seeing theater, and a lifetime of living in Columbus, this is one of the ten best things I’ve ever seen on a stage here. It made me laugh myself hoarse and have to take my glasses off to wipe away tears,” when I reviewed it for Columbus Underground.
  • Fellow Travelers by Gregory Spears (composer) and Greg Pierce (libretto), based on the novel by Thomas Mallon; directed by Bruno Baker (Opera Columbus) – I wrote a preview for this stunning show which premiered in Cincinnati in 2016, a dark look at the HUAC-motivated purge of homosexuals from US government ranks centered around an incendiary performance from baritone Carl DuPont. I wrote about it for Columbus Underground.
  • W;t by Margaret Edson; directed by Michelle Batt (eMBer Women’s Theatre) – This was just breathtaking, a fantastic play that not only holds up but gains new resonance as it feels like anti-intellectualism and disparaging of women’s autonomy gain new, ugly footholds. I said, “Wit is a play that still elicits huge laughs – proven the night I went – and keeps its power to devastate, a prime example of the play as a magician who tells you the trick at the outset, then dazzles you with it anyway”, in my review for Columbus Underground.
  • Fat Ham by James Ijames; directed by Saheem Ali (Public Theater and National Black Theater, NYC) – I’ve been a fan of James Ijames’s’s heavily poetic language and incisive looks at the human condition since Available Light included a work of his in the 2017 Next Stage Initiative – but this year’s Fat Ham was the first piece of his that tied all the threads together and exceeded its potential. A riff on Hamlet set in the deep South, following a gay man, Juicy (Marcel Spears in a masterful performance), as he tries to navigate a bad family situation and relationships he keeps fucking up, with humor and fire. The moment when I realized Calvin Leon Smith’s sharply drawn Larry wasn’t Laertes he was Ophelia almost knocked me out of my chair and the concluding fourth wall shattering “If it’s all right with you, we decide to live,” that could have been so cheesy felt like the only truth I needed. One of the best new plays I’ve seen in many, many years.
  • The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder; directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz (Lincoln Center Theater, NYC) – I’d read and enjoyed this Thornton WIlder, but I’m not sure I’d ever seen it. Anne’s enthusiasm for the work – and my curiosity about what Lileana Blain-Cruz, whose work on Suzan-Lori Parks’ The Death of the Last Black Man in the Entire World blew me away a few years ago, would do with it – made this our first trip back to Lincoln Center since the pandemic started and it was a dizzying, almost-too-appropriate take on how you live in the face of an apocalypse. A surreal apocalypse but a reminder that the world, especially in times of crisis, is always surreal. Puppet mammoths and hordes of barbarians tromp through a well-appointed home, with an astonishing performance from Gabby Beans as Sabina at the center of it.
Ricardo Jones, William Tyson, and Wilma Hatton in King Hedley II. Photo by Jabari Johnson
  • Voice of the Net by Jeremy Llorence; directed by Joe Bishara (Original Productions Theater, presented at the Abbey Theatre of Dublin) – Science fiction is hard to adapt on the stage; so are mysteries. So it was an extra delight to see this world premiere cyberpunk/techno-thriller play handle literary tropes I would have thought un-adaptable with stiletto grace. A credit to both the sharp, steady hand of Llorence’s script and Bishara’s innovative and empathetic direction; as well as a great cast including Julie Whitney Scott, Tom Holliday, and Jeff White. I reviewed this for Columbus Underground.
  • Queen Margaret by Jeanie O’Hare, adapted from William Shakespeare; directed by Philip Hickman (Actors’ Theatre) – This Jeanie O’Hare dissection of Shakespeare’s Wars of the Roses plays, centered around a brilliant performance by Jessica Hughes as the eponymous queen, was a shining example of Actors’ Theatre’s power to bring complicated, adult work to a beautiful summer night without any pandering or bullshit. Hickman’s direction kept the tension high but also let the characters breathe. I talked about this for weeks. I reviewed this for Columbus Underground.
  • Althea and Angela by Todd Olson, directed by James Blackmon (JB3 Entertainment, presented at MadLab) – This world premiere historical drama about the friendship between Althea Gibson (Jaymi Horn), the first black American to win a Grand Slam tennis title, and her competitor/sometimes doubles partner Angela Buxton (Mallory Fischer) was a gift. Beautifully directed by James Blackmon for his JB3 Entertainment company. I called it “It’s an exciting slice of history, well-told; a profound look at the reasons and rewards of connecting with one another; and a dazzling reminder of how much beauty there is in being alive,” in my review for Columbus Underground.
  • King Hedley II by August Wilson, directed by Patricia Wallace-Winbush (PAST Productions with Actors’ Theatre) – One of only two August Wilson plays I hadn’t seen performed (*cough* could somebody do Seven Guitars?) paired with the perfect director for it, and Wallace-Winbush met or exceeded every one of my sky-high expectations. A grim, soaring take on the difficulty of getting out of the poverty cycle, others’ expectations, and our own tragic flaws. Wilma Hatton – also excellent in School Girls this year – gives one of those performances of a lifetime. I said, “The care with which Wallace-Winbush and her cast treat the milieu, the characters, and the words, make this an indelible evening and a reminder of the necessary empathy at the heart of all great tragedy,” in my review for Columbus Underground.  
Michelle Schroeder and David Glover in Witch by Jen Silverman, presented by Available Light. Photo by Matt Slaybaugh
  • Witch by Jen Silverman; directed by Whitney Thomas Eads (Available Light) – This return from the last of the main theatre companies to come back, AVLT, was almost everything I could have hoped. An amazing central performance from Michelle Schroeder and stellar work from David Glover and Ian Short among others, directed beautifully by Whitney Thomas Eads. I called it “A towering example of exactly what I’m going to the theater for and an incandescent reminder of what Available Light brings to the Columbus theater community,” in my review for Columbus Underground.
  • Rent by Jonathan Larson; directed by Chari Arespacochaga (Short North Stage) – It’s no secret that my tastes have been shaped by a number of friendships over the years. Everything good is the result of a series of friendships, alliances, and warm acquaintances. I lost two friends who were big proponents of Rent and made me see it through a more forgiving eye than my anything-popular-has-to-suck teenage attitude and while it’s not perfect, I have a real fondness for it. Both passed this year, and we hadn’t been close for a little while, which kind of made seeing this again perfect. That feeling was bolstered by the fact that this was a beautiful production. RIP, Kate Wright (Opperman when I knew her). RIP, PBS. I never adequately explained how much you meant to me and my understanding of art and the world over the years. I reviewed this for Columbus Underground.
  • Montag by Kate Tarker; directed by Dustin Willis (SoHo Rep, NYC) – This fall was my first trip back to Soho Rep, the site of many of my most profound theatrical experiences, and I lucked into a flamethrower of a play. I’ve never heard language like Kate Tarker’s, take on relationships – the friendship with the two women, beautifully acted by Nadine Malouf and Ariana Venturi, felt real and approachable even in the heightened circumstances of being under attack. Surreal details creeping into view – a disco ball grim reaper, a motorcycle-loving friend with an operatic area, and a crash of sunlight – are the right balance of terrifying and hilarious. I didn’t understand huge chunks of this, but I fucking loved it.
Cast of Imagine’s Assassins by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, photo by Jerri Shafer
  • Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks; directed by Kenny Leon (John Golden Theater, NYC) – Probably my favorite play ever, certainly always one of the two or three things in the conversation. I read Parks’ Topdog/Underdog in 2002 or 03, right after it was published in book form, and it set my hair on fire. I missed its original Broadway run by a couple of months on one of my first trips to New York. And afterward I didn’t miss any of her plays if I could help it and saw a couple terrific regional versions over the years (a very good one at CATCO in 2004 still stands in my mind), so there was no way I was going to miss the first Broadway revival. From the moment I walked into the building to Pete Rock and CL Smooth’s “They Reminisce Over You” booming through the PA, I was hyped. And at first, I was a little disappointed – Kenny Leon’s direction felt a little sitcom-y, a little boom-clap. But by the end of it, the incandescent performances of Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II were reverberating in my chest, making me interrogate why some choices made me uncomfortable. Especially when those same choices were turning some of the audience into people never having seen a play before – when Linc announces he’s lost his job, there’s a small chorus of “Awww,” that at first felt annoying and then was really endearing. Two hours of discussion and three manhattans with Anne at Sardi’s later, I got it. It might not be a perfect version (if such a thing even exists), but it’s a stunning, finely tooled for now take on this 20-year-old masterpiece.
  • Indecent by Paula Vogel; directed by Leda Hoffmann (CATCO) – Another take on a play I dearly love, probably my favorite of Vogel’s work, and I’m a fan in general. Leda Hoffmann (who also killed me with Mr. Burns last year) did a marvelous job paying tribute to the Jewish and queer histories in the play and making it luminous, thoughtful entertainment. I was wiped out and burned out from the week when I saw this, but I barely got to the coffee shop to write my review before texting half a dozen friends to tell them how good this tribute to the human need to get together and tell stories, to the eternal power of theater, was. I reviewed it for Columbus Underground.
  • Assassins by Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and John Weidman (book); directed by Brandon Boring (Imagine Productions) – I also saw an excellent production of Assassins, maybe my favorite Sondheim play, in St Louis while there for good friend John Wendland’s wedding, and what I thought was interesting about both was they did away with the abandoned-carnival setting. I got a kick out of Fly North Theatrical’s quite good version set at a political fandom convention, directed by Bradley Rohlf (and it had maybe the best Sam Byck I’ve ever seen, Sarah Lantsberger), but I was fully blown away by Brandon Boring’s staging of this in a courtroom. I previewed it because I was in Mexico City for the first weekend, but I spent my own money to see one of the last two performances, and it reminded me how good it feels to do that once in a while. It was riddled with great touches like the judge’s gavel for gunshots, the balladeer as a prosecuting attorney making his case to the ensemble as a jury, and the assassins gathered around a defense table.  An excellent cast with particularly strong performances from Chris Rusen, Brian Horne, Lexi Vestey, and Nancy Skaggs, delivered the hell out of the material. I had a few issues with projecting; some lyrics got lost when actors realistically turned away from my part of the audience, and I understand the reasons for them, but I’m still not in love with singing to backing tracks, but those minor quibbles couldn’t take the shine off my love of this production. Anne and I went to see our friend DJ at The Oracle after and never left the bar to make our way into the room where the dancing was happening, having a lot to say, which doesn’t normally happen on a play we’ve seen three productions of together before the one we watched that night. Building on his terrific Into the Woods a few years ago, Boring might well turn out to be our current standard-bearer for directing Sondheim.
Categories
Best Of Playlist record reviews

Best of 2021 Playlist – Parting Gifts

After the reactions to last year’s more formal (as opposed to background for a Pink Elephant) playlist honoring people who passed away that made an impression on me. I tried to keep better, more methodical track, and good lord. So many people who changed how I heard things or turned me around on a genre, who deepened my connection with a kind of music or got me interested in a genre, who connected me with people. The person the track stands for who passed away is in parentheses. 

On that same note, there are people who aren’t musicians or producers who have as great an impact on my understanding and love of music who should be acknowledged. Lane Campbell, who I probably knew less well than 50 people on my friends list, but who I met at Twangfest many years ago and still remembered me well enough to see me on my front lawn during the pandemic when he and his partner were visiting Columbus and stop to say hello. I thought about him a lot after that chance meeting, and more after he passed away, often revisiting music I loved that I hadn’t gone back to as often in recent years. 

George Wein, who created the contemporary music festival, and certainly helped create the versions of it I still love even as I grumble about the ubiquity and encroachment of the festival as a thing: it’s easy to draw a line that there’s no Big Ears without Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals, no Nelsonville without New Orleans’s jazz fest. I finally read the great autobiography co-written by Nate Chinen this year and it made an impression on me. 

Wrapping this up on January 3nd, with a second case of COVID, and grateful to meet another day. Thankful for anyone reading this, anyone who turned me onto any of these artists, and anyone I might talk about them with. I’m sure I’ve missed some, I always do. That impossibility is one of the things that keeps me going. Continue reading if you’re interested in my rambling.

Continue reading “Best of 2021 Playlist – Parting Gifts”
Categories
Best Of dance theatre

Best of 2019: Theatre/Dance/Opera

“Setting my palms into the mud
at the base of a gnarled vine,
I pressed them together
and whispered “speak.”
But the vine’s silence just grew
into the silence of the dead
who once tended it.

Then I saw exactly how
it was beautiful—
how it held its world whole
beneath its fog-slick bark,
while the things we ask
to hold us leave us
spent.”
-From “Where the Zinfandel Pass Their Seasons in Mute Rows” by Jane Mead

The pleasure of being in a room with performers, sitting with someone else’s voice, the feedback loop between audience and the stage, all resonated more strongly and felt more vital than ever this year. I saw a little less theatre – only one New York trip instead of the usual two and the Italian trip coincided with the opera houses being dark – about 55 performances between three cities – but still had a hard time carving out these fifteen performances.

Each one of these showed me something I didn’t know before, sent me spinning out into the night, made me desperate to talk to someone about them, and usually made me pound my fist into the heavy desk at the impossibility of coming close to doing it justice the next morning. These are in chronological order, instead of ranking, and are in Columbus unless otherwise specified. All art was provided by the companies for promotional use, either sent to me directly or on their site.

Available Light’s Appropriate

Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by David Glover (Available Light) – Available Light crushed this year by bringing the best writing for the American stage to Columbus and executing on it with jaw-dropping alacrity. The two David Glover-directed plays were standouts and Appropriate started my year of theatre-going with the thunderclap of a warning-shot pistol. I called it “An acidic, invigorating evening that will make you laugh, make you hate yourself for laughing, make you hate yourself for giving someone the benefit of the doubt, but acknowledge the horrible, beautiful nature of being human.” Standout performances – in a cast full of winners – included Kim Garrison Hopcraft’s righteous fireball of desperation, Philip Hickman and Beth Josephsen’s metal-grinder of a struggling marriage, and Jordan Fehr’s devastating look at the difficulty of atonement. My review for Columbus Underground.

Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine (book), directed by Brandon Boring (Imagine) – It’s rare for a production of a play I love as much as Into the Woods to shock me back into myself. Director Brandon Boring’s risky choices to go off-mic – with all credit to the strong, sympathetic singing of the cast and the nuanced work of musical director Jonathan Collura and his chamber orchestra – and work up an immersive set in a tiny room known for sound problems paid off big in this jaw-dropping, real, funny take. As I said for Columbus Underground, it “took me back to the same place of childlike delight as my first encounter. I found tears coming to my eyes at exactly the places they should have been.”

The Flood by Korine Fujiwara (score) and Stephen Wadsworth (libretto), directed by Stephen Wadsworth (Opera Columbus and ProMusica Chamber Orchestra) – The Flood pointed to a rich, challenging future for two of our best institutions. An original work grappling with a painful chunk of Columbus history, the Franklinton flood, moved me in more senses than just my coming from a family who settled in The Bottoms and ended up on the Hilltop. Fujiwara’s sparkling, layered, complicated score was executed brilliantly with astonishing performances from Lacey Jo Benter, Meröe Khalia Adeeb, and Daniel Stein, among others. I reviewed this for Columbus Underground.

Netta Yerushalmy’s Paramodernities

Paramodernities by Netta Yerushalmy with texts by Thomas F. DeFrantz, Julia Foulkes, Georgina Kleege, David Kishik, Carol Ockman, Mara Mills, Claudia La Rocco (presented by the Wexner Center) – It’s rare I see something that makes me say “I’ve never seen anything like that before.” It’s even rarer I’m in the theatre for over four hours still hungry for more when the lights come up. Yerushalmy’s wild grappling with the history of modernism, scoring dances to lectures set my brain and every part of my body on fire. I walked out wanting to grab everyone I knew by the shoulders and shake, “Why weren’t you there? You missed something special.”

The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe, directed by Elizabeth Wellman (OSU Department of Theatre) – I was bummed to miss DeLappe’s play twice at Lincoln Center (once sold out by the time I got word, the revival opened the day I was flying home) so I was overjoyed OSU took it on this season and it did not disappoint. Elizabeth Wellman’s bone-deep understanding of patterns, their necessity for us to grow up but also their ability to weigh us down, sparkles here, with ferocious performances from Vayda Good and Mehek Sheikh anchoring a top-notch cast. I reviewed this for Columbus Underground.

Red Herring’s Waiting to be Invited

Waiting to Be Invited by S. M. Shepard-Massatt, directed by Patricia Winbush-Wallace (Red Herring Productions) – Red Herring’s ambitious play-a-month schedule this year yielded far more hits than misses. One of my favorites was Shepard-Massatt’s look at the early civil rights movement, directed brilliantly by Patricia Winbush-Wallace, with a stellar, perfectly balanced cast of Winbush-Wallace, Julie Whitney Scott, Demia Kandi, Harold Yarborough, and Josie Merkle. I reviewed it for Columbus Underground.

King Lear by William Shakespeare, directed by Sam Gold (Cort Theatre, NYC) – My favorite Shakespeare in an uneven – the reports were not wrong – at times gaudy and overwrought version, still had pleasures enough to make this list. Foremost among them, Glenda Jackson – I feel like I’ve seen the defining Lear of my generation, terrifying, imperious, wounded; I can count on one hand the performances I’ve seen on a stage that matched hers. Similarly, casting Russell Harvard, a deaf actor, as Cornwall paid off massively especially in the moments before the assault on the Earl of Gloucester (a brilliant James Houdyshell) with a frenzied argument between Corwnwall and his aide/interpreter, Michael Arden, in sign language.

Hillary and Clinton by Lucas Hnath, directed by Joe Mantello (John Golden Theatre, NYC) – A slice of life/secret history about the back rooms of the primaries for the 2008 election. Hnath’s uncanny ability to understand the rhythms of the way we speak to each other in different rooms and with different intentions sang through the amazing performances of Laurie Metcalf, John Lithgow, Peter Francis James, and Zak Orth.

Evolution’s The View Upstairs

The View Upstairs by Max Vernon, directed by Beth Kattelman (Evolution Theatre Company) – My favorite thing in a particularly strong season from Evolution this year. An original musical about the moments before the Upstairs Lounge arson, amplifying that tragedy by being about what brings people together for solace, especially people who are denied it elsewhere. Incredibly moving, warmly directed by Beth Kattelman and with a stellar leading role by Jonathan Collura who I did not know was a late addition until a friend told me that at a party weeks later. I reviewed it for Columbus Underground.

Fine Not Fine written and directed by Andy Batt (MadLab) – Andy Batt’s return to his former home as artistic director delighted me as it brought me to tears. I said at the time it “grapples with the most basic question of humanity: why do we keep living? What makes us want to keep living? It finds a magical strength in the lack of easy answers and in the absence of a magic bullet; in the very difficulty of the road ahead of us all. And it reminds us we don’t have to be alone in that struggle.” I reviewed it for Columbus Underground.

Available Light’s Dance Nation

Dance Nation by Clare Barron, directed by Whitney Thomas Eads (Available Light) – With every play Clare Barron stakes her claim on the title of best American playwright. This look at a teenage dance team boasted crackling direction and choreography from Whitney Thomas Eads and fantastic performances all around. I said at the time, “I’ve seen nothing that felt as much like adolescence – raging, wildfire emotions; the fracturing of friendships that used to feel like home; not everyone is special at the thing you most want to be seen for – as Dance Nation.” I reviewed it for Columbus Underground.

Between Riverside and Crazy by Stephen Adly Guirgis, directed by Ekundayo Bandele (Hattiloo Theatre, Memphis) – I’ve long admired Hattiloo Theatre’s mission. While plays have never been the primary factor in getting me to Memphis regularly, I’ve always been impressed they seem to sell out by the time I start planning. I finally rectified that error with a fiery, intense production of this rich Guirgis drama.

The Humans by Stephen Karam, directed by McKenzie Swinehart – Red Herring ended their run at the Franklinton Playhouse with this nigh-perfect take on Karam’s Tony-winning family drama. Orbiting around the devastating father-daughter dynamic of Christopher Moore Griffin and Becca Kravitz, I said at the time, “Swinehart treats what could be heavy, ponderous material with a light touch, letting her characters breathe and taking full advantage of Edith D. Wadkins’ jaw-dropping set. Love for these characters, even at their most broken, animates this The Humans, searing it into the audience’s brain.” I reviewed it for Columbus Underground.

Short North Stage’s West Side Story

West Side Story by Arthur Laurents (book), Leonard Bernstein (music), and Stephen Sondheim (lryics), directed by Edward Carignan (Short North Stage) – Carignan took this American classic and stripped it down to its raw emotion and primal darkness in this brilliant collaboration with Columbus Children’s Theatre. A shocking, wild take that preserved everything I love about this show I know so well and made me see it anew.

7 by Radouan Mriziga (presented by the Wexner Center) – Mriziga’s take on the Mershon Auditorium brought overload from every corner with voices and symbols, history being rebuilt and seen from various angles. I’d also like to take this moment to shout out the Wex’s recent commitment to accessibility, I saw people enjoying this who would have felt uncomfortable or made to specifically ask for basic accommodation at these kind of immersive performances in the past. It was fantastic to see the beginnings of that change.