2009 In Review

The time has come for the obligatory roundup of the year. However, I'm going to avoid the standard Top 10 list, for two reasons.

1) I don't like being that certain about something so very subjective.

2) I didn't see nearly enough shows. I'm guessing I saw upwards of 60 productions this year (maybe even around 75), but that's literally half what some critics have seen, so I couldn't claim to really know what was best this year. (I only saw 5 of Time Out's top 10 and 3 of the Tribune's, for example.) Anyone who missed The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, All My Sons, The Man Who Was Thursday, The Overwhelming, Blackbird, An Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor John Faustus on This His Final Evening, Red Noses, The Arabian Nights and many, many more is understandably a little lacking.

Those caveats in place, here's a look at the best of what I saw this year.

Best Productions

The Mystery of Irma Vep, Court Theatre: I know I was just raving about this one a few weeks ago, but bear with me. Not only is it high on the list of the funniest things I've ever seen, it is so perfectly theatrical in its hilarity. The sheer virtuosity of the quick changes, the equivalent speed with which two actors changed their entire physical and vocal selves, the complex relationship between the cast and the audience, enlivening even the most ridiculous of jokes, the joy of being in the same room as the design and effects, the onstage tribute to the backstage crew: none of this could have happened in a movie or on television. It was utterly delicious, and I hope it helps Charles Ludlam's brilliant script to lose its reputation as a "cult" classic. It's a classic, period.

Strange Interlude, The Neo-Futurists at the Goodman's O'Neill Festival: Eugene O'Neill's nine act opus was a huge hit when it opened in the late 1920's. Unfortunately, time has not been kind to its purple prose, absurdly specific stage directions, and intensely serious audience asides, and it seems deeply silly now--a straighforward production would probably be impossible. Director Greg Allen, an intrepid cast of five, and some very sharp designers recognized this, and used it as an opportunity for some of the most deliriously inventive theatre staged all year. Every act had new surprises, and the production played with the script's insanity while finding the real heart within. It was epic in length, and not every moment worked, but I spent the whole 5 1/2 hours (intermission and dinner break stretched it out longer) enthralled. There has been some talk of reviving the production. Do it now, I say.

The History Boys, TimeLine Theatre: This was, first off, one of the year's biggest theatre news stories. A smallish company, working out of a hundred-seat space in Lakeview, takes on one of the best and most ambitious scripts of the decade (a dozen actors, a nearly three hour running time, an extremely British sensibility), does amazing work with it, and it goes on to run six sold out months, winning a raft of Jeffs just after its closing. I saw it  three weeks before the end, and was hugely impressed. It's a gorgeous play, witty, sad, and remarkably honest about life and learning, and the production really was wonderful. Most impressive was the cast: some had been with the show from the start, some were replacements, but they worked together like they'd known each other for years.

500 Clown and the Elephant Deal, Steppenwolf Upstairs: My love affair with 500 Clown has been mentioned repeatedly all year, but this was what started it: a completely lunatic, wildly inconsistent show. It's true that the show flirted with dullness for the last 20 minutes or so, but what came before was so intense, scary, and hilarious at once, that even the unsuccessful bits had a heartening sense of adventure and risk.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Marriott Theatre: Sometimes you just want to laugh, and this production fit the bill--sharp, silly, and well-sung. Composer/lyricist William Finn and bookwriter Rachel Sheinkin deftly balanced sharp humor and sentiment in their portrayal of a group of preteens at a spelling bee, and Rachel Rockwell led her nine-member cast to excellent ensemble work and kept the show flying. It was a great time.

Animal Crackers, Goodman Theatre: Sometimes you just want to laugh, part two. The Goodman revived a Marx Brothers hit from the 1920s with no Marx Brothers, which is a huge risk, but they found three fantastic ringers in Joey Slotnick (Groucho), Jonathan Brody (Chico), and 500 Clown's Molly Brennan (Harpo). But that wasn't it--the rest of the supporting cast (six tireless performers) was also spot-on, with special mention for the imperious Ora Jones as Mrs. Rittenhouse, the Margaret Dumont role. The show was done with enough conviction that even the love plot and silly songs were delightful fun--and the 1920's costumes were just gorgeous.

The Ruby Sunrise, Gift Theatre: Probably the year's most pleasant surprise. The Gift took Rinne Groff's script, which had seen moderate success and mixed reviews Off-Broadway, and gave it a sparkling and enthralling production. It didn't always hit the mark, but the actors were dead on and the designs made brilliant use of Gift's miniscule space.

The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Northlight: Feck yes I did background research, and am therefore biased. Feck yes it was still hilarious, bloody, and totally badass.

Outstanding Performances

Chicago's so full of great actors that it seems silly to pick just a few, but here were some performers who knocked me flat:

Brenda Barrie had a hell of a year: the title role in Lifeline's Mariette in Ecstasy, the lead roles of Sara in Profiles' Graceland and  Lulu in Gift's The Ruby Sunrise, and finishing things off with another title character, Aunt Dan in Backstage's Aunt Dan and Lemon. I only saw the middle two, but in both I was hugely impressed by Barrie's emotional honesty, wit, and straightforward grace. She's a joy to watch, and I can't wait to see what she has in store for 2010.

You're all tired of hearing about Molly Brennan, but she's a stunning clown who both creates indelible performances and makes everyone around her look good. I'm not going to say any more, you just have to go see her. So there.

Chris Sullivan and Erik Hellman played at least a half-dozen roles in The Mystery of Irma Vep, with more than 30 lightning-fast costume changes between them. I'd seen and really liked each before, but this was just plain amazing.

Jackson Challinor in Graceland was both mature enough to understand the adolescent he was playing and young enough (he's still in high school) to be believable. Some of the best youth acting I've ever seen, and essential to that play's success.

The entire ensembles of The History Boys, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Court Theatre's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and Factory Theatre's Mop Top Festival worked like a dream together.

Design

Red Tape Theatre's Mouse In A Jar didn't quite work, but William Anderson's set sure did. The audience descended into the basement setting, which surrounded us on all sides, and there was no way out. Chilling.

Animal Crackers at the Goodman poured on the glitz, but oh my did it work. For a lover of 1920's clothes, it was heaven.

I mostly haven't commented on touring shows, but oh wow was Kevin Adams' lighting for Spring Awakening awesome. Rock-concert extreme and thoroughly energizing.

Brian Sidney Bembridge's set for The History Boys has been justly praised, placing the audience in runway-style seating and putting the boys bedrooms in the lobby. It was the perfect setting for the dynamic staging.

Design was just one more element of The Mystery of Irma Vep that worked--and best of all, the designs were all in on the joke. The set was full of surprises, the lighting poured on the melodrama, the costumes were simply loony, and the funniest upholstery ever popped up everywhere you looked.

Steve Tolin's violence and special effects for The Lieutenant of Inishmore were poetry. Blood-spattered, limb-hacking poetry.

Most Overrated

Graceland, by Ellen Fairey, has real merits: she writes fantastic dialogue, and the production had some of the best realistic acting I saw all year. It also has serious flaws: there are some lapses in psychological credibility and you can usually tell where each scene is going within a few minutes. Even though it was a world premiere, it felt like a good version of something I'd already seen. So why was it greeted by the critics at the Tribune and Sun-Times like the second coming? How did it run six months and score an upcoming production Off Broadway? Maybe I'm just out of touch with the times (though I'm not the only one who felt that way). Still, I'm genuinely pleased that Fairey is finding success, and I hope her next show builds on her strengths and improves her weak spots.

Peter Shaffer's Lettice and Lovage is full of British wit, and in RedTwist Theatre's production benefited from wonderful work from Millicent Hurley and Jan Ellen Graves, but it still has a second act virtually without dramatic conflict and an overlong third act. I enjoyed the best parts of it, but it didn't cover for the script's flaws. But maybe I'm just overly critical--others were completely swept away.

Most Disappointing

Macbeth at Chicago Shakespeare had some of the best actors in town (and two of the best in Canada) and a spectacular physical production, but it also suffered from a series of arbitrary directing choices by Barbara Gaines. (Why exactly was the "Double, double" scene set in a strip club, other than the chance to dress Mike Nussbaum up in a creepy leather-fetish outfit?) The result was almost never scary or involving, and a sad waste of some real talent.

Sean Graney is one of the best directors in town (see The Mystery of Irma Vep, above), and his Hypocrites production of Frankenstein should have been awesome--four actors! Promenade staging! The Museum of Contemporary Art's giant performance space! Alas, it got bogged down in speechifying and ran out of steam by the halfway point. Hey, letting a bunch of smart artists play won't always leave you with a great result. The occasional flop is worth it for the great stuff that pops up.

The Thin Man is a fantastic book that led to a brilliant movie, but the adaptation at City Lit suffered from an over-narrated story and an underwritten female lead. It looked fantastic and the supporting cast was often delectable, but it lacked snap. Ah well.

Romulus Linney is a respected playwright, and Democracy promised to be a juicy historical satire. But it was based on two different novels, and covered way too much ground too quickly to really land.

Pleasant Surprises

The Ruby Sunrise, Gift Theatre: See above. The script may be flawed, but the production could not have been bettered. It makes sense that it got better reviews in Chicago than it had in New York.

1985, Factory Theatre: A parody of Orwell's 1984 about the year the Bears won the Super Bowl doesn't seem promising, but Chas Vrba's script was a deft blend of the two and ended up being hugely entertaining, even to someone who doesn't follow football and hasn't read the Orwell since middle school.

Days To Come, The Artistic Home: It's clear why this was one of Lillian Hellman's flops, but inconsistent Hellman is still Hellman, and Days To Come delivered the snappy, melodramatic goods with panache.

***********

It's interesting to note that most of what I loved this year was comedic in nature. Even the two plays that might be called dramas were full of laughs. Maybe next year will be stronger for dramas.

And in case you are wondering, yes there is a worst list. I will not share it in public, but contact me personally and I will bring forth all the venom within me.

Happy New Year, and here's to lots of great Chicago theatre in 2010!

Year In Review 2008

I counted up my reviews for Centerstage and this blog, which add up to over 30, plus at least another 20-25 shows I saw as a civilian, in Chicago, New York, Connecticut, and Cleveland--at least a play a week this year, probably more. I didn't see nearly as much as some did, and I missed some of the best theatre of the year, but here is my personal list of some of the most memorable things I saw this year in Chicago. These are all Chicago shows, and leave out shows or companies with which I was affiliated--so nothing from Stage Left or Northlight, though they produced some exceptional stuff this year. Here, arranged alphabetically, are some of the best things I've seen this year.

Production (Play)

Edward II (Chicago Shakespeare)--Sean Graney's promenade staging in Chicago Shakespeare's Upstairs space, with the audience and the actors sharing the same place and scenes erupting all over the place, may not have been a purist rendering of Christopher Marlowe's script (about half of which was missing). However, since I wasn't familiar with the play, I was swept up in the show's intensity and theatricality. The production lacked subtlety, but it packed a punch, and I'll never look at a pair of garden shears the same way again.

Ruined (Goodman Theatre)--Lynn Nottage's new play took on a grisly subject--sexual violence against women in the Congo--and made it gripping and sympathetic. This was no lecture, it was a play full of vibrant life and hope. As Kate Whoriskey's production moves to the Manhattan Theatre Club, I hope that it continues to reach audiences as it did in Chicago.

A Steady Rain (Chicago Dramatists)--I caught this play from fall 2007 in its run at the Royal George this spring. Simple, powerful stuff, about two cops in a downward spiral. No formal fireworks, but a simple story that packed a wallop. It's great to see something so serious have a real financial success.

Superior Donuts (Steppenwolf)--For his followup to August: Osage County, Tracy Letts went in a completely different direction, for this comedy set in an Uptown doughnut shop. It lacked the scope and intensity of its Pulitzer-winning forerunner, but it featured a real depth of feeling and a keen eye of the issues facing Chicago (and many other cities) today. Tina Landau's production was bursting with warmth and life.

Titus Andronicus (Court Theatre)--Wrenching. This revisionist production wildly divided people, but I found its stark look at how groups slide into violence extraordinary. It may not quite have held together, but I can't argue with the fact that I was almost sick after seeing the show. Some of the images still haven't left my head.

Production (Musical)

Caroline, Or Change (Court Theatre)--Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori's profound meditation on race, religion, civil rights, family, and change made its belated Chicago debut, five years after its scandalously brief Broadway run. It was worth the wait. Charles Newell's gloriously simple staging let the play's intense emotional and intellectual impact come through. Gorgeous playing and singing didn't hurt. The audience was left devastated and cheering, and a serious, dark musical managed to sell out an extended run.

Carousel (Court Theatre)--Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote an extremely dark play, and this production played up the desolation in Billy and Julie's lives--how the complete lack of economic opportunities drove them to self-destructive behavior. The singing was inconsistent, and some missed the color and romance, but I was wiping away tears by the last scene.

Nine (Porchlight)--Maury Yeston's gorgeous score was given a highly entertaining, exceptionally well-sung production. What a pleasure to hear such amazing female voices given the chance to wrap themselves around such powerful songs.

The Threepenny Opera (The Hypocrites)--Sean Graney used the entire Steppenwolf Garage space for this galvanizing production of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's extraordinarily difficult show. They nailed both Brecht's social point and his wicked sense of fun, and Weill's gorgeous tunes were well-served. An orchestra would have been nice, but it was still electrifying.

New Script

10 Virgins (Chicago Dramatists)--Laura Jacqmin's play was not completely successful, but it made for a fascinating exploration of the place of gender in fairy tales. A real mind-teaser, but theatrically vivid as well.

Ruined (Goodman Theatre)--Lynn Nottage has crafted a play that succeeds both in raising awareness of a real problem and bringing us deeply into the lives of the characters. We'll see more of this play.

A Steady Rain (Chicago Dramatists)--Intense and moving, and proof that sometimes, all you need is a good story told well.

Superior Donuts (Steppenwolf)--Warm, funny, moving, and socially acute. The success of August: Osage County caused people to underrate it, but I think it will eventually find wider respect than it has now.

Performance (Play)

Celebrity Row (American Theatre Company)--Itamar Moses extraordinary, though as yet unrealized, play got a scorching production in the hands of four actors playing four of the most notorious criminals in recent history, along with one actress as the idealistic lawyer who got caught up in their games. Their performances made even the script's slack sections riveting.

The Misanthrope (Greasy Joan)--The production of Moliere's comedy was inconsistent and sometimes puzzling, but Kevin Cox as the title character was a marvel. He was a comic whirlwind, the proverbial bull in the china shop, and took the play to dizzying comic heights.

Superior Donuts (Steppenwolf)--The word "incandescent" was created for Jon Hill. As young doughnut shop employee Franco Wicks, he lit up the stage whenever he appeared. It was impossible to take your eyes from him. He more than justified having been chosen as a Steppenwolf Ensemble member as soon as he graduated college.

The Trip To Bountiful (Goodman Theatre)--Realism at its finest, in the extraordinary performances of Lois Smith and Hallie Foote, daughter of playwright Horton Foote. Rarely have I seen performances that seemed so effortlessly lived, rather than acted.

Performance (Musical)

Caroline, Or Change (Court Theatre)--The titanic E. Faye Butler, in the title role, led the way, but the women of this production all stood out, with Melanie Brezill, Jacqueline Williams, and Kate Fry being only the most amazing. What a combination of fiercely committed acting and gorgeous voices.

Forbidden Broadway (Royal George Theatre)--Unsurprisingly, the cast proved extraordinarily adept at skewering a wide variety of Broadway personalities, but Valerie Fagan, with a dangerous glint in her eye, stood out.

Nine (Porchlight)--With a commanding and delightful lead performance by Jeff Parker and one of the most diverse and impressive groups of women I've ever seen on stage, this was first-class musical theatre performing.

Sweeney Todd (Broadway in Chicago)--In John Doyle's fascinating production, Judy Kaye gave an exceptional performance as Mrs. Lovett. By performing the play rather than her own private show, Kaye significantly improved on Patti LuPone's work and made the entire production look much better.

Direction

David Cromer--While I sadly missed his acclaimed productions of Our Town and Picnic, his crystalline work on Celebrity Row made it eminently clear why Cromer has suddenly, after a 20 year career, become a celebrity, and will be making his Broadway directing debut in the fall on 2009.

Sean Graney--He can certainly be accused of flash, but every one of Graney's productions I've seen has been vivid and involving. Edward II and The Threepenny Opera were two of the most pulse-pounding productions I've seen in a long time, though perhaps better if viewed as Graney's plays rather than classics.

Charles Newell--I have yet to not love one of Newells productions. All three shows he directed this year were among the best I saw--Titus Andronicus, Carousel,  and Caroline, or Change. His stagings divide many, but count me among his fans.

Kate Whoriskey--The sense of a world fully lived in that she created with the exceptional cast of Ruined is hard to forget. I went from knowing little about the Congo to feeling like I'd visited.

Design

10 Virgins (Chicago Dramatists)--Five of the ten sisters depicted in the play are portrayed by puppets, and Allison Daniel's designs made them full parts of the production, as well-characterized as the flesh and blood actresses. They were invaluable in telling the story.

The Birthday Party (Signal Ensemble Theatre)--Harold Pinter's play shows a seemingly ordinary world where menace slowly undermines everything the characters and audience think they know. Julie E. Ballard's lighting slyly and subtly helped to bring this atmosphere to disturbing life.

Cadillac (Chicago Dramatists)--While I had problems with Bill Jepsen's script, he and set designer Kevin Depinet worked together to create a pitch-perfect evocation of the used car lot where it was set.

Termen Vox Machina (Oracle Theatre)--I didn't like the confusing script or the production concept of live actors lip-synching to a pre-recorded soundtrack at all. However, I can't get Tyler Burke's set, made from layers plastic curtains, out of my head. If the entire play had been as intriguing as the set, I would have been hooked.

Biggest Disappointments

Bernarda Alba (Bohemian Theatre Ensemble)--In adapting Federico Garcia Lorca's extraordinary play, Michael John LaChiusa added some gorgeous music. Unfortunately, he also sapped the play of its dramatic vitality and tension. Boho's production put some exceptional voices onstage, but a miniscule stage and some bizarre miscasting undercut the power of their production. Possibly the year's saddest case of a potentially amazing piece of theatre constantly undercutting itself.

Jersey Boys (Broadway in Chicago)--While I'm no great fan of the music of The Four Seasons, I was led to expect that Jersey Boys would be an interesting story told in an exciting and entertaining way. Instead I found a script that was a laughable concoction of cliche and sentimentality. This is what has sold out everywhere it has played? Oy.

Saint Joan (The Shaw Festival at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre)--Ever since I appeared in a production of it, George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan has been among my very favorite plays, and in the may years I have been lucky to attend it, Canada's Shaw Festival has proved itself among the best theatres on the planet. So what a disappointment to find this production too polite and lacking in fire. Perhaps the saddest disappointment of the year.

Pure Pleasure

A Commedia Christmas Carol (Chicago dell'Arte)--In their adaptation of A Christmas Carol, the expert clowns of Chicago dell'Arte resurrect the 16th Century Italian art of commedia dell'arte in deliriously funny fashion. Completely ridiculous and utterly delightful.

Los Desaparecidos (The Vanished) (Babes With Blades)--Barbara Lhota's new play, set in 16th-Century Spain, may have stretched credulity with an improbable plot and the characters somehow maintaining gay and interracial relationships against the odds. But if you were willing to let go, it made for a thoroughly delightful evening, full of laughs, thrills, and exceptional stage combat.

What a year! Hapy New Year, and here's to a 2009 that's just as exciting!