Arts :: Theater
2008: Best in Local Theater by Jules Becker
Contributing writerWednesday Dec 31, 2008 A standout musical number in the recent Tony Award-winning musical Spamalot bears the pointed (if somewhat true) title "You Won’t Succeed on Broadway (If You Haven’t Any Jews)." Supplant the words "Or Gays" to its name, and the shrewd song could be describing much of the best Boston area theater in 2008. Many of the strongest plays and musicals of the year featured gay themes or creators or both.
Certainly the most ambitious and, in many ways, most satisfying effort of 2008 was Boston Theatre Works’ (BTW) impassioned revival of Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning work Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. As arguably the greatest American drama of the last half century, Kushner’s visceral, AIDS-era gay fantasia demanded and heartily received a strong ensemble performance under the taut direction of BTW artistic director Jason Southerland. Southerland also directed another gem of 2008, namely the out-of-the-park Worcester Foothills Theatre revival of the Richard Greenberg Tony winner Take Me Out. Sadly, financially strapped BTW is on an at least extended hiatus, and singularly talented Southerland has taken over as head of Chicago’s acclaimed Next Theatre. Someone needs to revive the always envelope-pushing BTW.
By contrast, another topnotch but fiscally sound company, SpeakEasy Stage Company, just completed one of its most challenging years ever. Terrence McNally’s Some Men had its moments, many of them thanks to stunning work from actors Diego Arciniegas and Will McGarrahan, chronicling recent gay American history. Douglas Carter Beame’s The Little Dog Laughed sharply skewered materialistic and self-centered Hollywood movers with virtuoso acting from Maureen Keiller as a bitchy agent. Still, the best of 2008 standouts were SpeakEasy’s wonderful, intimate take on The Light in the Piazza - directed with singular passion by Scott Edmiston - and the benchmark Boston premiere of Alan Bennett’s Tony winning The History Boys, also seamlessly staged by Edmiston, with one of the best Hub ensembles of the decade and a heartbreakingly moving turn by Karl Baker Olson as gay Jewish student Posner.
Visiting chestnuts spanned the theatrical spectrum. The Broadway Across America tour of Avenue Q at the Colonial Theatre proved nearly as affecting as the still-running New York original. Robert McClure displayed impressive skill with the very different large puppets, including: Princeton, a straight job-seeking college graduate, and Rod, a gay banker with an unrequited love for his straight roommate Nicky. Cole Porter (his real name) was disarmingly enjoyable as Jewish groom Brian, as was this clever neighborhood musical, a cross between Rent and Sesame Street. South African performance artist Pieter-Dirk Uys, memorably provocative in 2005’s Foreign AIDS, returned to A.R.T. for another tour de force. This time, it was Elections and Erections, a sweeping, alternately humorous and serious solo turn featuring uncanny evoartions of such important figures as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Mrs. Evita Bezuidenhout.
Rounding out this critic’s best list for 2008 are the following (in alphabetical order):
A Delicate Balance
Merrimack Repertory Theatre (Lowell)
Artistic director Charles Towers turned this always timely Edward Albee study of family, friendship and the borders of relationships into the best revival of 2008, an elegantly designed and delivered production that could hold its own with Broadway counterparts.
Falsettos
Turtle Lane Playhouse (Newton)
This has been a banner year for the worthy troupe (including a winning Chess). William Finn’s smart look at the parallel rites of progress of a gay father and his bar mitzvah-celebrating son possessed a powerful performance from big-voiced James Fitzpatrick III as the former.
In the Continuum
Up You Mighty Race (Boston)
Artistic director Akiba Baraka galvanized her strong cast and the BCA audience became caught up in the middle of playwrights Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter’s richly disturbing look at HIV and African women. UYMR is an electric company not to be missed.
She Loves Me
Huntington Theatre Company (Boston)
Nicholas Martin’s swan song proved as delightful as his stagecraft and this underrated musical. The good news is that the Williamstown artistic director returns to Huntington next month to direct a month-long run of the Emlyn Williams classic The Corn Is Green [Jan. 9 - Feb. 8]. Fellow returnee Kate Burton plays dedicated teacher Miss Moffat.
Paris by Night
Trinity Repertory Theatre (Providence)
Artistic director Curt Columbus staged a striking new gay musical romance with a majestic turn from Joe Wilson, Jr.
Another best was My Fair Lady, as staged by both the Royal Theatre tour at the Opera House and the Ogunquit Playhouse run that starred gifted Tony winner Jefferson Mays as Higgins.
Runners-up this year include All About Christmas Eve from the Gold Dust Orphans; Assassins from Company One with Mason Sand haunting as an attempted murderer; The Boys of Winter at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, a telling new play about friendship, family and Vietnam; The Cutting, from Stoneham Theatre, a fascinating drama with fine work by Rachel Harker and Eve Kagan; Faith Healer from Publick Theatre, a touching monologue play with artistic director Diego Arciniegas a revelation as the title character; One for the Road from Charlestown Working Theater, a show that arrestingly captures playwright Pinter’s scary insights about abuse, indignity and dictatorship; Show Boat from North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, a loving revival; and Three Tall Women, a vivid version of this Albee gem with a blistering performance by Paula Plum.
Eager for more? 2009 brings the start of a year with several potential powerhouses. One this critic has already seen on Broadway is the revolutionary musical Spring Awakening with terrific Bill T. Jones choreography. Zeitgeist Stage will join in with the prescient Benjamin Wedekind play dealing with the pangs of puberty for both straight and gay adolescents on which the musical is based. Ideally this will be a rare opportunity to see a play ahead of its time and a brilliant musical adaptation of it in the same season. Purists and iconoclasts rejoice!
Lyric Stage will present the Tennessee Williams classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with former footballer Brick’s questions about his sexuality and the area premiere of the haunting Beals Sisters-based musical Grey Gardens.
SpeakEasy Stage has the New England premiere of Paul Rudnick’s gay-themed Off-Broadway quartet The New Century. Look for Paula Plum as a striking Long Island Jewish mother and Kerry Dowling as an Illinois scrapbooker in the two best short plays. Look for nudity and no holes barred dialogue in this Rudnick foursome.
Also in 2009, SpeakEasy will collaborate with Boston Playwrights’ Theatre and Forty Magnolia Productions on The Wrestling Patient, an original play drawn from the journals of Etty Hillesum, a 27 year old Dutch Jewish woman who perished at Auschwitz.
Now that the Harry Connick starring, Gershwin-scored new musical Nice Work If You Can Get It and the Rob Ashford re-choreographed Brigadoon are postponed, theatergoers looking for a pre-Broadway tryout can turn to the East Coast pre-New York premiere of Dirty Dancing-The Classic Story on Stage, starting Feb 7. at the Opera House.
Look for more details on all of these offerings and others as the 2009 theater year begins.
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