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A strong year in theater, I would say. Here’s my pick of a dozen top productions:
1. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson – Les Freres Corbusier’s smart/stupid rock musical, my first exposure to excellent writer/director Alex Timbers and his fearless crew, including rock-star caliber lead performance by Benjamin
Walker (above center). As the subway ads put it, “History just got all sexypants!”
2. The Myopia – David Greenspan (below) in a spectacular solo performance of his own crazy play
3. The Merchant of Venice – Daniel Sullivan’s deep, upsetting staging of Shakespeare’s play in which Al Pacino’s Shylock and Lily Rabe’s Portia were 2 out of 20 strong performances
4. A View from the Bridge – direction by Gregory Mosher, with terrific performances by Scarlett
Johansson and Liev Schreiber (below), Jessica Hecht, Michael Cristofer, and Corey Stoll
5. Angels in America – Michael Greif’s revival of Tony Kushner’s play with extra-fine performances by Christian Borle, Zachary Quinto, Bill Heck, Robin Bartlett, and Robin Weigert
6. In the Wake – Lisa Kron’s play (lynchpin of the Public Theater’s admirable political-theater season) with
memorable performances by Michael Chernus and Deidre O’Connell
7. A Lie of the Mind – Ethan Hawke’s surprisingly beautiful re-imagining of Sam Shepard’s play, with a revelatory central performance by Alessandro Nivola
(below)
8. A Disappearing Number – fine smart new work from Complicite directed by Simon McBurney with a dazzling production design
9. The Kid – the smart and tuneful musical adaptation of Dan Savage’s memoir with a good cast well-directed by Scott Elliott, most notably Christopher Sieber, Susan Blackwell, and Jeannine Frumess
10. A Free Man of Color – John Guare’s ambitious stylized epic staged in high style by George C. Wolfe with a huge cast in which standouts included Jeffrey Wright, mos, and Veanne Cox
11. Another American: Asking and Telling – perfect timing for Marc Wolf to bring back his Anna Deveare Smith-like solo performance surveying the topic of gays in the military
12. A Behanding in Spokane – Martin McDonagh’s hilarious new play with knockout performances by Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell and a superbly seedy set by Scott Pask
I’m not quite sure where to put three shows I’d seen before but were still high-water marks for 2010:
Fela! (last year’s #1, which I saw twice again this year),
Gatz (which made my top 10 in 2007), and the Wooster Group’s
North Atlantic (the third revival, with a great new cast including Ari Fliakos, Kate Valk, Steve Cuiffo and Zachary Oberzan).
Miscellaneous highlights:
-- William Kentridge’s dense and dazzling production of Shostakovich’s The Nose at the Metropolitan Opera and his equally theatrical retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art
-- Norm Lewis singing “Being Alive” in Sondheim on Sondheim at the Roundabout
-- Christine Jones’ set and Michael Mayer’s direction for American Idiot
-- Mark Rylance’s justly acclaimed performance in La Bete
-- The Pee-Wee Herman Show on Broadway – sheer fun!
-- Most Valuable Player (male): Scott Shepherd for North Atlantic
and Gatz
-- Most Valuable Player (female): Bonnie Thunders, Gotham Girls Roller Derby
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