Best Productions of 2021

New York City theatre isn't completely back yet, especially with omicron scares cancelling shows right and left, but at least things are better than last year, when I had to write a list of the top 10 shows I did NOT get to see.

So now I'm back to my annual tradition of coming up with a list of the top shows I saw that opened this year in New York City. Obviously, my own adaptation of A Christmas Carol doesn't count, since it was in Trenton, and neither do virtual performances, though some of them were quite fun.

Here are my picks, in reverse order:

10. The Alcestiad - Magis Theatre Company lived up to its name with this magical outdoor production on Roosevelt Island this summer. Thornton Wilder's take on a Greek myth involving death and plague came alive with the ruins of a smallpox hospital providing the backdrop. It was a joy to behold.

9. King Lear - New York Classical Theatre decided to do William Shakespeare's most depressing tragedy this year, but with the happy ending rewritten by Nahum Tate. Once again, the outdoor setting added to the experience, though it also meant that my first two attempts to see the show were cancelled due to rain. The third time was a charm, and this show was nothing if not charming.

8. The Book of Moron - Robert Dubac's one-man show was closer to a stand-up comedy routine than your typical Off-Broadway fare, but it rose beyond simple jokes to become an engaging and thought-provoking piece of theatre. This was in part due to flawless direction by comedy legend Garry Shandling and a surprisingly innovative set designed by Melissa Burkhardt Moore. I'm glad I saw it.

7. Trouble in Mind - Alice Childress at last made it (posthumously) to Broadway with Roundabout's production of her most famous play, a backstage drama about actors rehearsing a dreadful script by a conveniently absent playwright. During intermission, I overheard one audience member say, "Chuck Cooper makes everything he's in even better." How true! Cooper's performance in the play is not to be missed, so if you haven't seen it yet, get your tickets. It's still playing, but only through January 9th!

6. Merry Wives - Jocelyn Bioh's adaptation of The Merry Wives of Windsor was the Public Theater's sole offering at the Delacorte this summer, but it was worth seeing, if for no reason other than Jacob Ming-Trent, who played the larger-than-life character of Falstaff. Bioh appropriately adjusted the text to make Shakespeare's comedy of rural life in England work when reset among African immigrants in contemporary Harlem. The sight of Ming-Trent as an overgrown man-child playing video games was not only a witty sight gag--it was amazingly appropriate for the character of Sir John Falstaff.

5. Flying Over Sunset - When James Lapine has a new play, it's usually worth seeing, and when it's got music by Tom Kitt and lyrics by Michael Korie, you definitely want to be there. This imagined meeting of Aldous Huxley, Clare Boothe Luce, and Carey Grant at a rented Malibu beach house where they go on LSD trips together delivers both soaring melodies and beautiful stage pictures. It also features innovative choreography by tap master Michelle Dorrance. Harry Hadden-Paton, Carmen Cusack, and Tony Yazbeck all provide stellar performances that go beyond mere impressions of celebrities. This show is still playing at Lincoln Center, so get your tickets while you can!

4. Mrs. Warren's Profession - Gingold Theatrical Group scored again with their production of Bernard Shaw's devastating comedy about capitalism and prostitution, which turn out to be pretty much the same thing in this play. Karen Ziemba was able to shine in the title role, even when sharing the stage with other acting stalwarts like Raphael Nash Thompson and Robert Cuccioli. The more challenging roles in the play, however, go to the younger performers playing Vivie and Frank. Nicole King made her Off-Broadway debut as Vivie Warren, a "New Woman" whose enigmatic intelligence Shaw explored but thankfully never tried to solve. She was complimented by David Lee Huynh as Vivie's caddish love interest, Frank. Director David Staller made certain this production was just as charming as GTG's 2019 offering, Caesar and Cleopatra.

3. The Disciple - Thirdwing is a relative newcomer to NYC theatre. Their productions--which are sometimes live, sometimes virtual, and sometimes both--can be hit or miss. The Female Genius, a series of filmed shorts by Rachel Carey, provided the basis for this full-length play about author and philosopher Ayn Rand and her devoted much younger lover, Nathaniel Branden. Unlike some other plays about sexual exploitation by the famous and powerful, The Disciple finds nuance, in part by flipping traditional gender politics on their head, and showing a woman who is willing to be just as selfish and brutal as any man. Maja Wampuszyc is perfect as Rand, and Cameron Darwin Bossert plays Branden with both humanity and humor. Alas, the in-person show came and went without much fanfare, but fortunately, you can still see a filmed scene from it streamed through Thirdwing's website.

2. The Alchemist - The funniest new play of 2021 was Ben Jonson's old Jacobean comedy The Alchemist, made new again in a brilliant adaptation by contemporary dramatist Jeffrey Hatcher. Red Bull Theater Company, which has been remarkably active online during the pandemic, thankfully returned to the live stage with this side-splitting production directed by Jesse Berger. The cast featured Jacob Ming-Trent--who was so hilarious as Falstaff in this summer's Merry Wives--as well as Manoel Feliciano, Reg Rogers, Teresa Avia Lim, Nathan Christopher, Carson Elrod, Allen Tedder, Louis Mustillo, and Jennifer Sanchez (who literally shimmered in a costume designed by Tilly Grimes). Jonson's play is hysterical, but its cast of 12 (plus assorted extras) makes it difficult to produce for a professional company. Hatcher did a great job getting to the core of the humor while also reducing the cast size and making the play feel topical for those of us living through the plague of the 21st century.

1. The Streets of New York - Of all the New York companies that took their work to the virtual world to keep theatre alive during the pandemic, none were more prolific and innovative than Irish Repertory Theatre, which experimented boldly with the online format, and frequently with great success. I intensely looked forward to their return to the live stage, though, and was greatly pleased when they announced that they would be performing Dion Boucicault's The Streets of New York, especially after they had done such a magnificent revival of the same author's comedy London Assurance. What I was not expecting was for the show to be a musical! Director Charlotte Moore provided a number of delightful songs to transform Boucicault's classic melodrama into a holiday treat. She couldn't have done it, however, without a delightful cast that includes Ben Jacoby, David Hess, Justin Keyes, Jordan Tyson, Ryan Vona, Delaney Westfall, and (most winningly) Amanda Jane Cooper. It's still playing until January 30th, so be sure to grab tickets.

That's my list! Honorable mentions go to Blackbird, Radium Girls, and The Overcoat. Let's hope the virus recedes soon, and we can have a more robust season in 2022!

Flying Over Sunset

Before our entire society shut down in 2020, I had been looking forward to seeing James Lapine's new musical Flying Over Sunset.

I mean Lapine, who had collaborated with Stephen Sondheim on Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Passion had a new musical? Sign me up!

With music by Tom Kitt, who wrote Next to Normal? Of course I'm coming. You don't have to tell me what it's about! Wait, it's about Aldous Huxley, Clare Boothe Luce, and Carey Grant on an acid trip? Seriously? As they say, take my money, already!

Huxley has been a fascination of mine ever since I read Brave New World when I was in high school. I even wrote a play called The Four Doctors Huxley that was produced by a theatre in Jersey City. As for Luce, it's hard not to admire the technical brilliance of her play The Women, even if her right-wing politics tended to be revolting. And Grant? Who doesn't love Carey Grant, perhaps the greatest leading man Hollywood ever produced?

Well, the collapse of civilization as we knew it prevented the show from opening in 2020, but it's back now at Lincoln Center, and I finally got a chance to see it last night. The audience was sparse, due to the twin disasters of an omicron spike and bad reviews, but I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Choreographer Michelle Dorrance provides percussive movements that supplement Kitt's score, and the set by Beowulf Boritt works magic on stage.

What we're really here to see, though, is this trio of celebrities--so very different, yet so alike in many ways--interact with each other while tripping on a psychedelic drug. The problem is, people on psychedelic drugs don't necessarily interact. The journeys they go on are journeys within, which doesn't always lend itself to interpersonal connections. This means that Flying Over Sunset is about three individuals, not about finding community, which might make it an appropriate show for an individualistic society where community is considered suspect unless modified by the word online.

The first act in fact presents our three protagonists separately. First we meet Huxley, played by Harry Hadden-Paton, experiencing LSD for the first time while on a mundane trip to an L.A. drug store. He spots an art book being displayed alongside a plethora of other objects on sale, and his gaze at Botticelli's Judith with the Head of Holofernes becomes the operatic musical number "Bella Donna Di Agonia." Instead of dropping us immediately into a surreal hallucination, the show slowly builds to stranger and stranger visions, then gradually brings us back, much like the effects of a drug that build, peak, and fade.

Grant is the next to trip, taking the drug in a psychiatrist's office at the behest of his wife, Betsy Drake. This provides Dorrance with the opportunity to choreograph her most compelling tap number of the show, "Funny Money," in which Grant, played by Tony Yazbeck, dances with his younger self, played by Atticus Ware. Yazbeck has a particular challenge, playing the iconic Grant, since we all know the face of the man he is playing, but his dancing chops encourage us to suspend our disbelief and indulge in the fantasy. In real life, Grant famously described an acid trip he once had in which he imagined he was a giant penis launching into space. Naturally, the musical later stages this moment in the song "Rocket Ship."

The real star of the show, though, is Carmen Cusack, who plays Luce. We see Luce, by then a former congresswoman as well as the former ambassador to Italy, as she faces hearings in the U.S. Senate to be confirmed as ambassador to Brazil. No longer exuding the confidence she once had, though, Luce turns down the ambassadorship. At her estate in Connecticut, she takes LSD under the guidance of the writer and guru Gerald Heard (played by Robert Sella) and stops the show with her rendition of the title song "Flying Over Sunset."

At the end of the first act, the three protagonists meet up at the legendary Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles and decide to have an experience together at Luce's Malibu beach house. It is there, in a psychedelic garden, that Luce encounters her dead mother and daughter, both in "heaven" but different heavens, since her virginal daughter and not-so-virginal mother could never occupy the same astral plane in Luce's mind.

Flying Over Sunset, for all its pyrotechnics, is ultimately a quiet, simple show, about simple moments rather than grand gestures. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the moments of true connection between the characters happen only after the effects of LSD have abated. In our own world, fragmented and isolated by politics, disease, and other traumas, those moments of connection are more important than ever.

Best Plays of 2015

It's the end of the year, and like many others, I'm putting together a round-up of the best new productions I saw that opened in New York City in 2015. Some of my choices might seem unconventional, while others will surprise no one. Here they are, in reverse order:

10. Allegiance - With all the great new Broadway musicals opening this year, Allegiance is in danger of getting lost in the shuffle. It shouldn't be.

9. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore - Red Bull Theater Company usually does good work, and their production of John Ford's masterpiece was no exception. 'Tis Pity proved once again that you don't have to have the budget of The Royal Shakespeare Company to put on good classical drama.

8. Wolf Hall - Of course, if you do have the budget of the Royal Shakespeare Company, it doesn't hurt. The RSC's adaptation of Hilary Mantel's first two novels about the life of Thomas Cromwell didn't gain as much attention (or fill as many seats) as it did in London, but it was still worth seeing. Wolf Hall was a magnificent display of skilled theatre professionals doing precisely what they do well.

7. Amazing Grace - Speaking of shows not embraced by Broadway, Christopher Smith and Arthur Giron's fantasia on the life of John Newton drew the ire of critics, but thrilled those who had enough good since to ignore them and come anyway. I cried more at this show than at anything I've seen in years. As with Allegiance, the songs did not always rise to level one might hope, but the storytelling was both moving and timely.

6. Cymbeline - Though The Public Theatre seems to misfire with their Shakespeare productions as often as they produce a hit, this summer's Cymbeline was a delight. Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe were hysterical as the play's romantic leads, but the best thing about this production was how the small cast came together to create a true ensemble. Tasteful audience interaction and superb music by Tom Kitt also served to make this a memorable production.

5. Something Rotten - Even more memorable than some of the many Shakespeare productions I saw this year was Something Rotten, the Broadway musical making fun of the Bard. Yes, I saw Fun Home, which beat it out for the Tony this year, but I found myself seated where that play's ill-conceived direction showed nothing but the actors' backs. Something Rotten by contrast has not only a great score, ingenious lyrics, and a creative book, it's also well directed and a pleasure to watch.

4. Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green - Howard L. Craft's one-man play featuring J. Alphonse Nicholson, probably hasn't made it onto a lot of people's top-ten lists, but that's because they didn't see it. Beginning at the dawn of the 20th century and proceeding to the present day, Freight manages to examine the American experience (and more specifically the African-American experience) in ways that are constantly surprising. Each of the play's five scenes move forward through history, yet we seem to revisit the same set of characters over and over again, reminding the audience that even as some things change drastically, others remain tragically the same.

3. Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe - Though Nevermore came to New York once before, this creation by Catalyst Theatre had evolved since then, and it's production at New World Stages counted as a Broadway premiere. It didn't hurt that I saw the play on Mr. Poe's 206th birthday, but my own fan-boy-ing aside, this is one of the most creative and innovative plays I've ever seen. Bretta Gerecke's production design is a goth's dream come true, and Jonathan Christenson's text sounds so natural we hardly notice the play is almost entirely in verse. Like one of Poe's characters, Nevermore doesn't want to stay buried, and we should all be thankful for that!

2. Hand to God - I admit that I came late to this party. Hand to God was a hit off-Broadway way before it opened this year on the Great White Way, but this production was astonishing. In spite of the fact that he is clearly one of America's great playwrights, a Broadway hit still has not allowed Robert Askins to give up his bar-tending job, but that's just the state of the economics of this country's theatre. Never mind. This tale of a high-school misfit engaging in "puppet ministry" in a church basement continually goes to darker and more unexpected places, and Askins' voice deserves to be heard. I'm a sucker for puppets, and this show uses puppetry in ways that are dirtier than Avenue Q and yet with more skill than is hardly ever seen.

1. Hamilton - Okay, no surprise here. Since it opened off-Broadway at the Public, Hamilton has been the hottest ticket in town, but not without reason. Lin-Manuel Miranda has crafted a magnificent show out of American history and American popular culture. The music is exciting, the lyrics are smart, and the story of Alexander Hamilton's life and death, even to those who already know it, is enough to break your heart. Count me along with politicians as diverse as Barack Obama and Dick Cheney as one of the many fans of this show. If you can't see it right away, get the cast album. Listening to it reminds you of so much that the American musical is and can be. Ten dollar tickets (a Hamilton for a Hamilton) are still available through a lottery before each show, but good luck getting them. Spring for a regular ticket. It's worth it.

So that's my list! Honorable mentions this year to Doctor Faustus, I Will Look Forward To This Later, and Spring Awakening!

Shakespeare's Cymbeline in Central Park

Last night I attended the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park production of Cymbeline starring Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe. Make your plans to see it now. This is a production you're not going to want to miss.

The Public's summer offerings at the Delacorte Theater can be hit or miss. I was mostly disappointed by The Tempest earlier this year, though last summer's King Lear was amazing. Daniel Sullivan, who also directed Lear, helmed this production, which boded well.

Earlier this week, going up to Belvedere Castle, I spied down into the Delacorte to see if I could get an idea of what the set looked like. I couldn't, which meant that walking into the theater yesterday was a bit of a surprise. Set designer Riccardo Hernandez has constructed a circular faux-grass stage on top of the regular stage at the Delacorte. The green circle is literally framed by a golden proscenium decorated with a golden eagle and sun, and surrounded by various bric-a-brac of Western civilization, including reproductions of some of the paintings you can see at the Metropolitan Museum of Art not far from the theater.

On either side of the stage-within-a-stage are rows of green seats with audience members. Yes, if you go to this production, you might be seated right up there with the actors. Here's what it says of the show's website:

Due to the intimate nature of this production of CYMBELINE, there will be a limited number of seats on The Delacorte stage. Guests in these seats will be required to adhere to a certain set of rules in order to ensure the safety of both the actors and the audience. These tickets may not be requested, however, some guests may be solicited by staff to fill those seats on the day of the performance at The Delacorte Theater.

It looked like the Public staff selected these audience members from the back and side of the audience, where there were some empty seats during the show. But beware! You might also be given lines. During the opening sequence, as actors David Furr and Jacob Ming-Trent set up the story, some of these audience members read questions assigned to the "two gentlemen" in the first scene of Shakespeare's text.

Furr and Ming-Trent constantly reappear in the show as various lords, soldiers, courtiers, and eventually as Guiderius and Arviragus, lost sons of the king. In fact, there is so much doubling the entire cast of characters is portrayed by only nine actors. Linklater plays both Posthumus and his rival, Cloten, a pairing I've also seen used by the British company Cheek by Jowl. Kate Burton is crazy sexy as the evil queen, and then later a perfectly believable old man as Belarius. Perhaps the most fun piece of double casting is Teagle F. Bougere as both the Roman general Lucius and the physician Cornelius, leading to some quick-change antics in the final scene.

That last scene, in which wonder upon wonder is revealed, is the heart of the play, and the production does it all brilliantly. We see ever-increasing joy bestowed upon King Cymbeline, played lovingly by Patrick Page. Lily Rabe, in the cross-dressing role of Imogen, strikes a balance between forgiveness and chastisement, and Steven Skybell warms our hearts as Pisanio, the put-upon servant of Posthumus.

Perhaps the most lasting element of the production, however, will be the original music composed by Tom Kitt of Next to Normal fame. Kitt provides a delightful lounge-lizard number for the villainous Iachimo, played by Raul Esparza with such sleaze you expect a trail of slime everywhere he goes. The funniest song, however, is Cloten's:

      Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
        And Phoebus 'gins arise,
      His steeds to water at those springs
        On chalic'd flow'rs that lies;
      And winking Mary-buds begin
        To ope their golden eyes.
      With everything that pretty bin,
        My lady sweet, arise;
          Arise, arise!

When read on its own, this might just seem like bad poetry, but Shakespeare, perhaps the greatest poet of all time, put it into the mouth of Cloten, one of his densest idiots. This is intentionally bad poetry, and Kitt gives it a fun, playful melody. The cast, too, is game in singing the silly words.

The most famous song in the play comes in Act IV:

             Fear no more the heat o' th' sun
               Nor the furious winter's rages;
             Thou thy worldly task hast done,
               Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.
             Golden lads and girls all must,
             As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

  

             Fear no more the frown o' th' great;
               Thou art past the tyrant's stroke.
             Care no more to clothe and eat;
               To thee the reed is as the oak.
             The sceptre, learning, physic, must
             All follow this and come to dust.

  

             Fear no more the lightning flash,
               Nor th' all-dreaded thunder-stone;
             Fear not slander, censure rash;
               Thou hast finish'd joy and moan.
             All lovers young, all lovers must
             Consign to thee and come to dust.

  

             No exorciser harm thee!
             Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
             Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
             Nothing ill come near thee!
             Quiet consummation have,
             And renowned be thy grave!

For me, Loreena McKennitt's mournful version will always be the gold standard for this song, but Kitt gives it a very different feel, reminding us all that death is just another part of life.

In his own day, Shakespeare's plays were always followed with a jig, and in keeping with that tradition, the cast ends the performance with a lively dance number, which even incorporates a few period steps.

My only regret about this production is that it cut the dream sequence in which:

       JUPITER descends in thunder and lightning, sitting
       upon an eagle.

We miss that classic Shakespearean line: "Thanks, Jupiter!"

Ah, well. The Public more often errs on the side of too few cuts to the text, so I'm glad they kept this production from being excessively long, though it was still quite a bit more than the "two hours' traffic" Shakespearean audiences would have enjoyed.

For tickets, you can wait in line in Central Park, sign up for the virtual line, or do what I did, get in the cancelation line starting around 6 pm and try your luck. Whichever method you use, seeing Cymbeline will definitely be worth your while.