The Best Theater of '07

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Top Five Shows of '07

#1 - The Misanthrope - Hands down the most engaging interpretation of Moliere I've ever seen, Ivo Van Hove's physical direction lent an air of discomfort that helped to translate how Alceste views (and smells) the world, and while he's not the first person to use the media to modernize a play, his revealing use of mixed media broke down the walls between actors and characters, the boundaries of the stage, and the usage of space. The play managed to demolish the set and the characters without harming the script itself, and from Bill Camp's lead performance to the vanities of his co-stars, the show is perfect theater.

# 2 - Journey's End - David Grindley didn't conform to Broadway norms when he revived R. C. Sherrif's Journey's End: he kept the play shrouded in the dank darkness that befits a trench, he belabored the silent tension of preparing for war, he blocked scenes without having any actors on stage, and he kept the emotional stakes high, even through the curtain call, refusing to release us from the drama. I hope more people remember that rules are meant to be broken, because his force of vision, chained to the masterful performances of his ensemble cast, made this production one of the high points of the theater, all the more so for not ever being overt or pushy, and for escaping the melodrama one expects of an old-fashioned war play.

# 3 - The Eaten Heart's Oliver Butler, Hannah Bos, and Paul Thureen are The Debate Society, and this rich and multidimensional retelling of The Decameron, set in a three-room spread of hotel rooms and chained together by lightning fast costume changes and illusory effects produced a startling tableaux of the eccentric 60s, not to mention life itself. More impressive is the developmental process they used to come up with the final product (all that trial and error for something so utterly seamless and astonishing), a process which proves that an independent theater company can put on the highest caliber of theater if they choose to.

# 4 - Adam Bock's The Receptionist is an unassuming play that seems to just be about everyday life, and that is its great deception: with utterly natural dialogue that's been sharply directed by Joe Mantello, we're laughing so hard at the normalcy that we put ourselves in the receptionist's shoes. When we grow to understand what she does, we have to question our own capacity for the same; likewise, when she is put to the test, we have to admit that the same could happen to us, we who were so brightly laughing only a moment before. This is exactly the sort of parable that works: an unassuming little worm of an idea that, once inside our minds, refuses to go and which, more importantly, targets exactly the sort of audience who need to understand it.

# 5 - No Dice shouldn't work: the thought of listening to three actors recite close to four hours worth of edited transcripts from their friends, families, and themselves, sounds absolutely horrible. To help us accept this epic of the everyday, this throwback to oral storytelling, the actors don the outlandish costumes and horrendous accents of dinner theater, which makes the transition back into their real people all the more striking. The conversations themselves have been expertly edited so as to be true representations of that "cosmic murmur" the cast worked toward, and the play also gets points for daring to work in a freestyle beat-boxer, a wacky dance competition, and a physical underbelly girded on repetition that should be annoying but is actually endearing.

Runners-Up: The Brothers Size, Macbeth: A Walking Shadow, a volume of smoke, Saint Joan of the Stockyards, The Seafarer

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Top Five Performances of '07

# 1 - Allison Pill, Blackbird & Mauritius - From being manipulative and coy in Blackbird to being spirited yet broken in Mauritius, Allison Pill (as in last year's Lieutenant of Inishmore) has a way of sneaking up on you, seeming sweet, even as she plays the tough girl (like some combination of Hilary Swank and Charlize Theron, with the personality of Mary Louise Parker). She doesn't even seem to be at the top of her game yet, but already, she's a heartbreakingly simple actor, no frills attached.

# 2 - Bill Camp, The Misanthrope & Beckett Shorts & Coram Boy - A fierce speaker, a gruff personality, and an utterly likable villain, this actor's actor not only performs at the top of his game, but he brings those around him up to his level as well, case in point being the way his scenes in Coram Boy always sparkled, or the way in which he brought Ivo Van Hove's highly physical vision to life. To go from that to Beckett, too, and next year's Dead Man's Cell Phone; that shows pure range and -- most importantly -- good taste.

# 3 - Tied: Conleth Hill & Jim Norton, The Seafarer - These two best mates stuck by each other through thick and thin in Conor McPherson's redemptive masterpiece; I see no reason not to keep them together here, in brilliantly drunken yet utterly human performances. Conleth Hill's little tics and mannerisms make him an absolutely adorable best friend, and Jim Norton's stubbornness in the face of equally persistent fragility is a thing of haunting beauty.

# 4 - Dallas Roberts, Peter and Jerry - Albee is not an easy playwright to perform, and of his roles, Jerry is probably the one most overplayed, but instead, Roberts brings the same sensibility that he brought to A Number to this piece: a subdued rage that only occasionally peeks its head out, coupled with a charming suaveness that is as calming as it is unsettling. The man looks like he's about to jump out of his own skin, but smooth as a snake in the process, and that whip-smart coiling of emotion and intelligence make him the sort of actor who can challenge any role.

# 5 - Ensemble, New York Neo-Futurists: Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind - Given the amount of times I've gone out to see this late night treat, I should've put them on my top ten, but being that they don't believe in roles or shows so much in the immediate truths that they bring to blinding light each week (brilliantly funny, too), it makes more sense to single them out as a group. You won't find such naked honesty anywhere else on the stage, nor so directly addressed, and every cast member (on a rotating basis) brings a different sensibility and aesthetic to the table, which keeps things interesting.

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Best Theater: New York Theater Workshop
Not only is The Misanthrope my number one show for '07, but this year also brought us The Black Eyed, Horizon, and Beckett Shorts, all of which had far more going for them than the always excellent scenic design. Each production was innovative (especially difficult given Beckett's restrictions and Moliere's age), intelligent, and contemporary -- it's nice to see that there's such development going on at a self-proclaimed workshop, and there's far more to look forward to in '08, such as Elevator Repair Service's The Sound and the Fury.

Runner-Up: Roundabout, for taking a risk with the black box and the innovative Speech and Debate, and for nailing younger audiences with the unfailing combination of cheaper HIPTIX and solid revivals like Pygmalion and important new work like The Overwhelming.

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Best Off-Off Theaters: Manhattan Theater Source and The Brick
Two small theaters where you're likely to keep finding innovative festivals and intimate programming, MTS premiered two of the best shows of '07, Universal Robots and Macbeth: A Walking Shadow, and The Brick, in addition to having The Pretentious Festival, crams a remarkable amount of short programming into their little space, making it a great place not to find another brick in the wall, but a unified front of awesomeness, if I dare to be so nondescriptive.

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Best Playwright: David Ives
Granted, New Jerusalem will open in '08, but given his outstanding work editing down other playwrights, like Mark Twain's Is He Dead? or his usual contributions to Encores!, I want to give the guy recognition where it's due, for the man is truly all about the timing, a gifted punster, a noted wit, and a remarkably succinct writer. New Jerusalem is far from the perfect play, but it riled me up, energized me, and made me take a book on Spinoza out from the library.

Runners-Up: Adam Bock and Tarell Alvin McCraney
Perhaps the most directly comprehensible (though no less unsettling for the clarity) of his plays, The Receptionist succeeds with slow doses of the most ordinary charm. We see ourselves in these characters, only to feel betrayed when we learn what they do, only to leap to their defense once again when we see what happens to them. Pitch perfect, this was the most sympathetic play I've seen in some time. As for the young Tarell Alvin McCraney, his beautifully written, risk-taking The Brothers Size manages to classicalize a Topdog/Underdog tale by paying close attention to tribal rhythms, blockings, and mythos -- how liberating and, above all, fresh.

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Best Director: David Grindley
Not only did he nail Journey's End, but he mastered Pygmalion, too. He's playing with the big boys on Broadway, but he's not bowing to their rules, and that's why we can get such a gripping curtain call and the looming, ill-lit silence in one play, and a petulant, childish Higgins in the other. These may not seem like big risks, but most revivals tend to simply play it safe and rely simply on big name casting, as you'll find with other fare, like The Homecoming.

Runner-Up: Lear deBessonet and Ivo Von Hove
Because originality should be rewarded, it's important to point out two phenomenal talents; deBessonet's work on transFigured was a miracle crafted out of string, body work, and other such fragile representations of God, whereas her revival of St. Joan of the Stockyards successfully took Brecht to the country (courtesy of Kelley McRae) and the city (Justin Townsend's gritty set) at the same time; how's that for an alienating feeling? And Ivo Von Hove dressed Moliere's The Misanthrope up in syrup and hot dogs without actually dressing the beautiful couplets down at all, and his animal passion was the perfect match for the feral savages of his modern, misanthropic world.

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Best Company: The Debate Society
Imagine my surprise to find that the group with the most seamless performance of '07 (The Eaten Heart) got there by throwing tons of stuff at the wall, letting that tap water run until it turned to gold. That they're able to edit themselves down through workshops, developmental readings, and rehearsal to such perfection shows a working theatrical model, one that can tour with abstract vignettes in the mode of Danill Kharms just as easily as it can contemporize The Decameron, and I can't wait to see what happens when they lay on the final coats of varnish to their Untitled Auto Play in late '08/early '09.

Quick Note

That Sounds Cool is closed for the holiday season; reviews will resume with a look at Clubbed Thumb's latest production (Jordan Harrison's Amazons and Their Men) and their new anthology of their greatest (including Shelia Callaghan's Crumble [Lay Me Down Justin Timberlake] and Adam Bock's The Typographer's Dream).

PLAY: "Cut to the Chase" & "The City That Cried Wolf"

Of late, I've become a big fan of 59E59 Theaters; not only do they produce a series of festivals that bring, amongst other things, tastes of off-Broadway British fare and the Edinburgh Fringe, along with consistently varied programming in their two studio spaces (theater B and C) and the solid offerings of the main Primary Stages space. (Not to mention their affordable pricing.) This month, the two smaller stages offer contradictory nights of entertainment: the first, Cut the Chase is vaudeville for kids, the second, The City That Cried Wolf, is a grown-up nursery tale. Both are derivative of very specific genres, but with Cut to the Chase, the enthusiastic execution makes the work seem fresh, and although The City That Cried Wolf mugs too much for the Jasper Fforde crowd, its nonstop punning is funny -- almost exasperatingly so.

With Cut to the Chase, the only point where the audience actually wants the show to cut to the action is in director Mark Lonergan's introduction, a short introduction about their influences (Keaton and Chaplin) and their target audience (the young, and the young at heart). Honestly, that's the only drag of the performance. Seconds later, hyperactive Dilly (Laura Dillman), clad in a bellhop's costume and armed with an infectious laugh, silently introduces the rest of the cast: Dobson (Mike Dobson), the dour drummer; The Great Jeske (Joel Jeske), the director; Julietta Massina (Juliet Jeske), the singing diva; Kasper (Ryan Kasprzak), the lovable scamp; Little Angela (Andrea Kehler), the annoying tease; and Roland Derek (Derek Roland), the lanky illusionist. This is all done in a matter of minutes, using no more than the most basic movements, a series of three farcically placed doors, and a few sliding curtains, and with the parts well established, the company breaks into a series of "acts," all of which revolve around the constantly thwarted romance of Dilly and Kasper.

The camaraderie and smooth transitions speak to the developmental technique of the company (which fleshed out Mr. Jeske's ideas with their own unique tricks), and to the strong hand of Mr. Lonergan, who succeeds at entertaining both the young and young at heart. In little over an hour, we're treated to a tap-triggered light show, a balloon-drumming exhibition, an amusing series of riffs on a piano, a magic act, several songs (ultimately parodies of the old 30s style), and quick-change choreography. It's good natured, genuinely funny, and a great time.

Photo/Oliver Jevremov

On the other hand, The City That Cried Wolf tries entirely too hard, and that's what ultimately brings down Brooks Reeve's hysterically scripted (if leaden) play. The show is a hard-boiled look at the death of Mayor Dumpty, as investigated by the private eye (or B.), Mr. Jack B. Nimble at the behest of the police force's golden egg, Mother Goose. If those puns delight you, you're in for a treat: Reeve's agglomerate of nursery tales are a riot, and the dirtier they get, the funnier. For instance, Jack's suspect, Little Bo Peep works at a certain sort of "peep" show -- she's a dancer at the Hey Diddle Diddle, where you might get solicited for Mrs. Muffet's "toffets" (and might even accept if you've had one too many hickory dickory daiquiris).

Unfortunately, the play finds a static direction from Dan Barnes and Leta Tremblay, who seem more interested in sight gags (Granny's cane is the biggest shotgun I've ever seen, and Little Bunny Foo Foo's appearance as a deranged, mallet-wielding psychopath is an indelible moment in the theater) than in structure. Additionally, while the leads are at least playing solid characters -- Adam La Faci's nonchalant narration as detective, Chloe Demrovsky's sultry flocking, and Michelle Concha's serious (yet surprisingly deft) commanding officer -- the other four actors get lost in the roughly ten roles they each play. Each one gets the point across -- for instance, Rebecca Jones plays a testy waitress named Mary Mary, and Mat Bussler clucks enough to remind us that he's Plucky Lucky in this scene -- but they do so with the minimum of effort, underplaying what is already a ridiculous concept.

The City That Cried Wolf never gets a silly enough performance to justify the story; it could take a cue from Cut to the Chase, whose silly plot needs no justification, just performance.

PLAY: "Edward the Second"

Photo/Brian Dilg

It's very noble simply to love and be loved in return, but when you're a king, love comes at a higher price. Edward II (Marc Vietor, with such believable longing and grasping physical prowess) may truly love Galveston (Kenajuan Bentley) and may in fact, be loved back (though Galveston teases and flaunts for a great many, as is his preening, sycophantic nature, Bentley plays him with something deeper reserved for the king). But his court is only the more irritated for it: Mortimer (Matthew Rauch), Lancaster (Davis Hall), and Warwick (Joseph Costa) kick up their heels at the titles so flagrantly granted to the low-class upstart; the Church, as portrayed by gaudy Archbishop (Raphael Nash Thompson), is irritated by the licentiousness of it; and Edward's wife, Isbaella (Claire Lautier) -- well, we all know what happens to a woman scorned, although Lautier keeps her head up for quite a while before turning to her misplaced fury.

As directed by Jesse Berger for his Red Bull Theater company, the work doesn't judge the homosexual currents any more than they would've been in the Elizabethan era that Christopher Marlowe wrote this for, but simply gives flesh to the page with a tautly erotic and highly physical staging that thrusts the action onto a narrow runway of a court that is half fashion show (I'd want to show off Clint Ramos's costumes, too), half military trenches. And while I'm no scholar of Edward the Second, Garland Wright's adaptation of it serves to heighten the emphasis on character rather than theme by setting the action in a malleable, anachronistic time, with language that is both harsh and pliant, all at once, something that's necessary for a plot full of reversals and sudden shifts in mood.

When Galveston returns to England for the first time, in the very wake of the old king's death, he imprisons the bishop who banished him (Arthur Bartow). In lesser hands, this would simply be a moment of satisfying vengeance, but Mr. Berger (perhaps after bloodying his hands so much in previous productions) goes one step further: Galveston all but rapes the holy man as he tightens the fetters, a point that also doubles as a bitter symmetry for what will eventually befall the king himself. So too does Mr. Berger handle a provocative scene later in the play, set at an opera house, in which we watch the king, lost half in love, half in music, waiting for Galveston to return (he has manipulated his wife, with false hope, into bringing back the very lover who displaced her): Galveston stands for a moment behind him, quietly savoring the power he holds over the king, along with the pomp of his own peculiar circumstances, and yet, when he touches the king's shoulders -- a simple touch -- the realization of that love would make even the coldest heart in the theater feel for the keening king.

More than love, however, the play also focuses on hate (if it is true that we should "Fie love that causes death and hate," what should we think of pure hate itself?). As Mortimer, Matthew Rauch is absolutely electric: "I am feared more than I am loved. Let them fear me," he utters without a hint of melodrama. He is the opposite of Edward -- decisive and strong -- and yet the court is no better in his usurping hands than in the rightful king's. He has a true love, too, in Isabella, but he never allows that to stand between him and power; instead, he channels his frustrations onto the former king, now a prisoner who squats, near-naked, in a pit of sewage.

Viscerally, Edward the Second is less satisfying than their previous revival, The Revenger's Tragedy: this production is efficient, and often bloodlessly so. (I'm told several squibs had technical difficulties when I attended.) But intellectually, Edward the Second is full of satisfying parallels and points about what happens to those leaders who ignore their subjects, and to those who force their love upon others, with little regard for personal choice. The warning comes from Edward's son, Edmund (Raum-Aron), who is forced to grow up all too fast, a steely, unhappy child who is the bleak start of a future strewn with corpses.

PLAY: "Scapin"

Set in San Piccolo, of festive "Itty Bitty Italy," Scott McCrea's new translation of Moliere's Scapin is a spry salute to the brio of commedia. But as flailingly directed by Shawn Rozsa, this is more an act of improvimisia dell'arte than anything: more a throwback to the ragtag street performers trying to out-lazzi one another than to the troupes who performed complete, scripted works (in other words, if you didn't like The Glorious Ones, you really won't like this). That doesn't mean it isn't funny, just wildly so: Scapin! with an exclamation mark. And perhaps I'm expecting too much from this lesser work of Moliere's (The Misanthrope it ain't): the plot is as simple as this:

Octave and Leandre (Matt Luceno and Nico Evers-Swindell) love Hyacinte and Zerbinette (Maya Rosewood and Catherine Wronowski), which requires their servants, Silvestre and Scapin (Jonathan M. Castro and Spencer Aste), to fool the money out of their controlling parents, Argante and Geronte (Roger Grunwald and John Freimann). (What can I say, comedy comes in pairs: there's even two dim-witted porters, played by Emile Nebbia and Jay Painter.) After much running around, Scapin, the smartest of the lot, tricks everyone into a happy ending.

Despite the emptiness of the plot, Rozsa stretches the action across two acts, adding unscripted entertainment before the show and during intermission, a choice that successfully evokes a clowning atmosphere that makes it OK to laugh, but hard to laugh for long. He's helped by Keven Lock's colorful set, a brightly painted series of backdrops and doorways that help to make the Turtle's Shell Theater seem larger than its name. This backfires on Rozsa, and that's what hurts this production: it's more escapinism than Scapin, and the show is stolen before it even begins by Jay Painter's hyperactive Italian braggadocio: Scapin may be crafty, but I'll bet he can't pull an inflated balloon through one nostril and out of his mouth. The ice is successfully broken (always important for period comedies), but under the global warming of Painter's sunny performance, it continues to melt until it has submerged the text of the play itself. Furthermore, Rozsa's attempts to compete with Painter's talent as a performer causes him to overdo a lot of the comedy, stretching out jokes beyond their expiration date, as with Silvestre's spork-wielding appearance as a would-be mobster.

By playing so many things over-the-top, Scapin loses itself as a farce and just becomes a series of jokes tenuously tied together by the most basic of plots. At best, it proves that happiness is not always boring (just exhausting!); at worst, it isn't funny (and that's something that Scapin can't pin on fate).