This past year (2011), we saw about 133 plays, musicals, and
operas (give or take one or two). We
visited stages throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, and attended local
theatre on our trips to New York, Ashland OR, Nashville TN, Mendocino CA, Miami
FL, Glasgow Scotland, and Edinburgh Scotland.
We rated 68 of those productions “5” on a 5-point scale. Clearly, it was a good year, we are often
very happy with what we see, and we also tend to study and choose wisely (as
much as possible) before attending. Our complete list of shows we saw can be found HERE.
Below are our lists of the top-ranked, prioritized shows as
we look back over the year.
OUR 2011 TOP 10 SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
PLAYS & MUSICALS
The truth shifts constantly
as a suburban Vice Principal confronts a Syrian student in this riveting
cat-and-mouse thriller that takes place in the VP's office on a Friday
afternoon after class.
A live-cinematic production.
A mysterious valet ushers three people into a shabby hotel room, and they soon
discover that hell is other people arguing about their lives.
Takes Lorraine Hansberry's
"A Raisin in the Sun", of a
black family moving up to an all white neighborhood, as a jumping off point for
a clever refocusing on the politics of race, class, and real estate
gentrification.
Every family creates a
sacred story out of love. The writer moves in with his mother when she becomes
too sick to care for herself. Their reunion heals old wounds, opening a
heartfelt and humorous new chapter in their relationship.
Aspiring poet Tom
reluctantly works in a warehouse to support his overbearing mother and
debilitatingly shy sister, Laura. Pushed by his mother, he finds Laura a
gentleman caller to try to coax her from her fragile private world.
A look at the lives of women
in a land ruled by whiskey and bayonets. As civil war ravages the Congo, the
lucky ones find a home—and a regular meal—in a building that serves as both
brothel and refuge.
A chilling yarn of a young
artist who crafts custom made dolls begins to suspect that a demanding client
may be the mother who abandoned her at birth.
The spectacular
misadventures of Sherry, an art teacher who, in the midst of mentoring a
troubled teen and dealing with a tiger on the loose, faces her biggest
challenges at home … getting her sister to sober up and her mother to come out
of the bedroom.
A young Englishwoman sets off to experiment
with life, and travels the Continent in search of adventure, romance and sex!
While her escapades are zany, bizarre and outrageous, a torrid affair eludes
her.
A story based on Miller's
own family during the Great Depression. He connects his history to the
struggles of the rest of the nation by integrating material from Stud Terkel's Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great
Depression.
HONORABLE MENTIONS of SF BAY AREA SHOWS
A musical by a pair of
talented writers about a pair of talented writers writing a funny new musical.
Inspired by actual events,
the play contrasts the everydayness of domestic settings with the ravages of
the Bosnian War. Set in two kitchens, it follows two soldiers that were once in
a band together caught on opposite sides of the war - one who has to face the
consequences of his own brutality, and another who comes to terms with his own
cowardice.
Christmas Eve in High
Point,TN 1958. George takes his new bride to meet friend and fellow soldier,
Ralph, for the holiday celebrations. As snow settles outside, the idyllic scene
begins to dissolve. While past hopes and dreams are recounted, the bittersweet
reality of their marital relationships surface with comical and poignant
results.
The story of two men - the communist Harry Hay
and the Viennese refugee Rudy Gernreich - as they fall in love and build the
first gay rights organization in the pre-Stonewall United States.
A musical about a hapless
sandwich maker, torn between his feelings for his wife and her sister, who
discovers romance during the 1965 NYC blackout.
OUR 2011 TOP 5 ONE-PERSON SHOWS
Monologue
whose subject is the moral health of a society hooked on the products of Jobs'
company and with the physical health of the labor that produces them.
2. Hugh Jackman in Performance, Curran Theatre - Best of Broadway
An
evening of song and dance. Big tribute to Peter Allen's Boy From Oz.
3. Shylock – Gareth Armstrong, Edinburgh Fringe Festival
A
dazzling dissection of Shakespeare's Merchant
of Venice. Guy Masterson gives a comedic, deeply moving performance,
celebrating the richness of Shakespeare's language and conjuring a host of
characters from Portia to Pontius Pilate and confounding the stereotypes.
4. Loveland - Ann Randolph, The Marsh
Franny
Potts faces up to the loss of her mother while flying from LA to Ohio
surrounded by strangers.
5.
The Real Americans - Dan Hoyle, The Marsh
Fleeing
the liberal bubble of SF and hipster friends, Hoyle spent 100 days traveling
through small-town America in search of some tough country wisdom and a way to
bridge America’s urban/rural divide.
OUR 2011 TOP NEW YORK SHOWS
1. The Book of Mormon - Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Robert
Lopez, Eugene O'Neill Theatre
From
creators of South Park and Avenue Q. Two young Mormons embark on a
mission to spread the gospel in Uganda.
2. The Normal Heart - Larry Kramer, Golden Theatre (Joe
Mantello, Ellen Barkin)
The
story of a city in denial unfolds like a real-life political thriller — as a
tight-knit group of friends refuse to let doctors, politicians and the press bury
the truth of an unspoken epidemic behind a wall of silence. Ahead of its time
on many of the core issues it addresses — gay marriage, the healthcare system
and, of course, AIDS.
3. Jerusalem - Jez Butterworth, The Music
Box (Mark Rylance)
The
Royal Court Theatre's production is a modern mythic tale of the death of a god.
In the woods of southwest England, Johnny "Rooster" Byron, former
daredevil and modern-day Pied Piper, is a wanted man. The council officials
want to serve him an eviction notice, his son wants to be taken to the country
fair, a stepfather wants to give him a serious kicking and a motley crew of
friends wants his ample supply of drugs and alcohol.
4.
Unnatural Acts -
Tony Speciale and members of Plastic Theatre, Classic Stage Company
Inspired
by events at Harvard University in 1920, when a student's suicide sparked a
campus-wide investigation by a secret court of administrators who convened to
investigate, expose and ultimately expel a group of homosexual students.
5. Anything Goes - Cole Porter, Timothy Crouse, John Weidman,
Howard Lindsay, Russel Crouse, Guy Bolton, P.G.Wodehouse, Stephen Sondheim
Theatre (Sutton Foster, Joel Grey)
The
passengers on this luxury cruise include an evangelist turned nightclub singer,
a gangster disguised as a minister, hopeless romantics and stowaways. The Cole
Porter score include "I Get a Kick"
"You're the Top," "Friendship" and "Easy to Love."
6. Catch Me If You Can - Marc Shaiman, Scott Wittman, Terrence
McNally, Neil Simon Theatre (Norbert Leo Butz)
Frank
Abagnale, Jr., a world-class con artist, creates an array of identities -
airline pilot, doctor, lawyer - with no qualifications. He's got the
straight-arrow FBI agent Carl Hanratty on his trail. Based on the Leonardo
DiCaprio, Tom Hanks movie.
--> And
Our Most-Talked About Show…But the one we least liked at the time of the 14 shows
we saw that week:
Sleep No More - Felix Barrett, Maxine Doyle, and The
Company of Punchdrunk
An
immersive dance and mime production inspired by Macbeth, told through the lens of a Hitchcock thriller. The
audience, wearing white bird masks, randomly roams through 6 floors/100 rooms
with no guidance and experiences a sensory journey.
OUR 2011 TOP NON-SF/NY SHOWS
1. From the Fire - Elizabeth Swados, Cecilia Rubino,
Paula Finn; Edinburgh Fringe Festival
A
haunting dramatization/oratorio of the uprising of 20,000 young women in New
York City and the infamous Triangle Factory Fire of 1911, which galvanized
social change.
2. Measure for Measure - William Shakespeare, Oregon
Shakespeare Festival
Who
legislates morality? The Duke's deputy is hell-bent on stamping out moral
decay. He reactivates outdated Draconian laws and aims his arrogant crosshairs
at a young man whose fiancée is pregnant, sentencing him to death. The deputy
is sternly incorruptible—until he meets Isabela, a beautiful religious novice
whose desirability arouses him. A modern production flavored with live music by
the mariachi band Las Colibri.
3. Anton's Uncles - Richard Alger,
Tina Kronis, Theatre Movement Bazaar; Edinburgh Fringe Festival
An
adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. A
deconstruction of the original where only the men remain. The text is a
distillation of the original with new material added. The movement score
emphasizes the unspoken, unseen, and unexpressed for a fresh, physical, and
funny impression of Chekhov's classic.
4. The Pitman Painters – Lee Hall, National Theatre,
Glasgow, Scotland.
In 1934, a group of Ashington miners
hired a professor to teach an art appreciation evening class. Abandoning theory
in favor of practice, the pitmen began to paint – prolifically. Within a few
years avant-garde artists became their friends and prestigious collectors
acquired their work; but every day they continued to work, as before, down the
mine.
5. Memphis, the Musical - Joe DiPietro, David Bryan, Tennessee
Performing Arts Center, Nashville, TN
Sex
and race and rock ’n’ roll: a white radio DJ whose love of good music and a
talented songtress transcends race lines and airwaves in the turbulent south in
the 1950s.
6. The Boy James – Alexander Wright, Belt Up Theatre, Edinburgh
Fringe Festival
Inspired by Peter Pan and its author J.M. Barrie, it shows a battle of the
imagination between James' older and younger selves; a mental tug-of-war
between the inevitable onset of adulthood and the eternal appeal of Neverland.
7. The Pirates of Penzance - Arthur Sullivan, W.S. Gilbert, Oregon
Shakespeare Festival
A
day at the beach for the daughters of a modern Major General provides Frederic
and his pirate mates with a chance encounter and a first-rate opportunity to
marry with impunity. Punchy musical references to modern pop-music styles
(doo-wop, gospel, Broadway show tunes) are woven into many numbers.
8. Ghost Light - Tony Taccone, Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Jonathan
Moscone (based on his own experiences), a gay stage director, is forced to come
to terms with a loss that shattered his youth: the assassination (1978) of his
real-life father, Mayor George Moscone. As he prepares to direct Hamlet,
the parallels between Shakespeare's drama and his own experience overwhelm him.
In dreams, and anxious talks with his close friend Louise, he gradually unknots
the trauma, and the later guilt and bitterness.
9. The Imaginary Invalid - Molière, Oded Gross, Tracy Young, Oregon
Shakespeare Festival
A
1960s French pop culture is overlaid on this 17th-centary play. The wealthy Argan
is a housebound hypochondriac with every disease in the book. Lurking around
are quacks only too happy to (mis)treat him. Family troubles, including a
money-grubbing wife and two headstrong daughters, add to Argan’s miseries.
10. Ovid’s Metamorphosis – Peter Bramley, Lucy Egger, Pants
on Fire, Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Transposes the epic Roman poem to a musical
set in 940s wartime England, a time when heroes were a real-life concept and
movie stars were like gods and goddesses.
OUR 2011 TOP OPERAS
1. The Ring Cycle (4 operas, 17.5 hours over 6 days)
Das Rheingold - Richard Wagner, San Francisco Opera
The
lust for power, the lure of gold, the sacred beauty of nature, the destructive
impulses of man: These timeless themes dominate both American history and
Wagner's Ring. The dwarf Alberich futilely attempts to seduce the maidens
who guard the Rhine River’s gold. If forged into a ring, it would give its
wearer universal power, as long as he renounces love. Alberich steals the gold
and fashions the ring. Meanwhile, Wotan, king of the gods, must find a way to
pay the giants Fasolt and Fafner for the construction of Valhalla, the
immortals’ opulent new home. Using trickery, he steals Alberich’s ring to
settle his debt. The bitter dwarf places a curse on the ring and anyone who
possesses it.
Die Walküre
An
epic tale of an emotionally volatile father and his disobedient children
(Siegmund & Brünnhilde) done with a distinctly American touch while
honoring its mythic roots. Wotan, king of the gods, strives to undo the curse
of the ring by fathering a pure-of-heart hero by a mortal woman. But he finds
himself torn as events spin out of control and his offspring defy his will.
Siegfriede
A
coming-of-age story in which a fearless young hero discovers his destiny.
Wotan's hope for recovery of the ring now rests with his grandson Siegfried,
who must reject his adoptive father, forge a magical sword and slay a fearsome
dragon to prove himself worthy of its mighty power—and the extraordinary woman
who awaits him.
Götterdämmerunge
The
sacred union of Siegfried and Brünnhilde is threatened by three scheming
siblings, one of whom was sired by Alberich to take possession of the ring.
Driven by greed, their actions inevitably lead to chaos and destruction, until
Brünnhilde—wise, pure of heart, heroic—steps forward to return the universe to
its natural order in an act of self-sacrifice.
2. Heart of a Soldier - Christopher Theofanidis, Donna Di Novelli, San Francisco
Opera
Based
on the book by James B. Stewart on the life of Rick Rescorla, a
Brit-turned-Yank who left a military career to become head of security for a
company with offices in the World Trade Center. On Sept. 11, 2001, he safely
evacuated the company's 2,700 employees from the south tower and returned for a
final sweep. The tower collapsed shortly thereafter.
3. Carmen - Georges Bizet, San Francisco Opera
Corporal
Don José deserts his fiancée and his regiment to run off with the bewitching
Gypsy, Carmen. But when she shifts her affections to the dashing toreador
Escamillo, Carmen meets her fate in the form of Don José’s knife blade.
4. Turandot - Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Adami, Renato
Simoni, San
Francisco Opera
The icy restraint of Princess
Turandot is finally melted by the passionate love of her suitor, Calaf. He
correctly answers her three questions and keeps his name secret for a night to
win her and keep his head. The opera score includes Nessun Dorma ,
one of the world's favorite tenor arias.
