Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – 2018’s Best in Theater (Plays)

• By drediman
• December 27, 2018
• No Comments

James Garfield and company in Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America” at the Neil Simon Theatre.

It’s that time of year again. As much as I find putting these types of “best of” lists together a challenging task, I find that it encourages me to take a pulse on the trends percolating not only in the performing arts, but society at large, too. Overall, 2018 was an excellent year for plays, reminding us of why the old guard is so great in the first place, also reminding us of the bad ass-ness of London theatre, as well as introducing fascinating new voices to the mix. In no particular order, here are my picks for 2018’s top ten theater experiences (plays).

HANGMEN
By Martin McDonagh
Atlantic Theater Company (Off-Broadway)

Hangmen was a ferocious return to form by notable Irish playwright Martin McDonagh. The electrifying sweet-and-sour production at Off-Broadway’s Atlantic Theater Company, featuring a sensationally slippery performance by  Johnny Flynn (a hold-over from the original London cast), left me begging for more. It’s a shame this vintage-McDonagh play wasn’t able to transfer to Broadway this season, but I’m still holding my breath for a Main Stem birth next season.

THREE TALL WOMEN
By Edward Albee
John Golden Theatre (Broadway)

This year’s Broadway mounting of Edward Albee’s still-unsettling Pulitzer Prize-winning 1991 play Three Tall Women, pristinely directed by Joe Mantello, was arguably the best revival of the season (sorry Angels in America). It starred a biting Laurie Metcalf and an awe-inspiring Glenda Jackson (as well as a great Alison Pill) playing a complicated women at different stages in her life. Indeed, I’m salivating over Ms. Jackson’s Lear later this season.

THE FERRYMAN
By Jez Butterworth
Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre (Broadway)

The Ferryman was the talk of the town across the pond, and rightfully so – like Mr. McDonagh’s Hangmen, the play, which is set Northern Ireland during the height of the Troubles, marked a mighty return to form by British playwright Jez Butterworth (after his head-scratching The River a few seasons back). The astonishing and sprawling production, masterfully directed by Sam Mendes, is the very model of sustained theatrical storytelling. The huge, magisterial cast, most of which have been with the show since its inception in London, made The Ferryman an especially spellbinding affair.

HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD, PARTS 1 & 2
By Jack Thorne based on an original story by Thorne, J. K. Rowling and John Tiffany
Lyric Theatre (Broadway)

Another hit in London, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2 made its way to Broadway this year – again with most of its original London cast intact – transforming the troublesomely cavernous Lyric Theatre into a more intimate and immersive environment in which to experience Jack Thorne’s skillfully and ingeniously plotted prequel to J. K. Rowling’s generation-defining saga. John Tiffany has directed the piece with a firm grasp and awareness of theater’s unique qualities (thank God!). There’s real magic here.

WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME
By Heidi Schreck
New York Theatre Workshop (Off-Broadway)

Heidi Schreck’s coincidentally precient What the Constitution Means to Me at New York Theatre Workshop keeps a mostly level head when objectively dissecting the the document underlying this country. It’s only when she weaves in her relationship with the Constitution as a woman (vis-a-vis her family history), do things get heated. It’s this potent realization that the personal is political which makes the piece revelatory, must-see theater.  The production has transferred to the Greenwich Theatre until the end of the year; if you haven’t seen it, don’t miss your chance (you only have a few days left).

YERMA
By Simon Stone, after Federico García Lorca
Park Avenue Armory (Off-Broadway)

I can’t imagine a more intimate play in a more epic arena than Yerma, Simon Stone’s searing adaptation of Federico García Lorca’s 1934 play of the same name, which played the mammoth Drill Hall of the Park Avenue Armory. The production – another transfer from London – featured a  voracious, no-holds-barred performance by Billie Piper, who in my book shares the prize for most gut-punching onstage nervous breakdown of the year with Network‘s Bryan Cranston (that’s no small feat). You simply couldn’t take your eyes of her as she spiraled down into the abyss of human misery.

SLAVE PLAY
By Jeremy O. Harris
New York Theatre Workshop (Off-Broadway)

Of the two excellent plays that excavated the intersection of race and sex, I would say Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play at New York Theatre Workshop (the other was Ming Peiffer’s Usual Girls presented by Roundabout Underground) left a deeper, more lasting impression on me. Mr. Harris’s play, directed with unstinting intensity by Robert O’Hara, fearlessly raised and explored questions we typically leave shrouded in mystery or disregarded somewhere in the closet (or under the bed). The result was inarguably squirm-worthy (a big compliment), visceral theater that went straight for the jugular and didn’t miss.

I WAS MOST ALIVE WITH YOU
By Craig Lucas
Playwrights Horizons (Off-Broadway)

Talking about visceral experiences in the theater, I Was Most Alive With You at Playwrights Horizons was definitely also one of those. Like Hangmen and The Ferryman, I Was Most Alive With You was a welcome return to form by Craig Lucas (who is perhaps best known for penning Prelude to a Kiss many years back). His unruly and bleak memory play about family, addiction, and disability left me disturbed, stunned, and hot-and-bothered by the time the curtain came down.

LEWISTON/CLARKSTON
By Samuel D. Hunter
Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre (Off-Broadway)

I’ve historically been lukewarm to Mr. Hunter’s talents as a playwright, until now. His latest, a double bill entitled  Lewiston/Clarkston, which played Off-Broadway’s wonderfully reconfigured Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre (hopefully not just for this production), was altogether a different story. Similar to Ms. Schreck’s aforementioned What the Constitution Means to Me, Mr. Hunter’s sensitive and observant loosely-interwoven pair of one acts – collectively, I would say his masterwork – investigates the underlying principals on which this country is built on. What we find, at least in Lewiston/Clarkston, and especially in director Davis McCallum’s passionately-performed, stealthy production, isn’t so pretty.

ANGELS IN AMERICA: MILLENNIUM APPROACHES & PERESTROIKA
By Tony Kushner
Neil Simon Theatre (Broadway)

Last but not least, was Marianne Elliott’s awesome Tony-winning revival of Tony Kushner’s indisputable masterpiece Angels in America, which featured repertory performances of Millennium Approaches and Perestroika. The production was yet another successful and welcome transfer from across the pond (it had played the Lyttelton at the National Theatre). I’m happy to report that the play has lost none of its urgency, thanks in large part to a sterling cast, whose blood, sweat, and tears fueled the production. Particularly, Ms. Elliott’s wildly inspired, driving work on Perestroika left me floored; we probably won’t see her staging of the second half of this American classic bettered in our lifetimes.

Special Mention(s):

ADMISSIONS by Joshua Harmon
NETWORK by Lee Hall
ANDREW SCHNEIDER: After & NERVOUS/SYSTEM
Etc.

It was really difficult leaving some productions off of this year’s best-of list, but alas, that’s part of the deal with such exercises. These include shows such as Joshua Harmon’s gorgeously-written Admissions (his best play yet), which featured a layered, nuanced central performance by Jessica Hecht (her finest yet). It additionally pertains to Ivo van Hove’s mind-blowing, eerily still-timely stage adaptation of the film Network (need I say it, another transfer from London), starring Bryan Cranston in a titanic performance. This year, I was also gobsmacked by the work of experimental theater-maker and technical wunderkind Andrew Schneider, whose After and NERVOUS/SYSTEM bookended my 2018 with two of the most unsettlingly immersive experiences I’ve had. As for individual performances, I’m still savoring Edie Falco’s delicious returns to the New York stage in Sharr White’s unlikely political drama The True, as well as Stephen Rea’s scarily unhinged turn as an psychologically unraveling Northern Irish extremist in David Ireland’s Cyprus Avenue (ahem, a London transfer) and Liza Jessie Peterson’s urgent, multi-faceted solo performance in The Peculiar Patriot. Oh, and Jay O. Sanders gave a breathtaking and heartbreaking performance in the title role in Richard Nelson’s tastefully understated translation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya.

Next up: My picks for the top musical theater experiences of 2018!