Dreams, Death and Chocolate: Theater in 2006
By Justin Sondak in Arts & Entertainment on Dec 29, 2006 7:05PM
There will never be a Netflix for theater. Actors generally aren’t at your disposal to mount a show in your few free hours. You’ve got to juggle your other commitments and, gasp, actually get out of the house. Maybe you’ve caught the actors on an off night, theirs or yours. So any attempt at a “best of” list is unfair and incomplete.
With that disclaimer out of the way, here’s our very unscientific Top 6 of 2006, in chronological order of production:
A Number, Next Theatre
How easily we forget the yet-unseen villains in pre-9/11 America were mad scientists cloning a master race. These days we’re too preoccupied with Bin Laden and Zarqawi to worry about daddy loving our carbon copies more than us. But Caryl Churchill’s dystopian vision of father-son-clone-clone strife, expertly realized by director BJ Jones on Brian Sidney Bembridge’s Orwellian set, was as timely as ever. John Judd turned in a tight performance as the conscience stricken father. Jay Whittaker’s portrayal of three remarkably similar but ever so slightly different men confronting daddy was astonishingly good. Overall, one of the most terrifying and satisfying hours of the year.
Back of the Throat, Silk Road Theatre Project
In Yussef El Guindi's more timely nightmare, federal investigators visit Khaled, posing a few simple questions about his role in a recent tragic incident. Connecting this quiet and thoughtful Arab American to shadowy terrorists seems preposterous. But he’s just a bit too nervous. And he’s reading subversive texts. And asking a few too many questions. Even after his recollections play out in his cramped studio apartment, we’re still not sure what to believe.
The Golden Truffle, Redmoon Theatre
Who expected Redmoon to pull off an original musical, and one of the best of the year at that? The company’s trademark spectacles, beautifully designed atmospheric experiences, were starting to get old. The tastiest show we saw all year transformed Redmoon Central into a makeshift cabaret where we savored flights of chocolate truffles and casted our votes for a bizarre claque of American Idolesque contestants. Among that group, Halena Kays stood out as a hilariously sharp children’s entertainer and ventriloquist. The night was, to quote Kays’ puppet sidekick, “awesome!”
Crumbs From the Table of Joy, Goodman Theatre
Lynn Nottage breathes life into a well-tread genre: the African American memory play. When 1950s family patriarch Goodness feels he’s losing control of his family and his moral constitution, he leaves his Brooklyn home to aimlessly ride the subway. There, he befriends Gerte, a white German woman feeling similarly lost and overwhelmed. They return home next morning… as husband and wife. Jaws drop. Blackout. Intermission. Nottage consistently gives the audience what it didn’t know it wanted in a bittersweet comedy so engrossing that even the occasional sitcom device felt clever.
Corteo, Cirque du Soleil
The world’s most sophisticated circus brought their best show yet to United Center Parking Lot K. For the pros we set the bar higher…which a procession of jugglers, acrobats, and contortionists promptly obliterated. It’s a Cirque world and we’re enjoying the ride. Our full review is here.
Dead City, Dog and Pony Theater
If James Joyce’s Ulysses is the 20th Century’s greatest novel, why do so many writers continue to improve upon it? Recently Dermot Bolger gave us A Dublin Bloom, transplanting Bloom and company to bawdy, contemporary Dublin. Sheila Callaghan’s Dead City tracks a day in the life of Samantha Blossom and an ensemble of Manhattan strivers, burnouts, speed freaks, and vanity queens. The show was swifter and sexier than Joyce, featuring a quick-thinking, quick-changing cast and efficient design that turned a slender stage into a matchbox apartment, salon, library, riverfront, and nightclub, among others.
And nine more favorites:
Two shows that kept us guessing: Theatre Oobleck’s Letter Purloined, 26 scenes performed in a random order meant a different payoff every night, and Stage Left’s Fellow Travellers, a ‘now and then’ tale with an unpredictable climax.
Two metaphysical oddities on the North Shore: Craig Wright’s Grace at Northlight and Edward Albee’s tribute to his mother, Three Tall Women at Apple Tree.
Kitchen sink realism was alive and well and living in Gift Theatre’s Hurlyburly and Oracle Production’s Tape, meticulously recreating a Southern California living room (c. 1980) and an exurban motel room, respectively.
And three shows that made the most of the Victory Gardens Greenhouse upstairs studio, a charmed space that deserves an award of its own: Shattered Globe’s Dealer’s Choice, TUTA Theater’s Huddersfield, and Eclipse’s Spinning Into Butter.
Photo credits: A Number and Crumbs by Michael Brosilow, Back of the Throat by Johnny Knight, Golden Truffle by Redmoon Theatre, Dead City by Timmy Samuels