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It's Top 10 time, and my Top 10 works like this: #1 is high above #2 which is high above #3-4 which are fairly high above #5-10: 1) Songs of Joy and Destitution at the Open Fist, Hollywood -- Part fun house, part charnel house, equal parts aching tragedy and amusement park, this show was like few things I've ever seen. Matthew Wilder's direction expanded Charles Mee's texts into vivid, searing scenes that could not be predicted, or erased from memory. It was like being high on drugs in the black desert night, or wandering stoned through the sewers and catacombs of a secret city -- and yet when it ended, you were lucid enough to drive home. Just a brilliant experience. 2) Vinegar Tom at the Electric Lodge, Venice - Critics have a habit of rethinking things. I initially thought Workshop 360 had erred, and marred Caryl Churchill's play, by putting her lyrics to modern pop. But when I think of this production, I don't remember errors. I remember a committed ensemble moving and acting as one, and a unity of passion and effort that was simply awesome. Director L. (ora) Zane used music, choreography and video to amplify Churchill's ideas, with perhaps a touch of distortion but volumes of excitement. 3) Gem of the Ocean at the Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles -- Saw it closing weekend, heard it was as good as "Joe Turner's Come and Gone". It was. When August Wilson gets mystical, exciting things happen. Felicia Rashad was a standout in a three-hour evening that went from straight reality to a city of bones and the redemption of souls. "I've got freedom, and I say, what is it?", Solly Two Kings asks, stumbling upon an American lesson. "You've got to fight to make it mean something." 4) Chavez Ravine at the Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles -- With characteristic flair and barbed humor (and the help of Lisa Peterson's fabulous direction), Culture Clash told a story of Los Angeles -- a story of one neighborhood, yet a microcosm of a whole city's cultural struggles and change. Herbert Siguenza's keynote portrayal of Fernando Valenzuela on the mound at Dodger Stadium was indelible. (Saw this closing weekend, too; must do something about those Taper tickets.) 5) Private Jokes, Public Places at the Elephant Theater, Hollywood -- t2k started up again at the tail end of 2002, so that allows me to include Oren Safdie's high-IQ play, as I put it "a pencil up the ass of academia." I still remember Geoffrey Wade's deft turn as the sour-butt English architecture critic, a perfect performance. 6) Anna in the Tropics at South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa -- The 2003 Pulitzer Prize winner for drama was like a vintage Cadillac: comfy, classy, elegant, perhaps of another age in some small way but a great ride. The critic Robert Brustein once commented that a great August Wilson play moved with "a terrible inevitability" toward its tragic conclusion; so too, did this. 7) Innocent Thoughts at the Stella Adler, Hollywood -- Racism was on the table, and Matt Gould and Spencer Scott gave us a thrilling two-and-a-half-hour showdown as two men wrestled with a crime, a cover-up, the truth, and the myths they'd embraced about each others' worlds. Unity Players Ensemble presented William Missouri Downs' drama, as smart as it was smartly funny. 8) Penetrator at the Empire Theater, Santa Ana -- Rude Guerrilla Theater Company again delivered a short, sharp shock, a funny and poignant show about male love and friendship. Anthony Neilson's take-no-prisoners script was served in-yer-face by director Jay Michael Fraley and his unafraid cast, in a show that was by turns unsettling, hilarious and emotionally rewarding. 9) Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner at the Ivy Substation, Culver City -- This entry in the Taper, Too series was blessed by a fine cast (particularly Winston J. Rocha and Rose Portillo) and the big heart and imagination of Luis Alfaro. In days when new plays often present their characters at a distance, or even with contempt, Alfaro presented his with love. 10) The Taming of the Shrew at the Hunger Artists Theatre, Fullerton -- Insurgo Theater Movement's vivid take on the Bard was people's Shakespeare, and I mean that in the best way: not a reduction or jettison of the Bard, but a tip of the hat. He wrote for nobles and groundlings, and this production reached through the fog of academia and pulled him into the present -- accessible stuff, and yet faithful to the text. Honorable Mentions: Among the Thugs, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble; The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, South Coast Repertory; FistFest 2003, Open Fist Theatre; Liberation and Sleeping Around, Rude Guerrilla Theater Co.; Rube, STAGESTheatre, Fullerton.
What Gladdens Us Dept.: Stuff that encourages people to see shows at cutting-edge theaters, like the Play7 program and LA Stage Alliance; the oncoming Culver City home for the Taper, Too at the Kirk Douglas Theatre; theaters taking chances on new plays; directors who create worlds instead of mere performances; the developing Orange County scene.
What Maddens Us Dept.: Theater companies that do the same plays theater companies did a short drive away a year ago; the wearying new postmodernism (cult of Kane) that some young playwrights seem to have embraced -- no way out of your own hell, no point to living; walkouts during performances, a terrible insult to actors and their craft -- if you don't like the play, it's not the actors' fault, they didn't write it.
High Marks: Open Fist and Rude Guerrilla, two really valuable small theaters that consistently present high-intellect work that is powerful and affecting. Their spaces are unpretentious; their style, straightforward. When you go in, you know you're going to discover a little more about life. On a larger scale, the Taper also presents work of this honesty.
Low Marks: Showcase playhouses (still too many); television concepts (still too many); the people who rented a 350-seat theater and created noxious radio ads for a play called "Orgasms" that featured "Ed Asner as the voice of God"; the shuttering of A.S.K. Theatre Projects. |
