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Sunday, December 27, 2009
The Best of 2009 in Theater: The year's top 10 productions
Posted by Mark E. Leib on Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 12:55 PM
2009 was a tiptop year for theatre in the Tampa Bay area. Here’s the cream of the crop:
1. Shining City (Stageworks). Richard Coppinger as an Everyman who can’t do anything right; Glenn Gover as the therapist who himself needs healing. Intense and heartbreaking.
2. Doubt (American Stage). Sister Aloysius, the Dirty Harry of nuns, sets out to prove that a priest is a sex abuser. The priest resists. Make my day.
3. Wonderland (Straz Center for the Performing Arts). A modern Alice traverses eight levels of reality in search of her daughter. A hip, hallucinogenic thrill-ride.
4. Fences (American Stage). August Wilson’s great play is about Troy Maxson, a rubbish collector, poisoned by dreams deferred, but radiantly human.
5. Rabbit Hole (Jobsite Theater). A lovingly detailed study of the effect of a child’s death on his family and others near him. Meg Heimstead as his grief-stricken mother was splendid.
6. Respect: The Musical (Straz Center). This tour through the depiction of women in popular songs was both sociologically astute and foot-tappingly fun. I Will Survive!
7. The Little Dog Laughed (Stageworks). Gay Hollywood actor wants to come out; super-cynical lesbian agent wants him to stay in. Lights, camera, duplicity.
8. Pericles (Jobsite Theater). Shakespeare’s impossible-to-follow play in a sharp and funny modern version energized by Joe Popp’s wonderful rock music. Which way to Brooklyn?
9. Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop (HCC Ybor). Curtis Belz shone in Danny Hoch’s tribute to the life lived in rundown apartments, back alleys, holding cells and rehab wards. Not Noel Coward.
10.Thom Pain (based on nothing) (American Stage). A howl of agony disguised as a monologue, a modernist poem of distress and loss. T. Scott Wooten acted, Julie Rowe directed. Wonderful.
To my readers: Happy New Year. And may all your dramas be romantic comedies.
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