My favorite theatre of 2011

This year, it's easy to pick my favorite theatre. Tony Kushner's Angels in America, at the Signature Theatre, and Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart, on Broadway, stood far above anything else I saw in 2011.

Each playwright takes a very different approach to writing about the early days of the AIDS epidemic in New York City, and its devastating impact on gay men. But both tell absorbing stories brought to life by superb actors whose performances had me in tears. They are lyrical and angry and infused with humor and humanity and they will live in my heart forever.

The best of the rest:

Clybourne Park
This Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Bruce Norris, which I saw at Trinity Rep, draws its inspiration from A Raisin in the Sun. It examines how we talk about race in America both in the 1950s and today. The similarities and differences are at times subtle, at times in your face but always compelling. Norris's characters - why they behave the way they do - left me with much to think about.

The Mountaintop
Katori Hall's Broadway play imagines the final night of the Rev. Martin Luther King's life, in his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. I was riveted watching Samuel L. Jackson as King and Angela Bassett as a hotel maid he encounters. I thought it was a fascinating look at the civil-rights leader not as an icon but as a man.

Follies
This Broadway revival was a great reminder of how great a musical can be when its stories and characters are truly original. Through Stephen Sondehim's songs and James Goldman's book, this is a show that speaks honestly - with humor and pain and poignancy - about what happens as we grow older.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Maybe it had something to do with the rapturous reception for the endearing Daniel Radcliffe as aspiring executive J. Pierrepont Finch, but the crowd just carried me along on this one. It was hilarious and the story of what you have to do to get to the top resonates today. The Broadway revival of Frank Loesser's musical had me grinning from beginning to end.

Porgy and Bess
I saw Porgy and Bess in its pre-Broadway tryout at the American Repertory Theater. It was my first time seeing the show and hearing the Gershwin score and I was captivated. What made this musical so moving for me was the romance at its core. I thought Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis were wonderful together.

Candide
I loved Leonard Bernstein's glorious score and the story, adapted from Voltaire by Mary Zimmerman. This production originated in Chicago but I saw it at the Huntington Theatre in Boston. It was an exuberant, inventive and melodic tale about a young man's adventure-filled journey through life. There were so many twists and turns, quirky characters and shifting locations that I was enthralled.

Follies

Follies, at Broadway's Marquis Theatre
Gratuitous Violins rating: **** out of ****

Because my opportunities to get to New York City are limited, I almost skipped the Broadway revival of Follies. I'd seen a fine version at Boston's Lyric Stage in 2008 and I rarely revisit a show. I figure been there, done that.

And while I like Follies, it's not my favorite Stephen Sondheim musical. It tells the story of former showgirls who return for a reunion in their old theatre just before it's demolished. While some are happy, others express regrets at how their lives have turned out compared with the dreams they harbored in their youth. That's a subject which hits a little too close to home.

But I'm so glad I gave it another chance. This is a production that speaks honestly - with humor and pain and poignancy - about what happens as we grow older.

While Follies is my fourth Sondheim musical, it's the first one I've seen with a full orchestra. And it really does make a difference. I mean, 28 musicians, that's almost a symphony. (Including 2 chellos. I didn't even know the plural of cello was celli!) They sounded so lush and gorgeous.

The Marquis Theatre is one of Broadway's newest houses but the designers - Derek McLane's set, Gregg Barnes' costumes and Natasha Katz's lighting - combine to give the appearance that Follies is taking place in a crumbling, eerie space. It was moody and ghostly and perfect.

Along with the theatre, these women are also in transition - their marriages are troubled, their children have grown up and left home. They're not as sprightly as they used to be. They're shadowed by younger actors, reminders of their former selves.

One of the things I love about Follies is watching the showgirls perform their routines from 30 years earlier. What endearing women with interesting stories, ones that they don't often get a chance to tell onstage, in movies or on TV. Some of the poignancy comes from knowing their real-life background: opera singer Rosalind Elias making her Broadway debut at 82!

It was so moving to see them parade onstage, just like the old days, in "Beautiful Girls." I loved Terri White's Stella Deems leading the troupe in "Who's that Woman?", Jayne Houdyshell's Hattie Walker belting "Broadway Baby" and Florence Lacey's film star Carlotta Campion proclaiming "I'm Still Here," with all of the witty historic and cultural references.

But the two most memorable performances were Bernadette Peters as Sally Durant Plummer and Jan Maxwell as Phyllis Rogers Stone, roommates as Follies girls who've drifted apart. Sally is married to Danny Burstein's affable salesman Buddy and lives in Phoenix. Phyllis, married to Ron Raines' distinguished-looking Ben, a former politician, lives in New York City.

This was my first time seeing Maxwell in a musical and she is the absolute definition of a triple threat. Watching her sing and dance through "The Story of Lucy and Jessie" was exhilarating. It was only about a week after she was hit by a car crossing a street in Times Square. She's simply remarkable.

I'd only seen Peters on TV and in the movies, so seeing her onstage was thrilling. As a deeply unhappy and mentally unbalanced woman, who feels her life is falling apart, she was heartbreaking. I was riveted by her rendition of "Losing My Mind."

What I've really come to appreciate about Follies is that it's a musical for anyone who loves thoughtful and original work. The themes are timeless and it's the kind of show that reveals new layers every time you see it. This was my final show of 2011 and what a great way to cap a year of theatergoing.

Follies

Gratuitous Violins rating: ***1/2 out of ****

I'm not much for reunions of the high school or college variety, but I made an exception for the reunion of former showgirls that forms the basis of Stephen Sondheim's Follies, which I saw this week in a terrific production at Boston's Lyric Stage.

One of the things I admire about Sondheim is the way his work explores some meaty themes - the creative process in Sunday in the Park with George; the injustice of the class system in Sweeney Todd; Americans' obsessions with fame and guns in Assassins. I think of Follies as an examination of what happens as we age - how we look back at our youthful dreams with nostalgia and a twinge of regret that life didn't quite turn out the way we planned.

The story revolves around a group of showgirls who were stars 30 years earlier with the musical revue Weismann's Follies (based on Ziegfeld's Follies). Now middle-aged, they gather with their spouses in 1971 for a reunion in the Broadway theatre where they once performed, which is going to be demolished and turned into a parking lot. The set design, by Janie E. Howland, isn't very elaborate, as befits a theatre that's about to be torn down. We see the circular steps where the Follies girls used walk down and a torn curtain at the back of the stage, hiding the musicians, and that's about it.

Along with the crumbling theatre, the lives of these women are also in various stages of crumbling - their marriages are troubled, their children have grown up and left home, their bodies are breaking down. As if to bring the point home even further, another group of actors plays each character as the ghost of their former, younger selves.

While each former showgirl gets a star turn, the plot focuses mainly on two couples: Phyllis Rogers Stone and her husband Ben, played by Maryann Zschau and Larry Daggett; and Sally Durant Plummer and her husband Buddy, played by Leigh Barrett and Peter A. Carey. All four do a terrific job expressing their characters' insecurities and disappointments.

Phyllis and Sally were once roommates and Buddy and Ben were once best friends, but I gather that they haven't seen each other for a very long time. It seems like they each pine for what the other has: Sally and Buddy, a traveling salesman, moved to Phoenix and raised two sons, but Sally is still in love with Ben. Phyllis and Ben, a lawyer, live a high-society life in New York City but never had the children that she wanted. It soon becomes clear that the spark has gone out of both marriages.

And one of the things I loved best about Follies is seeing the characters' younger selves on stage at the same time we see them as they are today. The actors who play the younger Phyllis, Ben, Sally and Buddy - Amy Doherty, Josh Dennis, Michele DeLuca and Phil Crumrine, - really capture the eagerness and excitement of youth and they make for a fascinating contrast. At first, I thought it would be kind of confusing but it's such an imaginative idea and I think that this production, directed by Spiro Veloudos, the Lyric's artistic director, pulls it off so well.

Sondheim packs an awful lot into his lyrics. I loved Bobbi Steinbach's movie star Carlotta Campion singing "I'm Still Here," with all of its cultural references. There's the poignancy of Ben looking back at lost opportunities in "The Road You Didn't Take." And it was so touching to see all of the former showgirls parade like they used to in the old days in "Beautiful Girls."

As a lover of big Broadway dance numbers, I was absolutely thrilled by "Who's that Woman," led by Kerry A. Dowling as Stella Deems. It was so much fun to see all of the showgirls - mirrored by their younger selves - in the same routine, choreographed by Ilyse Robbins, with wonderful flashy, skimpy costumes by Rafael Jaen that really evoked the Ziegfeld era. You know, they may not move as quickly anymore but these women still have that love of getting up on stage and performing. It's like all of their worries fade away and for a few brief moments, they're young again.

There were some aspects of Follies that I didn't like quite as much. For one thing, I think that James Goldman's book could have used a bit of tightening. The 90-minute first act didn't exactly race by. Sometimes, we spend too much time on Sally and Buddy and Phyllis and Ben. I'd have liked to hear a little more about some of the other characters.

And I have to admit that at first, I couldn't figure out what was going on with Act II, when the linear storytelling comes to an abrupt halt, and each of the main characters gets his or her own Follies-style musical number.

I really liked Sally's "Losing My Mind" and Phyllis' "The Story of Lucy and Jessie." But what was it all about? Then I realized that it was about the characters' looking back at the follies of their own lives, and it began to make more sense. Follies is the kind of show where, now that I've seen it once and I know what it's all about, I think I'd get even more out of it a second time.

The original production of Follies opened on Broadway on April 4, 1971, and played a total of 522 performances before closing on July 1, 1972. In a 1985 article about a concert version of Follies, then-New York Times drama critic Frank Rich noted that the show was considered "downbeat" and was a commercial failure on Broadway. (Although it won seven Tony Awards.)

I don't think of Follies as a downbeat show. True, it's about looking back on the past and opening old wounds and dealing with regret. So of course there's a great deal of sadness and anger. But in a way, the ending is surprisingly sweet and sentimental. It's not about regrets but about making peace with the way life has turned out.