Lowering the curtain on 2010

All the reviews have been written and the curtain has dropped on my year of living theatrically, 2010 edition.

Unfortunately, it was not a record-setting year. I saw fewer shows than I did in 2009, since I wasn't able to get to New York in the spring and I didn't make it to Boston at all. But it's quality not quantity, right? And I still saw a lot of memorable theatre.

Before I get to the highlights in an upcoming post, a few odds and ends:

I checked two more Broadway theatres off my list: the Longacre and the Cort. There are only six left that I've yet to step inside: Ambassador, American Airlines, August Wilson, Golden, Majestic and Sondheim. The Longacre reopened in 2008 after a two-year, $12-million renovation by the Shuberts, and it's beautiful. The Cort, well, I hope it's next on the list for a facelift. And speaking of the Sondheim, when are they going to dot the i? Has anyone else noticed that it's still missing?

Among the seat-selection lessons I learned this year: just because the front row in a particular theatre is fine for one play, that doesn't mean it'll be fine for another play. I sat in the front row at the Friedman for The Royal Family and it was perfect. But I was a little too close for The Pitmen Painters. The stage seemed to be higher and deeper. I never realized the dimensions could change that dramatically!

Another question: Does the director ever sit in the audience to make sure everyone can see from every vantage point? A row of speakers blocked my view of the actors' feet in Xanadu. Not good in a musical with roller-skating dancers. A chair blocked my view for a couple of scenes in The Pitmen Painters and a piece of the set that popped up from the stage did the same during Act II of A Free Man of Color at the Beaumont. (To be fair, I had changed my seat at intermission, moving down to an empty spot in the front row. There's no leg room in the Beaumont, even in the orchestra.)

As always, I had many wonderful stage-door experiences. Among them: Saycon Sengbloh of Fela! graciously took me onstage at the O'Neill.

I tracked down Tony winner Douglas Hodge in a bar after La Cage aux Folles and he was great, taking a few minutes to talk to me and sign my Playbill. I consider that one of my more intrepid stage-door adventures.

I met Michael Shannon from Mistakes Were Made at the Barrow Street Theatre. He was so nice, asking me where I was from, how I travel to New York and what other shows I was seeing. He asked me my name so he could personally inscribe my program. (I think I startled him because "Esther" is his character's secretary in the play). And he even drew a little smiley face for me!

Another first: I met a playwright! David Hirson was at the stage door at La Bete, a work I really loved and I got to tell him so. I also had the opportunity to renew my acquaintance with David Hyde Pierce. I told him how much I enjoyed him in Curtains and he showed me that he was wearing the show jacket from the musical - which I thought was sweet in a theatre geek kind of way.

By far the rudest audience behavior I witnessed this year was at Trust, at the Second Stage Theatre off-Broadway.

I was in the third row and at the beginning of Act II, a woman sitting on the aisle snapped a couple of pictures of Zach Braff. It was so brazen, as well as rude and dangerous to the actors. It's a small theatre, too, 327 seats. So it's not like no one would notice.

I'm pretty sure that if she'd waited until after the play, he would have posed for a picture with her.

Mistakes Were Made

Mistakes Were Made, at the Barrow Street Theatre off Broadway
Gratuitous Violins rating: *** 1/2 out of ****

I've never seen anything quite like the virtuoso performance Michael Shannon delivers as a would-be Broadway producer in Mistakes Were Made.

Craig Wright's witty, frenzied satire comes to New York from Chicago's A Red Orchid Theatre. In 95 minutes it takes us through a day in the life of Felix Artifex, who's desperately trying to mount an epic play about the French Revolution penned by an unknown Midwestern author.

If you love theatre and know anything about the perils of Broadway, I bet you're smiling already.

From Tom Burch's set design it's clear that this is not some high-powered dealmaker. Felix operates out of a dimly lit, shabby office with a worn desk and chair, scripts strewn around the floor and heated by an old-fashioned steam radiator. There are old Broadway posters and I recognized a framed photo of Larry Hagman on the wall.

Felix spends most of his time alone - well, almost.

An eternally patient but rarely seen secretary, Esther, played by Mierka Girten, announces his calls. She remains calm no matter how agitated he gets.

And there's an aquarium with one very plump, wide-eyed fish named Denise, in whom Felix confides. Puppeteer Sam Deutsch does a great job manipulating Denise, making her a character in the play.

As Felix, Shannon is on the phone almost nonstop. It's amazing to watch him juggle phone calls, sometimes several at a time, stretching from the Midwest to the Middle East. I swear he had me believing there was someone else on the other end of the line each time.

Felix must talk to nearly a dozen different people including a movie star, the playwright, an investor, a theater owner, an agent, a director, his ex-wife, an American military officer and several people involved with a shadowy money-making scheme to move sheep through a war-torn country.

And everyone gets a different approach - flattering the hot young movie star he's wooing, gently but firmly trying to persuade the playwright to create a bigger part for the actor, incensed with the theater owner who tries to back out, deferential to the investor. (I loved how he kept reassuring the writer: "You're the artist," all the while trying to rewrite the play for him.)

What's remarkable to watch is how adeptly Shannon handles all of this. He's moving all the time - running his hand through his hair, feeding his fish and effortlessly changing his tone of voice while switching among callers.

This was my first time seeing one of Wright's plays but I'm familiar with his work from such television series as Brothers and Sisters, Lost and Six Feet Under. He seems to know all of the players and egos involved in show business.

While there's nothing particularly startling in Wright's observations about the difficulty in putting on a Broadway show, he's written a tremendously entertaining look at the intersection of art and commerce.

Mistakes Were Made is a character study and Felix Artifex is quite a character. I'm thinking there aren't a lot of small-time producers like him around today. It's a bit of a stretch to believe that he could ever actually mount a Broadway show.

Still, Shannon elevates this play, making Felix utterly sympathetic and memorable. And in Mistakes Were Made, he's giving a Tony-worthy performance, even if it isn't eligible for one.

An Oscar nominee for Revolutionary Road and currently in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, Shannon is gaining some well-deserved national recognition. This is a great opportunity to see him up close.