Saying goodbye to 2010

Another year of blogging draws to a close. My posts on Gratuitous Violins declined rather dramatically beginning in April. I didn't get to the theatre much for the first six months of 2010 so I felt like I had less to say.

Plus I spent more time on Twitter, where I really enjoy being part of a running conversation with theatre fans from all over. Blogging can be kind of solitary. And besides, sometimes all you really need is 140 characters.

Despite a slow start, I did see some terrific plays and musicals this year. I was thinking how many of them had strong endings. And endings, like beginnings, are tough to get just right.

Since this is my final post of the year, I'll mention some of them. (I've been vague enough that I don't think there are any plot spoilers):

• The last couple minutes of Lend Me A Tenor, where the cast re-created the entire hilarious plot at warp speed.

• A tender moment between Albin and Georges in La Cage aux Folles, made all the more poignant because it was something they didn't do in the original production.

• The last line in A Free Man of Color and the final moments of The Scottsboro Boys were so compelling for what they said about the tortuous history of race in America.
  

• A perfect image of Laura Linney's photographer character in Time Stands Still.
  

• A sweet family portrait at the end of Elling that made me smile.
  

• When David Hyde Pierce's character in La Bete, the principled playwright Elomire, exits the stage.
  

• The very fun concert after the curtain call for Brief Encounter. Don't stop believin'!
  
  

Overall, 2010 was a good year. I saw lots of friends during my three trips to New York and met new ones. I visited Washington, D.C., one of my favorite cities, for the first time in a long time and reconnected with people I hadn't seen in years.

I made it to a couple more wonderful New York City museums for the first time: the Whitney and the Jewish Museum. And I learned an important lesson: you can't always judge a sandwich by its picture in a magazine.

To everyone who read my blog, left a comment, followed me on Twitter, friended me on Facebook, sent me an e-mail, joined me for lunch, brunch, dinner or a show during the past year, thank-you for the gift of your time and your friendship.

Best wishes for a happy, healthy and adventure-filled 2011!

My favorite theatre of 2010

Listing my favorite shows of the year is tough because even if I don't totally love a play or musical there's always something I want to mention, like a strong performance or a moment that really moved me.

But out of the 27 plays and musicals I saw in 2010, these stood out:

Brief Encounter - Roundabout Theatre Company at Studio 54

Brief Encounter was the most captivating theatre I saw all year. It was whimsical, magical, romantic.

Britain's Kneehigh Theatre Company adapted the 1945 film Brief Encounter, based on a Noel Coward play about a married man and woman who begin an affair after a chance meeting in a train station.

Hannah Yelland and Tristan Sturrock were enchanting as the couple, reminding me how sexy those old movies could be without the actors taking off all their clothes and jumping into bed.

I felt like I was watching an old black-and-white movie onstage - visually heightened by some imaginative effects and with all the boring parts left out. And those effects, along with Coward's music used throughout, enhanced the story. They never threatened to overwhelm it.

Brief Encounter runs through Jan. 2.

The Scottsboro Boys, Lyceum Theatre

Stunning would have to be the word I'd use to describe this final musical from John Kander and the late Fred Ebb. It was the most compelling theatre I saw all year and I thought the score was haunting.

The story of nine black teenagers falsely accused of rape in 1930s Alabama is told through a minstrel show, illuminating the era's racism in a way I found chillingly effective. Here, the white characters were lampooned while the African-Americans were treated with respect.

The Scottsboro Boys was musical theatre that made me think. With a superb ensemble led by Joshua Henry, I thought it was profoundly moving and immensely entertaining in the best sense of the word. It deserved a longer run on Broadway.

La Cage aux Folles, Longacre Theatre

My favorite new score of the year - well new to me anyway - was La Cage aux Folles. Hearing Jerry Herman's gorgeous songs for the first time - stirring, heartfelt, playful and utterly romantic - was unforgettable.

Based on the French film, it's about two men, partners in a nightclub and in life, who have raised a son. They now face a dilemma with his impending marriage to the daughter of a right-wing politician.

I saw Chris Hoch, Kelsey Grammer's understudy, as nightclub owner Georges and he was wonderful. He had great chemistry with the equally wonderful Tony-winner Douglas Hodge as the drag performer Albin. I was moved to tears watching them.

With warmth and wit, this musical goes to true meaning of family values: the love we show each other, the sacrifices we make.

La Cage aux Folles is an open-ended run.

La Bete, Music Box Theatre

I was nervous going into La Bete. I was afraid the play, written in rhyme and taking place in 17th-century France, would be musty and hard to comprehend. Well, this was the most pleasant surprise of the year for me. I was enthralled.

Mark Rylance as Valere, a bufoonish street performer, and David Hyde Pierce as Elomire, a principled playwright, were terrific, which I figured they would be. What surprised me is how much I truly enjoyed David Hirson's play. It was hilarious, thoughtful and entirely accessible.

As Valere and Elomire competed for the patronage of Joanna Lumley's princess, La Bete raised questions about artistic integrity and the debasement of popular culture that struck a chord. While I was laughing so hard, it gave me so much to think about.

La Bete runs through Jan. 9.

Mistakes Were Made, Barrow Street Theatre

As a would-be Broadway producer, Michael Shannon is giving a virtuoso performance in Mistakes Were Made. I've never seen anything quite like it.

Craig Wright's 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, a producer who's desperately trying to mount a play on Broadway about the French Revolution.

Shannon's Felix is on the phone almost nonstop. He must talk to nearly a dozen different people, including a movie star he's wooing, the playwright, a potential investor and several people associated with the movement of sheep through a Middle Eastern country.

What's remarkable is how adeptly Shannon handles all of this. Every caller gets a different approach, a different tone of voice. I swear he had me believing there was someone else on the other end of the phone every time.

Mistakes Were Made runs through Feb. 27.

Fela!, Eugene O'Neill Theatre

Thanks to an amazing performance from Kevin Mambo, this musical turned out to be one of the most exhilarating experiences I had all year.

Mambo was incredible as the late Nigerian musician and political activist Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. He was mesmerizing, making Fela a terrific storyteller and showman and truly evoking the charismatic part of his personality. Ok, maybe it doesn't tell his entire story but I did get some insight into his life and influences, what made him such a revered figure.

I loved the way Fela! meshed politics, history and personal narrative with the pulsating sound of Afrobeat. It was original and unique. The music and dancing was pretty much nonstop for 2 1/2 hours and I was into it the whole time.

Fela! runs through Jan. 2.

A Bronx Tale, Providence Performing Arts Center

Even though Chazz Palminteri has been performing the autobiographical A Bronx Tale for 20 years, and the events belong to his childhood, he makes them seem as fresh as if they had just happened yesterday.

Palminteri paints a vivid portrait of growing up in New York City in the 1960s. He portrays 18 people in this solo show, including an assortment of mobsters, his bus driver father and two versions of himself - an impressionable 9-year-old and a streetwise 17-year-old.

It's a masterful performance, the way he depicts these characters and their various idiosyncrasies with a change in his tone of voice, an expression, the way he moves around onstage. He makes them all distinct and memorable.

The Glass Menagerie, Gamm Theatre

I'm so glad I had a chance to see this classic play onstage for the first time.

I knew the shorthand for The Glass Menagerie: domineering mother, artistic son, unstable daughter, gentleman caller. But watching Tennessee Williams' play about a troubled family made me realize how little I really knew about it.

Diana Buirski brought out Laura's frailty; Marc Dante Mancini made me understand how trapped Tom felt; and Wendy Overly as their mother, Amanda, truly was a fading Southern beauty living in the past.

Williams crafted his characters with such care that I felt for what each one was going thorough in this intimate, absorbing production.

It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, at Trinity Rep

I wasn't sure what It's a Wonderful Life would be without Jimmy Stewart and the rest of the cast from the movie. Well onstage, it's pretty wonderful, too.

Joe Landry's adaptation is presented as a Christmas Eve 1949 radio broadcast. There's a minimal set and cast - five actors play multiple roles - but the story retains its charm and pull.

Fred Sullivan Jr. was so endearing as George Bailey, a man who's always put the needs of his friends, family and community over his own.

It's a Wonderful Life is a moving portrait of small-town American life. Maybe it's because I was sitting so close - in the front row, in a small theatre, but I was struck by how much the story resonated and how emotional it was to watch. In the end, there were tears in my eyes.

It's a Wonderful Life runs through Jan. 2.

Brief Encounter

Brief Encounter,
Roundabout Theatre Company at Studio 54 on Broadway

Gratuitous Violins rating: **** out of ****

I can't think of a more whimsical, romantic, magical theatre experience than Brief Encounter. It's like watching a 1930s movie come alive onstage - visually heightened and with all the boring parts left out.

The play, a production of Britain's Kneehigh Theatre, has been adapted with tremendous imagination by Emma Rice from the David Lean film, which was based on Noel Coward's Still Life.

Alec and Laura meet in a railway station cafe. He's a doctor who comes to her aid when she gets a cinder in her eye. Even though they're married with children, they are instantly drawn to each other. They're proper and reserved but there's no denying the spark between them.

As Alec, Tristan Sturrock is absolutely dashing. He's the opposite of Laura's detached husband, played by Joseph Alessi, who doubles as the stationmaster. Hannah Yelland's Laura is beautiful and so expressive. You can see in her face how conflicted she feels.

Watching their relationship develop reminded me of how incredibly sexy those old movies could be without the lovers getting completely undressed and jumping into bed.

After they've been out on a lake - in a rowboat onstage - Laura takes off her blouse to let it dry. Alec helps her put it back on and buttons it for her in a way that's completely chaste yet the underlying emotion made me feel positively tingly.

But this isn't merely a staid retelling. Brief Encounter is truly unique and captivating.

You get into the mood even as you walk into the theatre. Uniformed ushers, dressed like old-fashioned hotel bellhops, walk up and down the aisle. A quartet of singers and musicians are performing.

And I love the way Noel Coward's songs, which I'd never appreciated before, are performed by the supporting characters, who are pursuing their own love affairs. Alessi's stationmaster lusts after Annette McLaughlin's Myrtle, who runs the restaurant; Dorothy Atkinson's Beryl, the waitress, flirts with Gabriel Ebert's Stanley, who sells chocolate bars.

The projection design by Gemma Carrington and Jon Driscoll allows actors to step into and out of the movie in a way that seemed magical. Simon Baker's sound design makes the wind howl and the ground rumble and the waves crash. Neil Murray's design and costumes made me feel like I was looking at a big toy train station come alive.

But the special effects never felt gimmicky or threatened to overwhelm the love story at the heart of the play. A great show transports the audience and that's what Brief Encounter did so beautifully for me.

And if after 90 minutes you don't want it to end, you can join the cast for a rollicking concert at the back of the theatre. At the performance I attended, they played "We Are Family," "Time After Time" and "Don't Stop Believin'."

I could not help but go out into the cool night air smiling.

My Broadway wish list: fall 2010

I love this time of year, when every book and movie, TV series and CD, play and musical has the potential to be a hit.

I'll only be able to see a handful of shows in New York City and not nearly enough off Broadway. But you have to start somewhere, so here are the Broadway shows at the top of my wish list:

La Bete:
A comedy in rhyming couplets inspired by Moliere? I'm there. This is my chance to see Mark Rylance, whose Tony-winning turn in Boeing Boeing I missed. And it's been 3 1/2 years since I last saw David Hyde Pierce on Broadway, in his Tony-winning performance in Curtains. Much too long.

The Pitmen Painters:
Maybe it's because I loved How Green Was My Valley, or the fact that I've been in a coal mine, but I'm very interested in Lee Hall's play about a group of British miners in the 1930s who discover their artistic side. Hall, who wrote Billy Elliot, knows the terrain. New Yorker theatre critic John Lahr, who saw it in London, put The Pitmen Painters on his list of the 10 best plays of 2008.

Brief Encounter:
I've never seen the 1945 British movie, directed by David Lean, with a screenplay by Noel Coward. And I'm not a big Coward fan. Still, I like innovative work and this play, from Britain's Kneehigh Theatre, sounds so intriguing for the way it incorporates film footage into the action onstage. I can't even imagine what it'll be like.

The Scottsboro Boys:
The reviews from the pre-Broadway engagement at the Guthrie Theater have been glowing. It's got a score by Kander and Ebb. The cast includes John Cullum and Colman Domingo, both of whom I've enjoyed onstage. And I'm so curious to see how this shameful episode in American history is told through music.

A Free Man of Color:
I've read a little bit about the time in which John Guare's play occurs and it's fascinating. New Orleans in 1801, before the Louisiana Purchase, was a freewheeling place, where racial strictures were much less rigid. Jeffrey Wright plays the title character, whose life will be upended when the city is transferred from French to American sovereignty.

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown:
I could not be more excited about a cast - Patti LuPone and Laura Benanti, both of whom I adored in Gypsy, plus Sherie Rene Scott and Brian Stokes Mitchell, whom I've never seen. And the musical is based on a Pedro Almodovar movie that I haven't seen, so it'll all be new to me. Plus, haven't we all been on the verge of a nervous breakdown at one time or another?

Of course there's more I'd love to see. I missed Time Stands Still with Laura Linney, so I'm hoping to catch the return engagement. And I want to see Spider-Man Turn off the Dark, but since previews don't begin until mid-November, I'll wait until they get that flying down pat.