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.

Candide

Candide, at Boston's Huntington Theatre Company
Gratuitous Violins rating: ***1/2 out of ****

I know that everyone goes to the theatre with their own expectations but for me, above all, I love a good story.

And Candide, at the Huntington Theatre Company, is an exuberant, inventive and melodic story about a young man's adventure-filled journey through life. There are so many twists and turns, memorable characters and shifting locations that I was enthralled.

Plus the score, by Leonard Bernstein, is glorious. I listened to the overture while I was driving to work and I had it in my head all day. Maybe it's the trombones and trumpets that give it a little added pizzazz but it's a thrilling piece of music. I even detected a few notes that sounded like West Side Story!

Geoff Packard is very appealing in the title role - youthful, eager and a bit naive. He's living in luxury on the estate of a baron in Westphalia when he gets a little too friendly with the baron's daughter, Cunegonde, a sweet and feisty Lauren Molina. As as a result, he's thrust out of paradise into the harshness of the real world.

But Candide perseveres - through war, an earthquake, a shipwreck. He travels from Europe to the jungles of South America, to real places and imaginary ones. He finds and loses Cunegonde more than once. All of this sorely tests the optimistic philosophy imparted by his tutor, Dr. Pangloss, that everything happens for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

Now you might think that all of this would be a bit dreary - there's a scene set during the Inquisition with the line "what a day for an auto-da-fe." But director Mary Zimmerman, who penned a new adaptation of Voltaire's 18th century satire, brings out the humor and sharpens the wit. She also keeps things moving. I never felt it dragged over the 3-hour length.

The supporting cast is terrific, too.

Cheryl Stern was perfect as the Old Lady who may be descended from Polish royalty but now, down on her luck, casts her lot with Cunegonde and Candide. Her solo number, "I Am Easily Assimilated," in which she regales them with her very involved life story, was hilarious. Eric Lochtefeld was great as Cunegonde's snobbish and slimy brother Maximilian. And Larry Yando's Pangloss was a wonderful sendup of academia.

Daniel Ostling's set design also plays a big role in highlighting the theatricality of the work.

When Candide is banished from the baron's home, he finds himself in a large wood-paneled room without any apparent entrance or exit. Then doors and windows open, characters appear, furniture is moved in and out. It's a stunning transition. Molina sings one of the musical's best-known songs, "Glitter and Be Gay," stepping out of a bathtub. My favorite touch was a flock of small, woolly red sheep that Candide stumbles upon.

Apparently, Candide, an operetta first performed in 1956, has always been considered something of a problem child. The Huntington program credits the book to Hugh Wheeler and the lyrics to Richard Wilbur with additional lyrics by, among others, Stephen Sondheim, Lillian Hellman and Dorothy Parker.

I can't say how this Candide stacks up against all others since this was the first time I'd seen it or even heard the music. But Zimmerman's production, which premiered at Chicago's Goodman Theatre with some of the same principal cast, worked for me.

In the end, Packard's Candide is more worldly, less naive. He's been on a rollicking, moving, often difficult and immensely entertaining journey.

My fall 2011 theatre season is taking shape

I love season announcement season but this year I just didn't have the energy to blog about what's coming up theatre-wise in the Providence/Boston area for 2011-2012. Now that tickets have gone on sale, here's what I'm most excited about seeing this fall:

Porgy and Bess, American Repertory Theater

Technically, it'll still be summer but I can't think of a better way to kick things off than with Audra McDonald. I first saw her in 2007, in the Broadway revival of 110 in the Shade, and she was unforgettable. Her voice is gorgeous - so rich and nuanced. Plus, as I mentioned last week in writing about the controversy surrounding this production, I've never seen Porgy and Bess, although I know it takes place in an African-American neighborhood in South Carolina in the 1930s. I'm not even familiar with the songs. (Ok, I'm sure I've heard snippets of all of them somewhere along the line.) So this is my chance.

His Girl Friday, Trinity Repertory Company

Naturally, I like newspaper movies. His Girl Friday (as well as its inspiration, The Front Page) are two of my favorites and two of the best. But I've never seen either one onstage. And I've become a fan of playwright John Guare, who has adapted it for the stage. I think I was one of only a handful of people who enjoyed the Broadway revival of Guare's The House of Blue Leaves. I found the quirky dark comedy, and what it says about our obsession with celebrity, so appealing. I'm hoping His Girl Friday will make me laugh, too. Can't we all use one?

Circle Mirror Transformation, Gamm Theatre

Playwright Annie Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation is one of those works that got such terrific reviews off-Broadway, I wish I'd been able to see it. The New York Times called it "absorbing, unblinking and sharply funny." I don't know much about it except that it takes place in a drama class in a small Vermont town. Also, I think the title refers to an acting exercise. (Although I took a drama class in middle school and I don't remember anything with that name.) Anyway, normally I read too much about a show beforehand so it'll be good to go in fresh with this one.

Candide, Huntington Theatre Company

Again, this is a work I don't know much about except that it's based on a novella by the 18th-century French playwright Voltaire (which I may or may not have read in high school) and features a score by Leonard Bernstein. One of my fellow bloggers, Vance, at Tapeworthy, adored it and another, Bob, at Chicago Theatre Addict, didn't. Since I do love a good theatre discussion, I'll see it for myself and weigh in. And it's much more fun when we don't all agree.

Clybourne Park, at Trinity Rep

Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun ends with a black family buying a house in a white Chicago neighborhood in the 1950s. Trinity Rep mounted a production in 2009. Now, I'm happy to report, they're tackling Clybourne Park, Bruce Norris' intriguing and imaginative sequel. It takes place just before the Youngers move in and then brings the story up to the present day. The play, which won this year's Pulitzer Prize for Drama, has gotten great reviews and it sounds like the kind of meaty American work that I love. The Pulitzer citation called it: "a powerful work whose memorable characters speak in witty and perceptive ways to America's sometimes toxic struggle with race and class consciousness."

Les Miserables, Providence Performing Arts Center

I saw Les Miserables on tour in Syracuse years ago and I was thrilled by the whole grand, romantic epic. Sentenced to 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread - can you imagine? I still have have my Les Miserables beach towel and the score remains one of my favorites. I understand that this time, there won't be a turntable but according to my friend Bob, from Chicago Theatre Addict, that hardly matters. I can't wait to experience it again with this 25th anniversary production. Just thinking about "Do You Hear the People Sing?" gives me chills. To the barricades!