My year-end top and bottom 10 list (long)

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 12/20/09 at 3:22pm

Why am I posting this in its own thread? Why not?

Here are the two lists, in alphabetical order. Thanks to those who stick it through all the way.

Top 10:

A View from the Bridge - Duke of York's Theatre
Arthur Miller's classic tragedy, given a suspenseful, invigorating production directed by Lindsay Posner, starred Ken Stott as Eddie Carbone, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as his wife Beatrice and Hayley Atwell as their niece Catherine. Stott's bravura, ultra-realistic Eddie never really could come to grips with everything around him. He didn't even understand them. It made Eddie's demise that much more powerful.

Exit the King - Ethel Barrymore Theatre
I will say that this was the best show I've seen all year. Eugene Ionesco's absurdist tragicomedy about the life and death of a 400 year old king and his kingdom was given a mesmerizing staging by Neil Armfield. Geoffrey Rush's performance was what legends are made of.

La Cage aux Folles - Playhouse Theatre
Terry Johnson stripped down Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Herman's musical to its bare essentials, and it worked beautifully. The club was seedy, the Cagelles were spent and Douglas Hodge was simply sensational.

The Norman Conquests - Old Vic at the Circle in the Square
Matthew Warchus found both the comedy and devastation in the three rooms depicted in Alan Ayckbourn's 1970s-set trilogy. An entirely British company, brought over by the Old Vic, worked wonders.

The Orphans' Home Cycle, Parts I & II - Signature Theatre Company at the Peter Norton Space
It's a shame Horton Foote didn't live to see the rapturous acclaim and sold-out houses. Part I (Roots in a Parched Ground, Convicts, Lily Dale) had more story than Part II (The Widow Claire, Courtship, Valentine's Day), though both had their share of truly wonderful moments and performances: James DeMarse as the senile drunkard Soll in "Convicts," Bryce Pinkham and Devon Abner as the evil Mr. Davenport in "Roots" and "Lily Dale," Maggie Lacey as the bewitching Elizabeth Vaughn and Bill Heck as our tortured hero, Horace, trying to find himself and a place to call home.

Our Town - Barrow Street Theatre
David Cromer had a banner year, finding the truth behind the comedy that unfortunately, nobody cared about in "Brighton Beach Memoirs," and inventing smell-o-vision in his staging of Thornton Wilder's slice-of-life "Our Town." Purists claimed that the play had been done to death, though Cromer proved that it hadn't. And the third act coup de teatre, with the aforementioned smell-o-vision, was jaw-dropping.

Ragtime - Neil Simon Theatre
An extraordinary production of an often brilliant musical. True, there are flaws in the script and the score is too anthem-ballad heavy, but Marcia Milgrom Dodge's clear staging, first seen at the Kennedy Center, featured some of the most heartfelt performances of the year, especially from Christiane Noll's Mother and Robert Petkoff's Tateh.

Ruined - Manhattan Theatre Club at NY City Center
Lynn Nottage's horrifically powerful reimagining of "Mother Courage," set in a brothel in the war-torn Congo, deserved to take Manhattan Theatre Club's Broadway spot, but it didn't. Yet it still set records Off-Broadway, won the Pulitzer and allowed us to see great work from director Kate Whorisky and actors Saidaih Arrika Eukalona, Condola Rashad and Quincy Tyler Bernstine.

Stunning - LCT3 at the Duke on 42nd Street
This original play by David Adjimi told the story of a 16-year-old (Cristin Milioti) married to a beefy 40-year-old (Danny Mastrogiorgio), both Syrian-American, in Brooklyn. When the young lady is taken under the wing and introduced to literature and love by their seemingly worldly black maid (Charlayne Woodard), everything comes crashing down. Even with a let-down of an ending, it was, dare I say, stunning.

Zorro - Garrick Theatre
The Gipsy Kings musicalized Isabelle Aillende's novel. The exciting, fun musical starred Matt Rawle and Emma Williams. I was in London for 3 weeks. I loved "Zorro" so much that I saw it twice.

Bottom 10:

Complicit by Joe Sutton - Old Vic
The pedigree was there: Kevin Spacey at the helm, with Richard Dreyfuss, Elizabeth McGovern and David Suchet in the cast. Dreyfuss, who wore an ear-piece to be fed his lines, played an American journalist appearing before the grand jury to testify as to his sources for a particularly incendiary article about wartime torture. McGovern played his wife, Suchet, his lawyer. Not only was Sutton's dialouge as circular as the in-the-round stage, but the concept was dated, too.

Far Out - The New Sci-Fi Musical Comedy - Fringe NYC @ the Minetta Lane Theatre
At the performance I attended, not even the set wanted to be there. How do I know? It kept falling down.

Hedda Gabler - Roundabout Theatre Company at the American Airlines Theatre
Mary-Louise Parker was alone. She skewed modern. Nothing else in Ian Rickson's production followed suit.

Impressionism - Schoenfeld Theatre
Michael Jacobs, auteur behind the great "Boy Meets World," tried to craft a modern-day love story about unhappy artists. Nothing that anyone did could make this show worth watching.

Memphis - Shubert Theatre
Generic rock score + 1950s racism pastiche script = a show with absolutely nothing going for it that ends up getting some of the best reviews of the latter half of the year. Some things just baffle me.

Mother - The Wild Project
Lisa Ebersole wrote this piece of garbage and managed to somehow get Buck Henry and Holland Taylor to star. I wonder what debts they owed.

Mourning Becomes Electra - New Group
4.5 hours of torture thanks to Scott Elliot's miscast (Lili Taylor, Jena Malone, Joseph Cross), environmental staging.

The Story of My Life - Booth Theatre
Look, they really tried with this one. It was a respectable attempt at a heartfelt two-man musical, but it ended up making me want to kill myself, just as the main character actually did.

Tyler Perry's The Marriage Counselor - Beacon Theatre
It's easy to see why Perry's material has the appeal it has to certain audiences, but this dramedy didn't belong on the stage.

War Horse - National Theatre of London
While the puppetry was amazing, I found this to be a hollow representation of what emotions look like by people who've never experienced them.
Updated On: 12/20/09 at 03:22 PM

[blaxx]

Posted: 12/20/09 at 3:25pm

a show with absolutely nothing going for it that ends up getting some of the best reviews of the latter half of the year.

I don't know which reviews you read.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 12/20/09 at 3:26pm

Rescinded; now irrelevant.

Updated On: 12/20/09 at 03:26 PM

[AC126748]

Posted: 12/20/09 at 3:26pm

My top 10 can be found in the post linked below. My bottom would have to be:

1. The Starry Messenger
2. The Bacchae
3. The Wiz
4. Hedda Gabler
5. West Side Story
6. The Understudy
7. Our Town
8. Broke-Ology
9. Desire Under the Elms
10. The American Plan
http://showshowdown.blogspot.com/2009/12/2009s-top-10.html

[frogs_fan85]

Posted: 12/20/09 at 3:41pm

I'm amazed you sat through all of Mourning Becomes Electra. I bailed after the first act.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 12/20/09 at 3:42pm

If I weren't there for a friend, I would have, too.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 12/20/09 at 3:49pm

You know, on the off topic board, this thread title would have a whole new meaning.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 12/20/09 at 4:13pm

I was thinking the same thing!

[RippedMan]

Posted: 12/20/09 at 4:16pm

How is Ragtime often a "brilliant" musical if it has way too many power-ballads/anthems and the book sucks?

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 12/20/09 at 7:22pm

Just is.

And yes, I thought that too, skittles.

[Dantes]

Posted: 12/20/09 at 7:27pm

"a show with absolutely nothing going for it that ends up getting some of the best reviews of the latter half of the year.

I don't know which reviews you read. "

Blaxx the show got very very good reviews, check back to the review thread

[RippedMan]

Posted: 12/21/09 at 12:20am

I'm sorry, I thought the show was decent, but not everything had to turn into an anthem. And the book was a mess, and the performances didn't really resonate with me. I thought her "Back to Before" was boringly staged and didn't seem to have any passion behind it.

[Broadway Bob*]

Posted: 12/21/09 at 9:30am

The Story of My Life - Booth Theatre
Look, they really tried with this one. It was a respectable attempt at a heartfelt two-man musical, but it ended up making me want to kill myself, just as the main character actually did.

Having just performed this show (as Alvin) I can say it is a beautiful and moving show. AND I should point out that it never actually says Alvin killed himself. It never says for sure either way. Interesting you were SO convinced he did. (One of the things I LOVE about the show is its ambiguity! I still have people coming up to me and asking did he or didn't he.) I'm sorry you didn't like it.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/21/09 at 10:51am

Glad to see you listed Zorro, Yankeefan007. I adored that show! The book was a bit weak, but the energy, enthusiasm and commitment of the cast and the production as a whole (not to mention a pretty solid score) completely made up for it. And congrats to Lesli Margherita for her well-deserved Olivier award. It's a shame we'll probably never see this on Broadway and it closed rather quickly in the West End. I would have loved to see it again. Between Zorro and the La Cage revival, I have a hard time choosing which I enjoyed more. I think Zorro wins by a hair simply for having the slight edge of being so unexpectedly charming and refreshing.