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Each little red star is a clickable link to additional information on whatever listing it appears beside. It might be a link to an article in a local newspaper, or it might be a press release the company has sent me.Gail’s Best of 2010
Posted by Gail M. Burns - December 2010
I wrote reviews of or comments on 98 shows in 2010 – a year when many of the companies I cover cut back on the number of shows they mounted and my press privileges were revoked at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Had this been a “normal” year I would have written well over 100 reviews. Either way, it’s an all-time high for me. No wonder I’m tired!!
And while it was a very difficult year for me personally, I think the quality of the shows I had the privilege of covering were uniformly excellent. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, in this place and at this time there are a remarkable number of diverse and excellent arts offerings. If my reviews do nothing else, they offer a written record of a portion of this bounty, and of the efforts of the many talented and dedicated people who make it possible.
I don’t do “Worsts,” only “Bests.” This year I’ve made up my own categories based on where they was true excellence.
Best Productions of Shakespeare
Bakerloo Theatre Project
Romeo and Juliet
A heart-breakingly beautiful production. Lily Junker was the best Juliet EVER!
Shakespeare & Company
The Winter’s Tale
It is hard enough to get Shakespeare’s really great plays right. To hit a home run with a great big over-written mess like The Winter’s Tale takes real skill and commitment. I have seen at least three productions of this play in my lifetime, and but this was the one that helped me see it and appreciate it in its whole glorious and unwieldy entirety.
Honorable Mention
Shakespeare & Company
Richard III
You know you live in a miraculous cultural environment when John Douglas Thompson only gets Honorable Mention!
Best Straight Plays
Walking the dog Theater
Our Town
No one much liked the WTF’s production of Thornton Wilder’s classic, so I’m just as glad I didn’t have to…ooops, get to see it. Instead I saw this remarkable production by Walking the dog Theatre under the tent at PS/21, which is in the middle of an orchard/cow pasture. It was a beautiful summer evening, and the evening star entered right on cue…
Shakespeare & Company
Sea Marks
The word “bijou” comes to mind when speaking of this show. Tiny and perfect in every way.
Honorable Mention
Barrington Stage Company
The Crucible
The fastest three hours of teenaged girls shrieking I ever spent in a theatre. No, seriously, this is a painful and difficult story to hear, but hear it we must and Julie Boyd’s production made it satisfying rather than agonizing.
Best Beckett
Berkshire Theatre Festival
Endgame
Believe it or not, I saw three productions of work by Samuel Beckett in 2010. The BTF continued its tradition of superb Beckett, featuring the very talented and popular actor Randy Harrison. Their Endgame was beautiful to look at and funny in that pathetic and annoying way that Beckett should be.
Best New Plays
Shakespeare & Company
The Taster
Joan Ackermann’s script was really remarkable and almost perfect and this production was firmly grounded by a breathtaking central performance by Rocco Sisto.
Barrington Stage Company
The Whipping Man
Powerful and beautifully acted. I understand that the playwright is so enamored of his characters and subject that he keeps making the play longer. I am not entirely sure that will make it better in the short run, but in the long run such creative energy may craft this into a dramatic masterpiece.
Berkshire Theatre Festival
No Wake
Again, a powerful subject deftly acted and directed. This one really took me by surprise.
Best Comedies
While I am not fooled into thinking it is a perfect script, this second WAM outing was a delightful evening of theatre with a perfect cast under the deft direction of Kristen van Ginhoven. I loved every minute!
Main Street Stage
On the Verge
I love the language of this play, and I love the first act. This production was blessed with three ideal leading ladies in Jennifer Mattern, Justin Trova, and Wendy Walraven.
Honorable Mention
Shakespeare & Company
The Real Inspector Hound
Jonathan Croy and a vastly talented cast turned a rather minor work by Tom Stoppard into a slapstick comedy delight. This production gets honorable mention because it was just way funnier than it had any right or reason to be.
Best I-Don’t-Know-What-Category-to-Put-It-In Production
Bakerloo Theatre Project
Under Milk Wood
I am much more inclined to label Under Milk Wood a musical than a straight play – comedy or tragedy – because it was written as a “play for voices,” for radio performance, and it is all about the music of the spoken word. There is also singing in it, because singing is a very important part of Welsh communal life. Lily Junker’s staging was brilliant and the cast worked as a flawless ensemble. There are strong correlations between this work and Our Town and it was a real treat to see perfect productions of both this summer.
Best Musicals
Bazaar Productions – Berkshire Fringe
Quake: A Closet Love Story
What could possibly bump the Panto out of the top spot? A quirky little a cappella musical about an estranged couple trapped together in their closet by an earthquake.
The PantoLoons at the Ghent Playhouse
LOST: The Grimm Years
Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel roamin’ all over de forest with two cannibalistic TV chefs and a hungry wolf in pursuit. Throw in a drag granny performing a strip-tease, lots of bad jokes, silly songs, and a disco ball and you have another winner from Judy Staber and the Loons! A tearful farewell to founding Loons Rick Rowsell and Ron Harrington, who have now officially hung up their supp-hose and falsies and taken a well-earned retirement.
A Bunch of Very Honorable Mentions
Opera Theatre of Weston
The Little Prince
Okay so its an opera, not a musical. It was fabulous.
C-R Productions at the Cohoes Music Hall
Hairspray
Like I said – Big hair, big dancing, big talent, big fun….AND Jim Charles in a dress. Who could ask for anything more??
C-R Productions at the Cohoes Music Hall
The Mikado
C-R Productions played it straight and got it right with their first foray into Topsy-Turvy Land. I was sorry not to see another Gilbert & Sullivan title in their Season Eight line-up.
Town Players of Pittsfield
Little Shop of Horrors
I’ve seen a lot of productions of Little Shop… and while this community theatre effort cut some technical corners, it perfectly captured the horror of it all.
Best Unconventional Things
I was really ready to hate this one and instead left the theatre uplifted, empowered, and inspired.
EMPAC at RPI
Latitude 14: Red Fly/Blue Bottle
I really want the CD, or better yet, the DVD of this intriguing show. Still don’t know what it was all about, but I know that it was my first look at the technological advances that, like the printing press and electric lighting, will move the theatre into its next iteration.
This one just squeaks in on the merits of its remarkable puppetry, but there was not nearly enough story in subject material.
Shakespeare & Company
Women of Will and
Women of Will: The Complete Journey
Fifteen hours of the incomparable Tina Packer unpacking her professional life and performing Shakespeare with the endlessly good-humored Nigel Gore. An astounding, once-in-a-lifetime experience that was simultaneously exhausting and exhilarating.
Best New Things
EMPAC has been open for two years now, and I had on my 2010 To-Do List: See a show at EMPAC. I saw two this fall and I think those experiences were what convinced me not to quit writing about the theatre. Three cheers for this remarkable space that supports and enables the creation of 21st century performing and visual arts.
At first the premise of raising money in order to do shows to raise money seemed silly, even if the ultimate goal was to support organizations that empower and assist women and girls. But the concept is only silly if the theatre in the center of the equation is shoddy. With fresh and fascinating shows, WAM has raised $2,500 for two different women’s charities in its first year of operation. I can’t wait to see what they have planned for 2011.
Another Opening, Another Show…
My 2011 season kicks off, weather permitting, with the Opera Theatre of Weston’s production of The Magic Flute.