I'm always apologizing to my film-buff friends whenever they ask what movies I've seen lately. I frequently have to admit how few movies I've actually seen.
I figure that I can always catch a film when it's released on DVD, so I skip its theatrical release. Whereas with something as ephemeral as live theater, once it's gone, it's gone.
So when looking back at some of my personal favorite Chicago-area stage shows of the past year, it's with some regret that many can never be shared again. However, the memories of what was great will linger (as will a few clunkers I'd rather forget).
Since I haven't had a chance to see every single show this year, I can't claim whether this list represents the best of the best of 2011. However, if you're a Chicago theater fan, it's always fun to compare and contrast and see where your choices might match up with mine.
Chinglish—The Goodman Theatre produced a bona fide laughfest with David Henry Hwang's world-premiere comedy about cultural and linguistic misunderstandings when a frequently clueless man from the United States tries to do business in modern-day China. The Leigh Silverman—directed production (featuring an ingeniously rotating multiple-location set by designer David Korins) was deemed so worthy that New York producers confidently and quickly announced that the show would transfer to Broadway. Alas, The New York Times gave the Broadway production of Chinglish a rather frosty review, in contrast to all of the raves it received in Chicago. So see Chinglish quickly in New York while you can.
Sophocles: Seven Sicknesses—Leave it to director Sean Graney of The Hypocrites to jam pack modern-day adaptations of the seven surviving plays of ancient Greek dramatist Sophocles into a wildly entertaining marathon performance. True, the sightlines weren't always the greatest in the basement of the Chopin Theatre and there was the frequent danger of being splattered by stage blood. However, the lessons these ancient tales taught were timeless and especially pertinent for our own conflicted times.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street—Drury Lane Theatre made the drive out to Oakbrook Terrace mandatory for die-hard fans of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's 1979 musical masterpiece. With its great mix of Broadway pros like Gregg Edelman and Liz McCartney and local actors, director/choreographer Rachel Rockwell created a truly creepy Sweeney Todd that abounded with talent.
Follies—Chicago Shakespeare Theater opened its 25th-anniversary season with a bang. The Courtyard Theater space was turned over to director Gary Griffin to stage a 40th-anniversary production of Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman's cult musical, Follies. True, the Chicago production had some of its thunder stolen by the Kennedy Center production that transferred to Broadway, but it was still a treat to see this show about showgirls and their husbands wading through dangerous levels of nostalgia and regret so up close and personal.
Clybourne Park—Steppenwolf Theatre has long cultivated the career of playwright Bruce Norris by producing many world premieres ranging from his plays The Pain and the Itch to A Parallelogram. So there must have been plenty of pride (and a twinge of regret) when Playwrights Horizons in New York first produced Clybourne Park in 2009 before it would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Steppenwolf's production of Clybourne Park was a well-deserved victory lap, allowing Chicagoans to relish Norris' smart tangential take on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun to explore the changing nature of Chicago neighborhoods through desegregation in the 1950s to gentrification of today.
Black Watch—The National Theatre of Scotland's multi-award-winning drama Black Watch finally made it to the Windy City, thanks to Chicago Shakespeare Theater's World's Stage series. Gregory Burke's touching and insightful examination of Scotland's elite Black Watch regiment throughout history and its recent involvement in Iraq fit perfectly into the Broadway Armory and showed Chicagoans just why the world over has clamored to see Black Watch.
A Twist of Water—Route 66 Theatre Company garnered plenty of publicity not only for the rave reviews that greeted Caitlin Montanye Parrish's drama about a grieving gay parent (Stef Tovar) and his adopted daughter (Falashay Pearson), but when newly elected Mayor Rahm Emanuel heeded Chicago Tribune theater critic Chris Jones' admonition that he should see the show. A Twist of Water soon transferred from Theater Wit to the newly re-opened Mercury Theater under the management of executive director L. Walter Stearns. Hopefully, more success is in store for A Twist of Water, since the show is headed to New York next fall.
Passing Strange—Bailiwick Chicago presented a marvelous local premiere of Stew and Heidi Rodewald's 2008 rock musical at the former Chicago Center for the Performing Arts (unfortunately converted into a full-time religious facility earlier this year). What helped made Passing Strange's Chicago premiere so electric was how it featured the local band JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound. This tale of an African-American teenager who shunned his middle-class upbringing to find himself artistically in Amsterdam and Berlin thrillingly explored notions of faith and freedom (both artistic and sexual) with a rocking score.
The Homosexuals—About Face Theatre scored a popular hit with Philip Dawkins' reverse-time-traveling drama that focuses on a young gay man's experiences in a big Midwestern city and the friends he encounters along the way. The Homosexuals offered plenty of insights into gay relationships and friendships with plenty of sex thrown in for fun and drama. There were also plenty of memorable performances, led by Patrick Andrews' Evan.
Ariadne auf Naxos—I have to give a plug to this wonderfully theatrical 1916 work by Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, since it's one of my favorite operas. Not only was the Lyric Opera of Chicago's revival wonderfully cast, director John Cox's 1998 staging masterfully captured the shenanigans of a baroque theater both backstage and in performance when a commedia dell arte troupe has to perform simultaneously with a serious opera based upon Greek myth. The opera's reflections on love and transformation were magically realized in this Lyric revival.
Some other honorable mentions include The Neo-Futurists' Burning Bluebeard (about the 1903 Iroquois Theatre Fire in Chicago), The Second City e.t.c.'s savvy revue Sky's the Limit (Weather Permitting), American Theater Company's generational drama The Big Meal and the gorgeously designed production of Chicago Shakespeare Theater's The Madness of George III.
As for shows that deserve raspberries, I'll single out The Ruckus Theatre's Escape from the Haltsburg Boys Choir as a dramatic and historically dubious muddle. More convoluted storytelling could be found in The Mammals' Andy Warhol spoof Put My _____ in Your ____, aka Your 15 Minutes of Finger and Mortar Theatre's ultraviolent Mother Bear.
Lastly, in a clear case of a super-talented cast having its skills go to waste on subpar material, just look at The Marriott Theatre's world-premiere musical adaptation of the Bette Midler film For the Boys. The stage musical improved upon the film flop, but it wasn't enough to justify this new jukebox musical of pre-existing song hits.
