by James Wilkinson
What a time to be alive, huh? Now at the end of 2019, I’m recalling a moment way back in the early months when I was speaking with an Artistic Director about reviewing theater. “Really?” She inquired, “You enjoy seeing all of those shows?” As she asked the question, she had the furrowed brow of someone deeply concerned for my mental state. The word “enjoy” received an extra note of emphasis that signaled she wasn’t prepared to believe me if I answered in the affirmative, (which I did). I’ve counted it up. In 2019 I saw 56 plays in the Greater Boston area; I reviewed 46. With figures like those, perhaps we should be concerned for my mental state. But I figure that until I’m discovered crouched in a dark corner, eating my own hair, I haven’t cracked yet. I’ve been covering Boston theater for a little over two years and I’m happy to report back that I still think it’s the most exciting thing in the world when the house lights go down, the stage lights come up and anything at all might happen on that spot in front of you. Go figure.
Some might recall that in my Best Of list last year, I griped about the prospect of ranking shows. How are you supposed to judge that one is better than the other when each has its own unique objectives and aims? This year I’ve come around to the idea when it was pointed out to me that lists like these serve a dual purpose. Not only can the critic give an additional boost to an individual company/play, it’s a chance for a reader to get a sense of what a particular critic values so that they can judge whether or not that critic is worth listening to. Like for instance, if you keep hearing from a critic that the best work in Boston is being done by the fringe companies and then their end-of-year list includes nothing but the big shows from the big companies, that might tell you something (just what, I’ll leave to you).
Knowing that this also a report card on me, I flipped back through my reviews of the year, picked what I judged to be the ten most positive reviews, listed them out…and promptly threw the list in the trash. Some of the shows listed below appeared on that first list, but after consideration, I felt that it didn’t properly capture what excited me about Boston theater. There was even one show that, while I don’t regret recommending, in retrospect I wish I’d pushed harder on as there were certain troubling elements that I let slide by. It’s a reminder that theater criticism is more of an objective art than many give it credit for. It isn’t about latching on to the most polished shows with the highest production values. If that were the case, everything by the Huntington would be gold and every fringe show taking place in a back room would be panned. You have to try and see past the money that is (or isn’t) pumped into a play to seek out the production’s soul. That’s where you’ll discover if a production is doing something new or if it’s a load of bullshit. Audiences (and sometimes even critics) can be fooled into thinking that the spectacle in front of them is a lot fresher than it really is.
So, I set about creating a new list. One that included my favorite productions which I really thought offered something unique to audiences. There may have been some wonky edges, (a weak ending here, a rough lighting design there, etc), but I felt that this list better represented what was great about Boston theater in 2019. As you’ll see below, I may have gone a little drunk with power, being unable to keep my list exclusively to ten productions. I finally got it down to eleven and the just said “Fuck it! It all goes in!” (hey, it’s my list and I can do whatever I want). It also felt necessary to defend the scene after Ed Siegel over at WBUR wrote an absolutely idiotic think piece a few months back about how Boston theater wasn’t offering him what he called “peak artistic achievement.” A proper response would require more space than I have here, but it was a claim I found misguided at best and just plain lazy at worst given the number of Boston theater artists who never get covered by WBUR. It just plain stinks to chuck the whole scene simply because of a small sample isn’t considered up to snuff. Perhaps I wouldn’t have gotten so angry with it if Siegel wasn’t holding up the Huntington’s production of Man in the Ring from the previous year as an example of “peak artistic achievement,” (a play where I diverge from the general critical opinion. I found that play to be middlebrow fluff too hyped up on its own importance.).
But I digress…
Before we (finally) get to the list, a few quick things I want you to keep in mind. First, as always, know that I didn’t see everything that went up in the greater Boston area, so there are bound to be holes and gaps in what I’m drawing from. When you count it all up from from fringe to the touring productions, it’s just not possible to see everything, even if it’s your full-time job (which for me, it isn’t). Also, I’m not making claims of objective quality (no such thing exists). This is simply me, speaking from and for my own experiences and what I enjoyed. I also limited the list to Boston companies. If we’re highlighting the best of Boston, then damn it, let’s make it about Boston. I don’t get invited to the larger touring companies anyway (which is fine with me as I tend to find them uninteresting).
All that said, here are my favorite Boston theater experiences of 2019, listed in alphabetical order, (not in terms of preference).
- Cambodian Rock Band – Merrimack Repertory Theatre
Written by Lauren Yee; Directed by Marti Lyons
Forgive me for this pun, (I already hate myself for making it), but Cambodian Rock Band rocked. Both literally and figuratively. Not only was it one of the year’s best, but it featured original rock music by the band Dengue Fever. There was a bit of a technical hiccup the night I attended the show. A circuit blew in the middle of act two, forcing the production to halt for 15 minutes and then continue minus certain technical elements. Despite this, the full emotional wallop of Lauren Yee’s wonderful play still struck home thanks in part to a fantastic team of actors. The play makes an interesting companion piece to Knyum, a one-man show about Cambodian immigrants that Merrimack Rep produced in the previous year. I’m glad Merrimack Rep is actively looking for shows that speak to the local Cambodian community. As both plays make it clear, the rest of us are all the richer for it.
2. Extremities – AKA Theatre
Written by William Mastrosimone; Directed by Alexandra Smith
A few years ago, when accepting a performance award, local actress Lindsay Eagle called Flat Earth’s production of Neil Labute’s Fat Pig “A feminist production of a misogynistic play.” The same sentiment could be attached to AKA Theatre’s Extremities. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the original play is full-blown misogynistic, but it is true that it approached its tale of rape and assault with a pulpy, exploitation edge that I think may have made some people uncomfortable. (If you look up the trailer for the 80s movie adaptation starring Farrah Fawcet, you see this element get pushed even harder.) But AKA Theatre gave the piece a go-for-broke intensity, anchored by a brilliant lead performance by Alissa Cordeiro, that was thrilling. It was brutal and nasty in all the right ways, dancing right up to the line of being obscene. What kept the play in my mind through the year, though, were the subtle ways it challenged the audience to rethink how we view survivors of rape. As the collective culture is finally taking steps to grapple with that issue, Extremities felt like necessary viewing.
3. Indecent – Huntington Theatre Company
Written by Paula Vogel; Directed by Rebecca Taichman
This production was nothing less than theatrical bliss, making it clear that director Taichman earned her Tony award for Best Director and that Vogel was robbed of hers for Best Play, (with a new production of How I Learned to Drive heading to Broadway next year, maybe she’ll finally get the award she’s owed). For someone with as long a career as she’s had, Vogel is that rare bird who only seems to get better as she goes on. Her name never seems to be included in the list of great American playwrights (an honor somehow bestowed on Mamet who seems determined to show that he has less and less to say with each new work.) but it deserves to be there. Indecent is her love letter to the art theater and her delight radiates off every word. Taichman and the Huntington gave the piece a gorgeous production that was both joyous and devastating, full of poetic images constantly shifting in front of you.
4. The Moors – Entropy Theatre
Written by Jen Silverman; Directed by Joe Juknievich
If ever a production from last year earned the adjective “kooky,” The Moors was it. Entropy Theatre’s production dug into the off-kilter edge found in Jen Silverman’s Bronte riff and managed to mine a lot humor out of it. Did it have anything grand to say about life in the 21st century? Probably not, but who cares? I had fun. The production reveled in a kind of grim absurdity that has it sticking out in my memory amongst other, blander shows. I hadn’t been a big fan of Entropy’s first show, A Grimm Thing, and sadly missed their roving production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but the strength of The Moors is enough for me to be interested in what Entropy will be offering audiences next.
- 5. An Oak Tree – Theatre on Fire
Written by Tim Crouch; Directed by A. Nora Long
What a glorious puzzle box of a production. It probably blurred the boundaries of a theater more than any other show on this list. Writer Michael Carr’s play comes with a neat hook, one actor plays a hypnotist who’s hypnotizing a different “volunteer” each night of the show’s run. The hypnotist then leads the volunteer through the performance and a larger story begins to slowly unfold. It’s a gimmick, but one that lead to unexpected emotional intensity. Under director Long’s guidance, actor Michael Carr delivered one hell of a performance, leading everyone in the theater down a rabbit hole to…I’m still not quite sure where. It was mesmerizing though and easily one of the year’s best.
5a. Mountain Language – Theatre on Fire
Written by Harold Pinter; Directed by Darren Evans
Okay. I’m going to cheat here. In an effort to spread the love around, I decided to limit to one production per company, but something should also be said for Theatre on Fire’s immersive production of Mountain Language. If a gun was held to my head to list only the ten best productions of the year, this would have made the cut alongside An Oak Tree. Director Evans expanded the world of Pinter’s brutal play that cut to the bone and made for a devastating night of theater. Between the two, I have to give the award to An Oak Tree but Mountain Language was right there behind it.
6. School Girls: Or, the African Mean Girls Play – Speakeasy Stage Company
Written by Jocelyn Bioh; Directed by Summer L. Williams
Back in college I interned as a script reader for a local regional theater. The big takeaway I have from that experience is the depressing number of scripts that focused on making sure their protagonist seen as “nice.” As I now tell friends, I was suffocated under an avalanche of niceness. I now go through a pleasant shellshock whenever I come across a produced play that actually allows its lead(s) to be nasty. Boy, did School Girls deliver. Jocelyn Bioh’s play took us to an all-girls school in 1980s Africa where the titular students were vying for the chance to be crowned Miss Ghana. In the fight to be queen bee, the characters were absolutely vicious but the play always had an eye on the fact that the behavior didn’t exist in a vacuum. Guided by director Summer L. Williams, Speakeasy’s production featured probably the best collected ensemble of the year. A group of actresses, each radiating with magnetic stage presence, made sure that each biting remark stuck in the knife and gave it a twist.
7. The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart – Apollinaire Theatre
Written by David Greig; Directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques
I know that I said I wasn’t going to rank these productions, but I’ll make one exception to say that this was my favorite thing that I saw last year. David Greig’s play about an academic who gets kidnapped by the Devil while attending a literary conference in the Scottish Highlands was a God damn delight. Director Jacques’ work made sure that Apollinaire’s production was the most full-bodied theatrical event of the year, a deranged swirl of music, bawdy humor, existential longing and Scottish accents. I’ve since purchased a copy of the play and having now seen just how much the Apollinaire team brought to Greig’s words, I’m all the more impressed. True theater nirvana and I didn’t want it to end.
7a. The Christians – Apollinaire Theatre
Written by Lucas Hnath; Directed by Brooks Reeves
Just like with Mountain Language, Apollinaire’s production of The Christians would easily make a true top 10 list of Boston theater were I not trying to cast a wider net. Given that director Reeves was also in The Strange Undoing, I’m hoping he’ll forgive me. The characters in The Christians were slowly sinking into quicksand and Apollinare’s production made you feel every last gasp for air as they fought to stay afloat.
8. Trayf – New Repertory Theatre
Written by Lindsay Joelle; Directed by Celine Rosenthal
If there’s one review from this year that I wish I could go back and rewrite, it’s this one. I don’t think I properly captured exactly what got me so excited about it. Trayf had the unfortunate luck of being the third show I saw/reviewed that particular weekend (also the last review I was writing before going on vacation), and by the time I got to the keyboard, I think I was a bit burnt out. Consider this an attempt at a corrections corner. At the center of this production were two performances so full of generosity and love that you wanted to sit in their presence forever. Ben Swimmer and David Picariello played two teenage Chasidic Jews finding their way in 90’s NYC and as I said in the original review, they had the kind of stage chemistry that most actors would start sawing off limbs for. Under director Rosenthal’s guidance, they plugged into the rich vein of humor running through Lindsay Joelle’s script, wrung out every laugh they could and managed to make it seem effortless. There’s a special kind of joy for when you can bask in stage presences this magnetic. Don’t try to quantify it. Just soak it in.
9. Unusual Things have Happened – Imaginary Beasts
Written by Shirley Jackson; Conceived and Directed by Matthew Woods
The inclusion of Imaginary Beasts’ show here is another instance of me trying to correct a wrong from the past year. I wasn’t invited to the show as a critic, going only because I’m a huge fan of Shirley Jackson’s novels and shorts stories and I wanted to see what Imaginary Beasts were cooking up. It ended up being a staging of several of Jackson’s lesser known short stories (no The Lottery here) that showcased her interest in exposing the macabre under the mundane. I meant to write about it and then time just got away from me. Shame on me as it ended up one my favorite things from this year. It wasn’t a perfect show (certain technical elements didn’t always flow the way you wanted them to), but it had an inventive spirit that was a lot of fun. Anthem Theatre tried to do a similar concept for the works of Edgar Allen Poe but I think Unusual Things was the more successful of the two. Adapter and director Woods managed to work out a staging that captured Jackson’s delightfully grim sense of humor and felt uniquely theatrical.
10. X – Flat Earth Theatre
Written by Alistair McDowall; Directed by Lindsay Eagle
Flat Earth’s X was another one of those full-throttle theater experiences that had me hooked. It began as your typical sci-fi adventure before slowly morphing into something a great deal weirder. As the characters began to lose their grip on reality so did the play. The rules seemed to no longer apply. The point of view character seemed to keep shifting. Each new development made you reassess the validity of what you had previously seen. Director Lindsay Eagle ratcheted up the existential terror until finally it was too much for the characters to bear and in one thrilling sequence, everything around them fell apart. But the reason the show is on this list has to do with all of the careful detail put into the show leading up to the showstopper of a sequence. Subtle touches that put you on edge before you ever thought there was a reason to be.
11. What Rough Beast – Underlings Theatre Co.
Written by Alice Abracen; Directed by Lelaina Vogel
I’m going all the way back to last January for this final production. Underlings Theatre Co. is one of the companies that sadly closed up shop this year, but managed to offer up a doozy for its second-to-last production. My 2018 Best Of list included their production of playwright Alice Abracen’s The Tour and in my comments, I noted that I thought the upcoming production of What Rough Beast was going to be worth checking out. Turns out I was right (yay for me!). These days we have to listen to a lot of hot air about reaching across the political aisle, as if such acts were as easy as passing the butter. What Rough Beast understood just how difficult and messy such a process is. All of its characters were flailing about, trying to make sense of the world and live in that uncomfortable middle, gray area. A terrific ensemble and tight direction made this one worth seeing.
