Season in review

We wrapped up our season at the theatre this weekend and said "so long" to two marvelous casts. For the past few years, it's been a personal tradition to take some time to reflect on the shows I saw over the past few months and pick out my highlights. I've always made notes to this effect in my personal, private memoirs but I suppose there's no reason not to share my impressions here as well.

It's not easy to sort through 182 ticket stubs — surpassing 1998's high of 176 — and choose my personal bests and disappointments. But I generally wait until the season's end to do it, figuring that the impressions that linger in my mind sometimes months after the fact are the strongest and most true.

Please note that the list is in no particular order, that I've pitched in a couple of concerts, and that I'm including the good, the bad and the "meh".

Bounce: I saw this show three times during the season, twice at the Goodman in Chicago and once during it's run at the Kennedy Center. Flawed though it may be, I have a soft spot for it still, thanks to the infectious title tune, the absolutely charming Richard Kind as Addison Mizner and the always delicious Gavin Creel as Hollis. Howard McGillin was a bit out of his depth as the more scheming of the two Mizners; I kept wondering what the show would have felt like if Nathan Lane had reprised the role after tearing into it with gusto in the 1999 OB workshop I saw, back when it was still Wise Guys. (Unfortunately, I figure Richard Kind would have been eaten alive in the midst of the scenery chewing.) Bounce didn't make it to Broadway — with cause — but I'm looking forward to the cast album, recorded in Washington, which will be released next month.

Wicked: I didn't dislike this show as much as some of my friends — one of whom absolutely loathed it — and I didn't adore it as much as the gaggle of rabid show queens I ran into in Chicago last week. But I thought it had a lot to recommend it, especially considering its scant nods to the source material and a decidedly lackluster Stephen Schwartz score. Idina Menzel gave, as always, a simply fabulous performance as Elphaba and Kristin Chenowith was an appropriately bubbly Galinda (although she seemed to be treating the show as her audition piece for Legally Blonde: The Musical. I can understand why it continues to pack the Gershwin night after night. Still, meh.

The Boy From Oz: I saw this in the company of some particularly enthusiastic Hugh Jackman fans — although I'm not sure there's a night at the Imperial when you can't say that — and it was boon fun. Jackman is fantastic, the production numbers are appropriately over-the-top as befits their provenance, and Beth Fowler, Isabel Keating and Mitchel David Federan turn in such wonderful performances, it's a shame the show won't survive without its leading man. I liked the show fine, but I'd rather have Peter Allen back writing cabaret again.

Taboo: Awful. Awful. Awful. On the night I saw the show, a fist fight broke out for some reason a couple of rows behind me and to the right. I was tempted to turn around and watch it instead of Taboo. It was probably a lot more interesting. Rosie O'Donnell could have offered me $10 million to see the show and I'd have to think about it.

Caroline or Change: Nobody but nobody does white liberal guilt on stage like Tony Kushner. There are bits of this musical that are too ponderous and drawn out, but in between them are some joyous moments of song and sympathy. See this when it transfers to the O'Neill next month, but act quickly. I've a feeling it won't last long outside the protective bubble of the Public Theater, although it deserves — and will get — great play in the regionals.

Homebody/Kabul: On the other hand...well, actually, I liked Act I of this more traditional Kushner nudge-fest a lot. It's an amazing tour de force monologue that I would have welcomed hearing more of in the second and third acts. Amy Morton just played the hell out of it in the Steppenwolf production. By the end of the play, though, I was just tired. Long Day's Journey Into Night tired. The non-ending gave me a lot to think about for a few days and I've always admired Frank Galati's directorial style, but now I'm quite lukewarm about the piece.

The Light in the Piazza: It's not usually good to have the urge to leave immediately while sitting in the theatre but, damn, did I ever want to get up from my seat at The Goodman and catch the next plane for Florence while watching this. From the lush, string-laden overture (and all the wonderful music by Adam Guettel) to the alternately heart-tugging and -rending performance by Victoria Clark to the pure sex of Wayne Wilcox's voice, it was every inch a winner. It's a beautiful paean to finding human connections in utterly foreign places and situations.

Avenue Q: A must-see. Probably the most pure fun I've had in the theatre in the last year. Nude puppets and the hilarious John Tartaglia — what could be better? (The answer, of course, is if the two were reversed.) It's the most hummable, quotable score of the season and contains the most optimistic line: "George Bush is only for now." Let us all pray they have to change the lyrics in a couple of months. It messes with the rhyme scheme, but I like the sound of "George Bush was only for then."

Never Gonna Dance: A friend of mine called this Never Gonna Sell and, it turns out, he was right. I enjoyed it thoroughly, thanks mostly to the lithe and graceful Noah Racey, to the timeless Jerome Kern songs, and to Jeff Hatcher's winking book. Nancy Lemenager, Peter Gerety, Karen Ziemba — the whole cast just looked like they were having great fun putting on a show. It was sure infectious. I happened to see this on the same weekend as the gorgeous Wonderful Town and while I love musicals that love New York, I loved Never Gonna Dance just a smidge more.

Aunt Dan and Lemon: Not to everyone's taste, but probably the best play I saw in New York this year (not forgetting I Am My Own Wife, which is really in a class of its own). Kristen Johnson's performance was sublime. The production had a few stumbles that pointed up how difficult it can be to get Wallace Shawn's plays right, but I enjoyed it all the same.

Side by Side by Sondheim: The Muny just shouldn't do revues, particularly given the unfortunate tendency of local audiences not to "get" Sondheim. Still, if folks were a little lost here, it wasn't entirely their fault. Under-rehearsed and over-miked, it was a train wreck. Dropped or misspoken lyrics might be overlooked in retros of other composers' work, but lose a line from "Getting Married Today" and it's dead.

Show Boat: This, on the other hand, is a show tailor-made for The Muny and unlike most of their retreads, I'm apt to show up any time it's offered. Michel Bell gave his reliable, wonderful performance as Joe and Karen Morrow fared considerably better as Parthenia than she did in the Sondheim tragedy above.

Starlight Express: No, no, a thousand times no. I actually kind of liked this show years ago when I saw the original production in London. On tour these days, particularly in a barn like the Fox Theatre, it's just wretched. A gimmicky 3-D film replaces the once-thrilling rollerskate race scenes and, as a result, the whole production never achieves any momentum at all, much less the massive amount needed to sell the trite songs.

As for stuff that we did...

Metamorphoses: Time to toot the horn for the home team. We opened The Rep season with this show and it simply couldn't have been better. A wonderful cast full of new friends (including Manu Narayan, who's currently on the boards in Broadway's version of Bombay Dreams) and an ethereal pool on stage made it like the dream it was meant to evoke. I saw two productions of this show in New York and, rah-rah for our side notwithstanding, I liked ours better.

The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?: Edward Albee's devastating family drama just blew me away the first time I saw it in New York, then again in The Goodman's stellar production with Barbara Robertson as Stevie. The third time was a charm, though, with Andy Matthews and Carolyn Swift in our Studio Theatre production. Absolutely pitch-perfect and an exemplary performance of Albee's smart, precise language.

The Last Five Years: Tony Holds and Kate Baldwin were the perfect Jamie and Kathy in our final Studio production. Don't get me wrong: I adore Norbert Butz, but Tony really nailed the mix of insecurity and ego, swept up by the confusion and pressure of a meteoric career rise, that the role calls for, such a potentially loveable asshole. And as for Kate, she's going places and they're all good (including Paper Mill's Guys and Dolls this summer). I was so sad to see this cast leave.

Concert Highlights: The big three for me this year were Bette Midler's "Kiss My Brass" (seen in an early incarnation at Savvis Center and which I understand just got better along the tour), Eddie Izzard's "Sexie" and The Eagles' "Farewell I" tour. I didn't get to as many arena shows or other concerts this year as I have in the past, and there's not much on the summer roster that really appeals to me. Ah well.

Who knows? Perhaps in a few weeks, I'll offer my prognostications with regard to the gay Super Bowl. For the first time in a couple of years, I've actually seen everything likely to get a major nom.

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