Top Ten of 2014: My List of the Best of Broadway, Off Broadway, and Off Off Broadway

It’s Christmas Eve 2014, close enough to year’s end, I think, for me to mark my 55^th year as an inveterate theatergoer. It’s a good time to reflect on a year’s worth of visits to the many On, Off, and Off Off Broadway plays and musicals I’ve seen and to give a special tip of the hat to 10 that I found to be the most rewarding. 

According to my handy dandy pocket calendar, I’ve attended 117 performances this year, 25 more than in 2013. It’s been a good year, overall, with lots of satisfying visits to the temple of Dionysus (the patron god of theater)—starting with the Gilbert and Sullivan Players' joyous production of their namesakes’ Patience at Symphony Space back on January 4, and ending a few days ago with Ayad Akhtar’s searing new drama The Invisible Hand at the New York Theatre Workshop.

Both of these were very good, but they did not make it to the Top Ten List. What did make the cut were three Broadway productions, along with seven from the world of Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway. Two were musicals, one was a play with music, and the rest were straight plays.  Interestingly, the list includes both the longest production and the shortest production I saw all year. And so – here, in alphabetical rather than preferential order, is the long and short of it:

Dark Water by David Stallings.  This was a stunning work, dealing with the impact of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the marine and wetlands life in the Gulf of Mexico. It had only a brief run at the 14^th Street Y, but I am hopeful it will find another venue for a longer stay.  

Father Comes Home From The Wars, Parts I, II, and III. First rater from Susan-Lori Parks about a slave drawn into fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War.  Exceptionally fine ensemble performances under Jo Bonney’s direction, first three parts of a promised nine-play cycle.  Can’t wait to see the next installment!

Fortress of Solitude. Excellent adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s sprawling coming-of-age novel, with a script by Itamar Moses and music and lyrics by Michael Friedman that did a splendid job of capturing the feel of life in Brooklyn in the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s while staying true to the original source material. Dreamgirls, Hair, Rent, and In The Heights are its progenitors. Not bad company for it to be in.

generations. Running just 30 minutes and featuring Bongi Duma's glorious music, debbie tucker green's play (the playwright opts for lower-case), a co-production of the Soho Rep and The Play Company, was a polished jewel about three generations of a South African family whose lives are upturned by the devastating impact of AIDS. Great and powerful things can, indeed, come in small packages.  (Also true of big packages as well; see The Mysteries below). 

Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar and Grill by Lanie Robertson.  Need I say more than “Audra!”   

Sticks and Bones. The New Group’s revival of David Rabe’s Vietnam-era play, directed by Scott Elliott at the Pershing Square Signature Center, never let up on the sense of anxiety and dread that invades a household when its eldest son comes home from the war, damaged, unreachable, and threatening. The stories we hear of vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan make this work even more vital today.  

The Fool’s Lear. Randy Neale’s take on King Lear, as seen through the eyes of the Fool. Smartly conceived, emotionally rewarding comic drama, jointly produced by the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble and the Nomad Theatrical Company at The Wild Project. This companion piece to Shakespeare’s great dramatic work featured a standout performance by the playwright’s brother Grant Neale as the Fool.

The Last Ship. Sting’s loving tribute (with a book by John Logan and Brian Yorkey) to the shipbuilders of his home town is a theatrical treasure, filled with mythic overtones, wonderful music, and terrific acting all around, under Joe Mantello’s directorial guidance. 

The Mysteries. Holy Moly.  A journey through the Old and New Testaments with contributions from 48 playwrights and a cast of 53 in a six-hour production that included dinner and dessert. An amazing experience with nary a dull moment, thanks to director Ed Sylvanus Iskandar and the Flea Theater. 

The Winter’s Tale, a production of the Workshop Theater Company.  Shakespeare’s late romance could not have been in better hands with this gimmick-free presentation that concentrated on the bard’s beautiful language to create theatrical magic. 

And there you have it, as we ring out the old and prepare for an exciting new year! 

Skoal!

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'Father Comes Home From The Wars': A Masterful New Work Gets A First-Class Production At The Public Theater

The biggest, most cutting truth in the Public Theater’s first-rate production of Suzan-Lori Parks’s terrific Father Comes Home From The Wars, Parts I, II, and III comes out of the mouth of a stereotypically nasty and oafish slave owner during the Civil War era. 

Speaking of the plight of blacks in America, whether slave or free, the character identified as The Colonel (aka “Boss Master”) proclaims, “I am grateful every day that God made me white. The lowly ones will always be lowly no matter how high they climb.” How swiftly this remark propels us out of the nineteenth century and into the present day, where public displays of imbedded racism extend all the way to the often contemptuous and condescending treatment of the current President of the United States, someone who certainly fulfills the description of a black man who has climbed high. 

Father Comes Home From The Wars, Parts I, II, and III is smart like that, full of unexpected turns and well-placed dialog that are both true to the context and that flash forward through implication to the years and decades ahead. It is most significant that the play concludes with a reference to President Lincoln’s 1862 Emancipation Proclamation, which, while a meaningful gesture, was an unenforceable placeholder until the end of the Civil War and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution three years after the trilogy of plays ends. 

The proclamation by the Union’s President certainly provides no relief for the slaves under Boss Master’s yoke—not for Homer (Jeremie Harris), whose foot was cut off as punishment for attempting to run away, nor for Hero (Sterling K. Brown), who is under the gun to follow Boss Master, a Confederate colonel, into war in support of a cause he knows to be wrong.  Part I, titled A Measure Of A Man, deals with the painful decision-making process in the pre-dawn hours, during which Hero is advised by various of his fellow slaves (some of whom have placed wagers on the outcome) to stay, to go, or to run away. In the end, allowing himself to believe a promise of future freedom in exchange for current service, he dons the raggedy gray uniform Boss Master has given him and heads off, leaving Penny (Jenny Jules), his almost-wife—slaves were not allowed to marry—behind in Homer’s care.    

In Part II, A Battle In The Wilderness, The Colonel (Ken Marks) and Hero have wandered away from their regiment and the fighting, and are encamped in a clearing some miles from the battleground. By a stroke of luck, they have captured a Union officer (played with great humanity by Louis Cancelmi), so that they now can return in triumph rather than under suspicion of desertion. It is here, in conversation with the officer and Hero, that The Colonel offers up his views on race, including the idea that freedom isn’t all it’s cut out to be. A slave, at least, knows his worth, but what is the worth of a free black man? When he moves on ahead, expecting Hero to clean up the campsite and follow with their captive in tow, Hero finds the inner strength to set the prisoner free, though he himself refuses to flee with him; for Hero, freedom can only come as a gift from his master.   

Part III, The Union Of My Confederate Parts, brings things to a close (at least for now; Ms. Parks has plans for six more plays in the series). Boss Master is dead and Hero, now calling himself Ulysses—after General Grant, though mythic references abound throughout the plays—has returned safely home. But there is no happy ending for him. The other slaves have died or escaped, and he alone will remain behind, tethered to his master’s broken promise, with only a copy of Lincoln’s proclamation of freedom in his pocket. We know that the day of freedom will come for Ulysses, but what that will mean for him is clouded with uncertainty. 

With Father Comes Home From The Wars, Parts I, II, and III, Ms. Parks has pulled off a triumphant feat of mixing the mythic with the mundane, and serious content with wonderful touches of humor (her great creation here is Odyssey, Hero’s talking dog, portrayed with boundless energy and great fun by Jacob Ming-Trent). The characters are complex, even Boss Master, who is struggling to maintain his footing in a world that is beginning to shift under his feet. By balancing all of these elements, the playwright succeeds in a way that few who have dealt with historic themes have been able to do without coming off as pedantic or getting helplessly lost in the storytelling.  August Wilson comes to mind as someone who has been able to triumph in dramatizing history, with his ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle. Ms. Parks has promised nine plays in her cycle, and it is not hard to imagine her decision to stop at nine as her respectful tribute to Mr. Wilson. 

As if writing the play were not enough, Ms. Parks has also written a number of songs and incidental music that are performed throughout the evening. Steven Bargonetti is responsible for the arrangements and does a splendid of performing some of the numbers, in a way that brings to mind Taj Mahal’s work in the movie Sounder. 

Father Comes Home From The Wars, Parts I, II, and III is a triumph for all concerned. Director Jo Bonney keeps the action flowing seamlessly through the three works (running time, including one intermission, is two hours and 50 minutes), well supported by Neil Patel’s set design, Esosa’s costumes, Lap Chi Chu’s atmospheric lighting, and a wonderfully talented ensemble of actors. I look forward with eagerness to the next installment.

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