Inventive storytelling, great acting defined top 2007 shows
Great writing (or in the case of musicals great composing), great directing and great acting are givens when determining the best in local theater. Plenty of shows met that criteria this year, which makes compiling 2007's "best of" list challenging.
But something special set each of the top 10 and the dozen or so runners-up apart: imaginative storytelling evident in The House and Redmoon productions; boldness the likes of which underscored Next Theatre's challenging musical; the bare-knuckled acting style and keen sense of ensemble that defined shows at Chicago Dramatists, Steppenwolf and The Gift; and the ability to reduce the scale of a show but still pack a wallop, something that Porchlight and Marriott have mastered.
For the record, the list includes only homegrown Chicago-area productions, which means touring shows like "Jersey Boys" and "The Color Purple" were excluded from the top 10 but were included among the runners-up. Here are the best of Chicago-area theater for 2007:
1. "August: Osage County," Steppenwolf Theatre. Drawing comparisons to O'Neill, Albee and Shepard, Tracy Letts' bracing, fiercely comic account of a fractured American family earned near-universal praise from critics upon its July premiere. Last month, director Anna D. Shapiro's well-honed production transferred almost intact to Broadway, where it seems destined for the Tony and the Pulitzer short list and inclusion among great American plays. Superbly acted, "August" emerged as a love letter to the women of Steppenwolf who wear Letts' characters like the custom-made suits they are.
2. "The Sparrow," House Theatre of Chicago. The combination of inventive storytelling, distinctive visuals, a wistful score and an eloquent performance by Carolyn Defrin as the titular character -- a teenage girl with special gifts and a terrible secret -- made this show a hit for the innovative House Theatre. A beguiling coming-of-age tale as well as a moving examination of grief and forgiveness, "The Sparrow" sold out its initial run and an extension, before transferring to the Apollo Theater for a commercial run through December 31. Bravo.
3. "Noises Off," Buffalo Theatre Ensemble. February's a little early to start a "best of" list, but BTE earned a spot with its impeccably timed, expertly executed production of Michael Frayn's notoriously demanding farce. A top-notch cast under co-directors Amelia Barrett and Connie Canaday Howard managed the mayhem marvelously, especially in the tour-de-force second act.
4. "Beauty Queen of Leenane," The Gift Theatre. Gift Theatre delivered an outstanding revival of Martin McDonagh's wonderfully bleak tragicomedy about the ruinous relationship between a demanding mother (Mary Ann Thebus, daunting and fascinating) and her discontented daughter (a visceral Lynda Newton). Insightfully directed by new ensemble member Sheldon Patinkin, the show also featured fine work by John Gawlik and Brian Deneen.
5. "The Puppetmaster of Lodz," Writers' Theatre. Jimmy McDermott's intimate, engrossing production of Gilles Ségal's play offered further proof that Writers' ranks among the area's most consistently excellent theaters. Larry Neumann Jr. received a well-deserved Jeff Award nomination for his meticulous, deeply affecting performance as Finkelbaum, a Polish Jew and master puppeteer who escapes from a Nazi concentration camp then remains sequestered in a garret apartment long after the war has ended. Kudos to artist Michael Montenegro, whose haunting, rough-hewn puppets emerged as characters as vivid as any created by an actor.
6. "Ragtime," Porchlight Music Theatre. Porchlight reduced the size but retained the grandeur with a jewel-box production -- led by newcomer Jayson Brooks (Coalhouse Walker) and Karla Beard (Sarah) -- of the Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens-Terrence McNally musical weaving together the stories of three families making up the early 20th-century American tapestry.
7. "Hunchback," Redmoon Theatre. From the ordinary and occasionally the grotesque, Redmoon makes magic. The company's superb re-imagining of its 2000 adaptation of Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris" captivates with its combination of pathos and whimsy, a near seamless integration of puppets and actors and a moving performance by Jay Torrence as Quasimodo and Alden Moore as his puppet alter-ego. There are moments in this show so poignant they will take your breath away. Experience them yourself: The show runs through Jan. 20.
8. "A Steady Rain," Chicago Dramatists. Nobody saw this one coming. Like a punch to the gut, Keith Huff's grim cop drama about longtime partners whose friendship is tested when one of them spirals out of control, knocked the wind out of me. In a good way. Everything about director Russ Tutterow's riveting production felt authentic, from Huff's streetwise writing, to set designer Tom Burch's drab interrogation room, to the galvanizing performances by Peter DeFaria and Randy Steinmeyer as men walking the line between cop and criminal. Congratulations to Chicago Dramatists for demonstrating once again how brilliant storefront theater can be.
9. "Fire on the Mountain," Northlight Theatre. Randal Myler and Dan Wheetman's tribute to Appalachian miners offered a vivid and poignant picture -- refreshingly free of self-pity and excess sentiment -- of men who toil in a dangerous trade. Great theater transports an audience to a place they've never been. This personal, engaging show, with its twangy, tuneful, toe-tappin' score, did that and more.
10. "The Adding Machine," Next Theatre. It's unlikely audiences left the premiere of this chamber musical by Joshua Schmidt and Jason Loewith humming tunes from its decidedly non-mainstream score. Still, this challenging, unsentimental show based on Elmer Rice's bleak 1923 play about a cog in the corporate wheel (the excellent Joel Hatch) who falls victim to technology, opens off-Broadway in February. That's encouraging news for anyone who values originality in a format dominated by movie retreads and jukebox shows. Thank you Next, for helping sustain the art form.
Other outstanding shows from 2007 (in alphabetical order): The Hypocrites' "Desire Under the Elms"; Steppenwolf's "The Dairy of Anne Frank"; Broadway in Chicago's "Doubt"; "Farewell Umbrella (Au Revoir Parapluie)" and "How Can You Run With a Shell on Your Back?" at Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Congo Square Theatre's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone"; "Passion Play: a cycle in three parts" at Goodman Theatre; "The Producers" at Marriott Theatre; First Folio Shakespeare Festival's "Richard III"; "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" at Piccolo Theatre; "The Sea Gull" at Raven Theater; "Three Hotels" at Actors Workshop Theatre; and Broadway in Chicago's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"