Area theaters gave it the old college try in 2005 with resounding success.
By: Stuart Duncan
The winter solstice is upon us; the shortest day of the year just past, so it must be time for critics across the country to make out their "best of the year" lists. Mine is called "The 12 Days of Christmas" the dozen shows that, if fantasy permitted, I would most like to see again before the year fades into the mists of memories. Not an easy task this particular year, since the 164 shows I attended were especially fine.
Twelfth Night, or Jan. 6, at one time was more than merely a Shakespearean comedy; it was a time for huge celebrations, marking the Epiphany, the exact day when the three wise men (the Magi) had arrived at the stable which indicated the birthplace of the Christ Child. It was celebrated with merry making and games that were doubtless a relic of the old Roman saturnalia.
So, merry making aside, here are the 12 productions for 2005, from Bucks County to North Jersey, that continue to haunt me. In no particular order:
Hair It is highly unusual for a college show to make this list, but this year there are two. Rider University professor/director Pat Chmel revisited Hair, stirring up the legends of the past. A company of 30 took us back to the days of pot-smoking, flag-burning flower children and songs about love and war, hashish and sodomy, God and man. They slid down ropes and ran down the aisles and into our memories, and then our hearts. A huge undertaking, magnificently accomplished.
Hannah and Martin The second college production, by Princeton University’s Theatre Intime, was a very different story. Wrenched from real life, it told the story of Martin Heidegger, a brilliant German teacher and philosopher who became a leader for Hitler’s Third Reich, and Hannah Arendt, a German Jew who escaped to America to lead the fight against what she called "the banality of evil." The two became colleagues and illicit lovers. Two fine actors, Amy Widdowson and Jed Peterson, played the title roles seamlessly. You probably missed it it played a single weekend near Princeton Reunions.
Ragtime E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 novel was translated stunningly to the stage at Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn. A "no name" company of super-talented actors brought the story of Coalhouse Walker, the black piano player, to vivid life. Paper Mill director Stafford Arima brought the London production over, made some changes and turned it into a huge triumph. Doctorow had worked in many real-life celebrities of the time, including Harry Houdini, Booker T. Washington, Emma Goldman, Henry Ford, J.P. Morgan, Admiral Perry and Evelyn Nesbit, and a cast of more than three dozen portrayed the era with great style.
Swing After a summer in which soap opera stars came and went at Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pa., with few making much of a ripple (Colleen Zenk in Hello Dolly was a notable exception), director Stephen Casey gave us this rousing tribute to the era of swing and the tunes of the ’40s. The talented youngsters, who had been playing second fiddle all summer, took it from there.
The Day They Shot John Lennon You may well have missed this show; it ran a single week in the Black Box space at The Villagers in Somerset. The docudrama by James McLure (he also wrote 1959 Pink Thunderbird) was brilliantly directed by Stephanie Youngman and acted by an exciting company of nine. Performed without intermission, the work takes place on Dec. 9, 1980, and is set right across the street (Central Park West) from the Dakota apartment building where Lennon lived. Michael Driscoll proved that not only is he a fine director, but a super actor as well. Perhaps the Villagers will bring the show back.
Miss Witherspoon Everybody knows that playwright Christopher Durang is funny and acerbic, almost always pitching his story about 15 degrees off-center. This time, at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, he took a look at reincarnation and not only was funny, but incisive and sometimes touching as well. Brilliantly performed by Kristine Nielsen and helped much by Emily Mann’s inspired direction that tilted as well, the show did not surprise when it went to New York and has since extended its run, by popular demand.
Urinetown The neo-Brechtian absurdist musical was given a superb production at the Villagers by director Mary Lynn Dobson and an extraordinary cast, including an especially hard-working ensemble. The audience lapped up the often salacious but very funny script, based on the premise that an urban town, in a serious drought, limited the use of toilet facilities to private contractors, thus encouraging graft by pay-for-use companies. It was a huge sellout show for the adventurous community group.
The Tempest Scholars have always been fascinated by Shakespeare’s final play, only one of two for which he devised the entire plot. Did his final monologue ("Now our revel all are ended") signal his adieu to playwriting? At Actors’ NET of Bucks County in Morrisville, Pa., a wonderful cast, led by George Hartpence and real-life wife Carol Thompson, supported exquisitely by some of the area’s finest performers, gave us one of the most definitive Elizabethan productions in years.
Cinderella A production that only could have been mounted at Paper Mill Playhouse the 1957 Rodgers and Hammerstein made-for-television musical, tweaked by added touches and stage magic. Suzzanne Douglas stole the show as the Fairy Godmother, but she had lots of help. Included was puppetry magic of mice, a Cheshire cat and the dove of peace that literally stopped scenes so the audience could ooh and aah. Rodgers’ music, of course, is unforgettable and the opening-night audience was peppered by little girls in gowns and crowns.
The Life of Galileo The rarely performed Bertolt Brecht drama was given an eminently approachable production at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in Madison. The John Willett translation is brisk but wordy (three hours), and director Joe Discher plus a superb company had its work cut out for them. In the title role Sherman Howard gave a towering performance, shading Galileo’s talents as astronomer, physicist, philosopher and mathematician beautifully as he defined his unthinkable assertion that Earth was not the center of the universe, but rather evolved around the sun. In the process he turned the Renaissance, especially the Vatican, upside down.
Picasso at the Lapin Agile The company in residence at Princeton Summer Theater, on the University campus, was the finest in years, and this production of the Steve Martin play was a knockout. The Lapin Agile was a pre-World War I bar in Paris, frequented by Picasso. On this particular evening, fantasy has it that Albert Einstein dropped in and the two exchanged theories. Later they are joined by a visitor from the future who just happens to come from Memphis, play a guitar and sing a bit. Jed Peterson and Kyle Booten led a particularly strong company and Marisol Rosa-Shapiro directed as if she knew all these theorists personally. Dynamite stuff.
A Christmas Carol It’s been a quarter century since the first version of the Charles Dickens classic made its annual appearance at McCarter Theatre. The staging has gone through a number of adaptations, but this one, written by David Thompson and directed by Michael Unger, was particularly satisfying in its sixth year. It has become the guiding star of the local Christmas season.
So there you have them: the dozen shows of 2005 that would be fun to see once again if that were indeed possible. Remember, it’s only one person’s opinion, and by all means make up your own lists. In the meanwhile, have a wonderful holiday season and I’ll see you in the theater in 2006. I’ll be the old guy on the aisle.

