december 23, 2019–january 5, 2020 | new york 81
1.
A Strange Loop
Michael R. Jackson had long been
the insider’s pick for Man Most
Likely to Write a Sondheimian
Epic About Bottoming—he was the
toast of showcases and workshops
for years. In 2019, the wider
public got to see what he’d been
working on: an ultrameta “Big
Black and Queer-Ass American
Broadway” musical about an usher
named Usher who is writing a
musical about his own life. We’re
all still reeling from the impact.
2.
Is This a Room
The odd title comes from a line in
the FBI interrogation transcript of
Reality Winner, the former NSA
linguist who leaked information
about Russian interference in the
2016 election. A bunch of FBI guys
surround Winner at her home andstill had such force and loveliness
you could hear it inspiring a
new artist every minute.
5.
Heroes of the
Fourth Turning
Will Arbery’s heady brew of
millennial terror and white Christian
conservative dogma. A group of
ex-classmates from a Catholic “Great
Books” curriculum reunite in a
backyard on the darkest night of
the year to kvetch and bond. How
should they deal with temptation in
a godless America, they wonder, and
just what does the New Age require
of them? Heroes dares to open books
rarely read aloud on New York stages.
6.
History of Violence
Adapting Édouard Louis’s autofiction
about his own violent rape, German
director Thomas Ostermeier
layered storytelling techniques and
framing devices on one another,
first to wrap the awful events in
cotton wool, then to strip them
bare. Diving into the complexities
of Louis’s real-world response to
the assault, this elegant production
made space for nearly impossible
forgiveness and understanding.
7.
The Appointment
A tongue-in-uterus revue about
abortion. The show starts with the
company playing a bunch of fetuses—
adults in draggly, somehow moist-
looking unitards—spinning around
on office chairs to imitate floating in
an amniotic sac. As wild as it was,
I can’t remember ever so exactly
recognizing the destabilizing way it
feels to have a womb in America.
8.
Little Shop of Horrors
Stars Jonathan Groff and Christian
Borle were having the time of their
lives, and something about seeing
them revel in foolishness and
mayhem felt positively contagious.
9.
Ain’t No Mo’
In Jordan E. Cooper’s bitterly
funny, loosely linked series of short
scenes, we see an abortion center
where black women refuse to bring
another child under the bootheel
of racist supremacy, and a reality
show in which a white woman
tries to “transition” into the black
fabulousness she believes is her right.
This production generated several of
the season’s breakout performances.
10.
Suicide Forest
Kristine Haruna Lee’s wickedly
comic nightmare, in which Japanese
schoolgirls (including a character
played by Lee) are hypersexualized
while Lee’s actual mother creeps like
a ghost through the outer darkness.
Then the production executes one of
the year’s neatest heel turns: Lee faces
the other performers in the show and
begins asking them about identity.bully her into full disclosure. Is this
a room? Or is this our country?
3.
[50/50] old school
animation
A bone-saw jolt that taps into our
fear of betrayal. What if our friends
are actually putting us in harm’s
way? What if—just asking questions
here—sociopathy is more common
than we think? And what is it about
a woman’s presence in the world
that draws violence like a magnet?
4.
Fefu and Her Friends
The Cuban-American experimental
playwright María Irene Fornés
arguably invented the boundary-
breaking promenade structure,
in which an audience is broken
up to see different parts of the
show in different sequences. In
Lileana Blain-Cruz’s beautifully
realized production, Fornés’s FefuTHE TEN
BEST
PLAYS OF
THE YEAR
By helen shaw1.
Emily Davis, Is
This a Room
Speaking from a transcript
of Reality Winner’s 2017
interrogation, Davis
channeled all the horror
and awkward surrealism
of the real thing.
2.
Larry Owens, A
Strange Loop
Owens’s performance
and this show are so
closely tailored around
each other it’s hard to
see them separately.
3.
Adrienne Warren,
Tina: The Tina
Turner Musical
You’d have to be
superhuman to keep up
with Tina Turner. Warren
has proved that she is.
4.
André De Shields,
Hadestown
An addition to the cast
since the show’s Off
Broadway run, his Hermes
entered the mythmaking
with a twinkle in his eye
and his own special
theater-god gravitas.
5.
Danielle Brooks,
Much Ado About
Nothing
Brooks’s Beatrice brought
the requisite wit and good
humor but also an ability
to convey the character’s
pain that sold her sudden
pivot to “Kill Claudio” fury.
6.
Leslie Kritzer,
Beetlejuice
Switching between a New
Age stepmom and an
Elphaba-green post-death
Miss Argentina, Kritzer
swans right past hammy
and into pure musical-
comedy absurdity.
7.
Adam Driver,
Burn This
The biggest performance
of the year, in terms
of intensity and sheer,
hulking, my-God-his-
thighs-are-gigantic
physical presence.
8.
Judith Ivey, Greater
Clements
Ivey captures the
contraction and collapse
of one small-town Idaho
soul with a restraint and
simplicity that enhance
the larger tragedy.
9.
Mary-Louise Parker,
The Sound Inside
A Yale professor and
author, Parker’s character
is made up of layers of
intellectualized self-
reflection. That she brings
someone so abstract to
life is all to her credit.
10.
Joaquina Kalukango,
Slave Play
You don’t envy an actor
who steps into the critical,
most controversial
role in an already
sensational work as it
transfers to Broadway,
but Kalukango brought
Kaneisha into her own.Top Ten
Theatrical
Performances
By
jackson mchenryPHOTOGRAPHS: SUE KESSLER (SUICIDE FOREST); JOAN MARCUS (A STRANGE LOOP AND HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING)Y ___ DD ___ AD ___ PD ___ EICADVANCED FORM
TRANSMITTED
________ COPY ___ DD ___ AD ___ PD ___ EIC2619CR_YIC_section_lay [Print]_36372551.indd 81 12/17/19 2:32 PMdecember23,2019–january5, 2020 | newyork 811.
A Strange Loop
Michael R. Jackson had long been
the insider’s pick for Man Most
Likely to Write a Sondheimian
Epic About Bottoming—he was the
toast of showcases and workshops
for years. In 2019, the wider
public got to see what he’d been
working on: an ultrameta “Big
Black and Queer-Ass American
Broadway” musical about an usher
named Usher who is writing a
musical about his own life. We’re
all still reeling from the impact.
2.
Is This a Room
The odd title comes from a line in
the FBI interrogation transcript of
Reality Winne A
linguist who l n
about Russian he
2016 election. A bunch of FBI guys
surround Winner at her home andstill had such force and loveliness
you could hear it inspiring a
new artist every minute.
5.
Heroes of the
Fourth Turning
Will Arbery’s heady brew of
millennial terror and white Christian
conservative dogma. A group of
ex-classmates from a Catholic “Great
Books” curriculum reunite in a
backyard on the darkest night of
the year to kvetch and bond. How
should they deal with temptation in
a godless America, they wonder, and
just what does the New Age require
of them? Heroes dares to open books
rarely read aloud on New York stages.
6.
History of Violence
Adapting Édouard Louis’s autofiction
about his own violent rape, German
director Thomas Ostermeier
layered storytelling techniques and
framing devices on one another,
first to wrap the awful events in
cotton wool, then to strip them
bare. Diving into the complexities
of Louis’s real-world response to
the assault, this elegant production
made space for nearly impossible
forgiveness and understanding.
7.
The Appointment
A tongue-in-uterus revue about
abortion. The show starts with the
company playing a bunch of fetuses—
adults in draggly, somehow moist-
looking unitards—spinning around
on office chairs to imitate floating in
an amniotic sac. As wild as it was,
I can’t remember ever so exactly
recognizing the destabilizing way it
feels to have a womb in America.
8.
Little Shop of Horrors
Stars Jonathan Groff and Christian
Borle were having the time of their
lives, and something about seeing
them revel in foolishness and
mayhem felt positively contagious.
9.
Ain’t No Mo’
In Jordan E. Cooper’s bitterly
funny, loosely linked series of short
scenes, we see an abortion center
where black women refuse to bring
another child under the bootheel
of racist supremacy, and a reality
show in which a white woman
tries to “transition” into the black
fabulousness she believes is her right.
This production generated several of
the season’s breakout performances.
10.
Suicide Forest
Kristine Haruna Lee’s wickedly
comic nightmare, in which Japanese
schoolgirls (including a character
played by Lee) are hypersexualized
while Lee’s actual mother creeps like
a ghost through the outer darkness.
Then the production executes one of
the year’s neatest heel turns: Lee faces
the other performers in the show and
begins asking them about identity.bully her into full disclosure. Is this
a room? Or is this our country?
3.
[50/50] old school
animation
A bone-saw jolt that taps into our
fear of betrayal. What if our friends
are actually putting us in harm’s
way? What if—just asking questions
here—sociopathy is more common
than we think? And what is it about
a woman’s presence in the world
that draws violence like a magnet?
4.
Fefu and Her Friends
The Cuban-American experimental
playwright María Irene Fornés
arguably invented the boundary-
breaking promenade structure,
ch
eLileana Blain-Cruz’s beautifully
realized production, Fornés’s FefuTHE TENBESTPLAYS OFTHE YEAR
By helen shaw1.
EmilyDavis,Is
Thisa Room
Speakingfroma transcript
ofReality Winner’s 2017
interrogation,Davis
channeledallthehorror
andawkward surrealism
oftherealthing.
2.
Larry Owens,A
StrangeLoop
Owens’sperformance
andthisshowareso
closelytailoredaround
eachotherit’shard to
seethemseparately.
3.
AdrienneWarren,
Tina:TheTina
TurnerMusical
You’dhave tobe
superhuman to keep up
with Tina Turner. Warren
has proved that she is.
4.
André De Shields,
Hadestown
An addition to the cast
since the show’s Off
Broadway run, his Hermes
entered the mythmaking
with a twinkle in his eye
and his own special
theater-god gravitas.
5.
Danielle Brooks,
Much Ado About
Nothing
Brooks’s Beatrice brought
the requisite wit and good
humor but also an ability
to convey the character’s
pain that sold her sudden
pivot to “Kill Claudio” fury.
6.
Leslie Kritzer,
Beetlejuice
Switching between a New
Age stepmom and an
Elphaba-green post-death
Miss Argentina, Kritzer
swans right past hammy
and into pure musical-
comedy absurdity.
7.
Adam Driver,
Burn This
The biggest performance
of the year, in terms
of intensity and sheer,
hulking, my-God-his-
thighs-are-gigantic
physical presence.
8.
Judith Ivey, Greater
Clements
Ivey captures the
contraction and collapse
of one small-town Idaho
soul with a restraint and
simplicity that enhance
the larger tragedy.
9.
Mary-Louise Parker,
The Sound Inside
A Yale professor and
author, Parker’s character
is made up of layers of
intellectualized self-
reflection. That she brings
someone so abstract to
life is all to her credit.
10.
Joaquina Kalukango,
Slave Play
You don’t envy an actor
who steps into the critical,
most controversial
role in an already
sensational work as it
transfers to Broadway,
but Kalukango brought
Kaneisha into her own.Top Ten
Theatrical
Performances
By
jackson mchenryPHOTOGRAPHS: SUE KESSLER (SUICIDE FOREST); JOAN MARCUS (A STRANGE LOOP AND HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING)