That's the question I'm usually asked when I tell people that I write about theater (for a living, wow). It's as if because I report on it, I am suddenly the guru of good theatrical tastes. And since year-end lists and summations are "a la mode" during this time in the season, I want to offer something in the stream-of-consciousness vein. I'm realizing that the more theater I see, the more they start to blend together. And what makes a play stand out in your memory, even months later, were small moments that just burrowed deep into your brain and refused to let go.
So here is the 2012 Deep (Diep) Theater Superlatives!, a list of shows that were memorable in many different ways to me. It's not a complete list of the best things I saw this year, it's even more subjective than that. These plays, at different price points, in different locales in New York City, did what the arts does best, grab a piece of your soul and leave their mark on it.
Best Cry at the Theater: During "No One is Alone" at "Into the Woods," in Shakespeare in the Park. My then-boyfriend warned me beforehand that "the second act might make you cry." Damn that bastard, he was right. I had never seen "Into the Woods" before and I'm starting to realize that what gets my eyes watering these days are stories about parents and children. Is my biological clock ticking or do I just miss my mom? You decide! Which segues into...
Most Butt-Numbing Moment: It's also a tie (again)! Between waiting in line from 5:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. for Shakespeare in the Park tickets (and a free apple), to sitting through "Gatz" from Elevator Repair Service for five hours (not including dinner breaks), hearing every line of "The Great Gatsby" spoken onstage, 2012 was the year I tested my butt's endurance for mildly comfortable theater seats.
Best Musical Moment That Didn't Feel Like a Musical Moment: "Isn't it just like, the sea, to come between you and me," sings the company of "The Old Man and the Old Moon" after the Old Man in the musical had discovered that his wife sailed off without him. In that show, from PigPen Theater Company, the songs, rather than act as a traditional moment of character-so-overwhelmed-with-feeling-that-they-must-sing-it, were more like standalone performances. While they touched on the themes of the musical, they were also beautiful pieces of music that could be picked up whole and plopped into a night at Joe's Pub, and it would still be equally as striking..
Best Non-PC Moment: At Qui Nguyen's "The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G," at Ma-Yi Theatre Company, the character proxy for Nguyen (who is Vietnamese-American in real life but played by African-American actor Temar Underwood) exclaimed, and I paraphrase, "Inside, I'm really a black man." As a self-proclaimed twinkie (or banana, whichever you prefer), I understood exactly where he was coming from.
Most Titillating Moment: I knew exactly what I was getting into when I asked for tickets to Young Jean Lee's "Untitled Feminist Show" at PS 22 COIL festival: naked women dancing for 90 minutes. But what came out was more profound than that. By watching those women, nameless and vacillating in body types from voluptuous to curvy to thin to muscular, I realized that there was no shame in nakedness. Even though I didn't know these women's names or what they did for a living, I knew them, their personality and who they were from their actions and their movements. And when the clothes came on at the end, it was the icing instead of the cake. I already knew who they were before that.
Best Moment that Shut Me Up: "Do You Take Dictation?" Lewis Carroll asked me, in his room, furnished with wood furniture. The roof was covered in plants. I, not used to being addressed at the theater, could only nod (my brain was something like, 'Wha? You're asking me something? Can't compute!'). Carroll handed me a notepad and a fountain pen and began, "My dearest Alice..." "Then She Fell," from Third Rail Projects, similar in concept to "Sleep No More", left me feeling like I had also fallen down a rabbit hole, only to be thrown back up. An adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass," set in a former outpatient wing of a mental hospital (which added to the slightly sinister feeling), and the core of the story, among the different rooms and the choose-your-own-adventure feel of it all, was a story about a love affair gone sad.
Most Repugnant Moment (When I Couldn't Look Away): In "The Whale" by Samuel D. Hunter, being published by "American Theatre" in our Feb. 2013 issue, the main character is a 600-pound man. He speaks in a wheeze, can only slowly shuffle with the help of a walker, and his sweatshirt is stained with sweat (which I believed to be real because in the Playwrights Horizons production, that sweat stain got bigger as the play progressed). And yet, despite being painful to look at, Charlie was a tragic specimen that I couldn't look away from, because underneath the bloat was a smart and literary man, not the type you would expect to overeat himself to death (it's not a spoiler alert, you find out in the first five minutes that he dies).
And here are the non-show-related moments that were still memorable but not large enough for a blog post:
Best Moment of Material Clashing with Venue: When Gabriel Kahane at his Carnegie Hall concert delved into a piano-backed rendition of Cee Lo Green's "Fuck You" (kudos to Kahane for not using the more-sanitized-but-not-as-effective "Forget You"). I don't think those esteemed walls had ever heart the f-word uttered so much before in 2 minutes.
Most Unintentionally Activist Moment: So the year started off with me going to this roundtable panel and then writing about it, which then swerved into La Jolla Playhouse doing this, which led to me writing this, and I went to California for this, and now I am the person my editor-in-chief comes to when he wants to make sure he's addressing certain racial groups correctly.
Most fangirl-meet-journalist moment: Interviewing David Henry Hwang (in person!) and saying the following, "I don't usually pay for theater but I paid for Chinglish" and "You've inspired me so much as a writer." Not my proudest moment as a journalist (I probably got an F in professionalism), but as a fangirl, it was pretty satisfying. I'm just glad this didn't happen to me:
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