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My Top 10 Theater list for 2017 (or finally getting around to tossing most of last year’s programs)
Posted by: jesse21 01:44 pm EST 02/04/18
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Saturday’s cold weather finally brought me around to an annual chore: tossing the previous year’s theater programs into a trash bin (recyclable, of course). Being able to dispose of the clutter with little permanent loss of information is yet one more benefit of the digital age.

Yet, as usual, I put to one side those programs of plays and musicals that I consider memorable, even though I may never look at the programs again if my prior history is any indication. That small pile added up to ten shows. Well, it looks like I had my top ten list for 2017.

Observations:

  • My 2017 theatergoing was confined to New York City and London.


  • With all the commentary on how new plays are an endangered species, I thought the year offered two plays that would become 21st-century contemporary classics: Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2 and Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman.


  • It did not surprise me very much that four of my ten choices were staged by London’s National Theatre which, over the decades, has provided me with a disproportionate number of cherished experiences.


  • It also did not surprise that two of the three musicals I selected were by Stephen Sondheim. If done well, revivals of his shows can’t be beat.


  • As for new musicals, this age of Hamilton has produced another winner of a “modern-day” musical: The Band’s Visit with a score and two performances (Katrina Lenk and Tony Shalhoub) that I cannot shake.


  • Acting that I surely won’t forget: Laurie Metcalf’s Nora in A Doll’s House, Part 2 and Andrew Garfield’s Prior Walter in Angels in America.


    • As for the present theater scene here in New York, it’s been largely uninteresting for the last couple of months, both Off Broadway and , especially, on Broadway. Hopefully the spring will improve on the drought. My attention since December has shifted to the movies where there were about 12 films I found highly satisfactory. I can assure you that one film that could be a topic of discussion on All That Chat, namely The Great Showman, is not, I strongly repeat n-o-t, one of those movies.





    MY 10 BEST OF 2017 in alphabetical order:


    A Doll’s House, Part 2 by Lucas Hnath (Golden Theatre, NYC)

    Angels in America by Tony Kushner (National Theatre, Lyttelton)

    Beginning by David Eldridge (National Theatre, Dorfman)

    Escaped Alone by Caryl Churchill (Brooklyn Academy of Music)

    Follies by Stephen Sondheim & James Goldman (National Theatre, Olivier)

    Jitney by August Wilson (Manhattan Theatre Club, Friedman Theatre)

    Network, adapted by Lee Hall & Ivo Van Hove (National Theatre, Lyttelton)

    Sunday in the Park with George by Stephen Sondheim & James Lapine (Hudson Theatre, NYC)

    The Band’s Visit by David Yazbek & Itamar Moses (Ethel Barrymore Theatre, NYC)

    The Ferryman by Jez Butterworth (Gielgud Theatre, London)


    - Jesse




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