The Best of 1999/Stage

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The Best of 1999/Stage

Friday, December 31, 1999

By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic

Chalk it up to middle age, millenncholy or what you will, but I just can't pick out a favorite theater evening for 1999. That's the normal task at this time of year, celebrating the year's top 10 shows in order of preference, but this batch just doesn't fall into a natural hierarchy.

In other words, Virginia, there is no No. 1.

So I'm going instead for a two-tier Top 10 -- five favorite evenings arranged chronologically, followed by five close seconds (ditto), plus notable others.

Not that it hasn't been a newsy, exciting theater year. The O'Reilly Theater opened, CMU's Purnell Center came on line (although its new Chosky Theater makes its bow this winter), and the Byham returned from renovation. Ron Lindblom introduced Playhouse Rep, Point Park's revitalized professional company, and Ted Pappas was named artistic director-designate at the Public Theater. City Theatre, Public and Kuntu Rep all celebrated their 25th seasons, while such small pro theaters as Quantum Theatre, Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre (PICT) and Starlight Productions continued to grow.

That's backstage, but on stage, this fall saw two exciting world premieres in quick succession -- Jeffrey Hatcher's "Compleat Female Stage Beauty" (City Theatre) and August Wilson's "King Hedley II" (Public). The Broadway Series brought back "The Phantom of the Opera" and began what looks like a strong year with "Ragtime."

As all this suggests, favorite evenings can also include events not really "theater" at all:

The "Bow to the Rauhs," in which Point Park College renamed the Hamlet Street Theater in honor of the first family of the Pittsburgh Playhouse -- the happiest kind of reunion, awash in theater memories.

The Cultural Trust party celebrating the opening of the O'Reilly Theater, complete with Savion Glover, Frank McCourt and gorgeous food.

The after-show cabaret at the Public Theater's Young Company show, in which cast members joined local singers, musicians and anyone who stuck around to share songs -- some rehearsed, others impromptu, all fun. A prototype?

The Cultural Trust's Creative Achievement Awards, complete with exciting solo lecture/performance by Anna Deavere Smith. That was in December, but Smith was also here in January, bracketing the year with her brilliant observational monologues.

The CLO's Gene Kelly Awards for excellence in high school musicals, always a feast of talent.

The New Works Festival Gala, reliably one of the best parties of the year.

But enough beating around the bush. It's time to get to the main course, the best of the 163 plays performed in the Pittsburgh area that the PG reviewed in 1999, whether local or touring. (We'll celebrate outstanding individual achievements on Jan. 9, when we'll also name the PG's performer of the year.)

For these retrospectives, I've consulted with the other PG critics, mainly John Hayes, Richard Rauh and A. Levine, though the final decisions are mine.

Top Five

Paula Vogel, "And Baby Makes Seven," Pitt Studio. A funny, allusive, edgy, ultimately enigmatic contemporary comi/melancholy drama, in which a lesbian couple and gay male jointly parent one real and three fantasy children. Tightly acted by three Pitt undergraduates and given transforming direction by Robert C.T. Steele.

Kander and Ebb, "And the World Goes 'Round," CMU. Blockbuster numbers, occasionally over-produced but adding up to a skintight showcase for CMU's talented musical theater seniors.

Flaherty, Ahrens and McNally, "Ragtime," Broadway Series. Whatever hometown pride we felt at hearing Dormont native Flaherty's big, melodic score was only one part of the appeal of this grand musical epic.

Stephen Dietz, "Private Eyes," Playhouse Rep. A backstage "comedy of suspicion" about the mind games between director and actors and the interplay between real and fictive lives, wonderfully directed by guest master David Wheeler.

August Wilson, "King Hedley II," Public. Wilson's 1980s play, a massive tragedy of frustrated poetry and might-have-been.

Second Five

D.L. Coburn, "The Gin Game," Broadway Series. So-so play, but what a vehicle for Charles Durning and Julie Harris!

Sean O'Casey, "Juno and the Paycock," PICT. Lyrical tragi-comedy set in 1922 Dublin, featuring robust performances by David Doepkin, E. Bruce Hill and Susan McGregor-Laine.

Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice," Quantum Theatre. As dark as this dark "comedy" can get, left intellectually incomplete but given Quantum's trademark, edgy warehouse staging by Mladen Kiselov.

Duke Ellington, "Sophisticated Ladies," Gargaro Productions. Gorgeous music and dance, top cast (Etta Cox, Lenora Nemetz, Billy Porter, et al) and a classy setting in the ballroom at the Westin William Penn.

Jeffrey Hatcher, "Compleat Female Stage Beauty," City. Clever and touching account of Edward Kynaston, a specialist in female roles left high and dry by changing moral tastes in Restoration England. An intimate psycho-sexual backstage comedy.

Near Misses

Whichever of those ranks 10th, it could well have been supplanted by either "Death of a Salesman," Starlight Productions, or "Ring Round the Moon," Point Park.

Also Memorable

"Eleemosynary," Little Lake; "Gross Indecency" and "The Chosen," City; "West Side Story," CLO; "The Rivals," PICT; "The Last Night of Ballyhoo," Starlight; "Guys and Dolls," Mountain Playhouse; "Trial by Jury," Savoyards; "Fences" and "How I Learned to Drive," Public; "The Compleat Works of Wm Shkspr (Abridged)," Penn Avenue.