The Year in Theater…
Jan Farrington
It was a very good year.
And I don’t believe it was just the gratitude and relief we felt at having North Texas stages back again, filling our lives with comedy, tragedy, and some interesting variations between. This was good work being done, words after long silence—and many of them put together in novel and memorable ways.
This isn’t a traditional “Best Of” list. It’s a personal, one-woman critic’s list of “Shows That Stuck With Me.” Many of them were among the best area productions of the year, I believe; but these are the ones that effortlessly popped up in my head as I scrolled back over the past 12 months. If your show is here, great—but if it’s not, our past reviews have a lot to say about ALL the great stuff that was on offer in 2022! In no particular order, then:
“Joyful” was the word for YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, the Mel Brooks’ musical done as a co-production by Circle Theatre and Theatre Three. Zany and bawdy, with all-in comedy from a great cast, and Parker Gray’s hair (and energy) growing wilder by the performance. There was joy in Theatre Three’s original STEDE BONNET: The F**king Pirate Musical, yo-ho-holarious fun…in Uptown Players’ KINKY BOOTS, tuneful, sparkly, and emotional…and in Hip Pocket Theatre’s adaptation of A.A. Milne’s WHEN WE WERE VERY YOUNG, a quietly happy gem.
“Fierce” was the word for Stage West’s remarkable WHAT TO SEND UP WHEN IT GOES DOWN and Bishop Arts Theatre’s searing FAIRVIEW, two shows (with terrific casts) that shredded the concept of an audience “comfort zone”…but in a valuable way. Both left me shaken and more than slightly mind-looped, thinking obsessively about all they were telling and asking of me. The plays put “race” front and center, but used very different tones and techniques to draw the audience into mental and physical action. And in a vintage vein, Fair Assembly’s electrifying MACBETH was the fiercest and best-looking piece of Shakespeare I’ve seen in many a year.
“Community” was the word for Dallas Theater Center’s OUR TOWN/NUESTRO PUEBLO, a vibrant bilingual production whose “town” looked much more like our own North Texas mix of races and ethnicities. Ditto for Circle Theatre’s KODACHROME, its stories told by a photographer who chronicled romance and tragedy in the intertwining lives of her town. In Stage West’s funny but tough BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY, Echo Theatre’s poignant IN A WORD, and Upright Theatre’s truth-telling NEXT TO NORMAL, the community was a single household. The stories were different, but each drew us into a particular and heart-pulling experience of life in a “micro” corner of our maddening macro world. And in DTC’s TROUBLE IN MIND the community was the backstage world of a play in rehearsal. Alice Childress’ “delayed” play from the 1950s (and M. Denise Lee in the lead role) lived up to its hype, showing us the endless tangles and conflicts of humans in a world shaped by the presumptions of racial arrogance.
“Yesterdays” might be the word for a cluster of plays that took us into times long past. Amphibian Stage’s MARIE ANTOINETTE was “a screwball tragedy” telling the story of the doomed queen in pop-diva, party-girl terms—and their one-man show THE HOLLOW (written & performed by John Rapson) gave us a shivery glimpse of early America in Sleepy Hollow, New York. Second Thought Theater’s ONE FLEA SPARE took us to the Great London Plague of the 1660s, with death all around and an unlikely group of high-class/low-class humans in lockdown together. (Sound familiar?) In Stage West’s engaging WITCH, set also in the 1600s, a traveling devil meets his match in a clever and feisty woman (who may, but probably isn’t, a witch). And Outcry Theatre’s mind-boggling LIPSTICK TRACES time-traveled from 16th-century philosophy schools to punk rock skank in its de-construction of a certain frayed (or do I mean fried?) thread of human history.
“Couples” was the word for a number of shows, but my favorites were: Theatre Three’s back-porch, slow-growing Alabama love story MAYTAG VIRGIN; Kitchen Dog Theater’s THE SOUND INSIDE, full of life’s unexpectedness; and Stage West’s warm, funny (and equally unexpected) rom-com HANDLE WITH CARE—the only show on this list you can still go see (through January 8)!
I know every critic on our staff would come up with a different list—and maybe next year we’ll all have a go. Until then, many thanks to you, the readers, and to our wonderful Onstage NTX writers: Wayne Lee Gay, Ramona Harper, Martha Heimberg, Gregory Sullivan Isaacs, Sam Lisman, Teresa Marrero, Cathy Ritchie, Chris Sanders, and Jill Sweeney.
Wishing you good shows in 2023—whatever side of the stage you’re on! JF
