To Infinity and Beyond!
2001 saw Austin artists on -- what else? -- space odysseys
Fri., Jan. 4, 2002
Top 10 (That's Really 14) Wonders of the Stage in 2001
1. Big Love (Rude Mechanicals) A big rush. Chuck Mee's riff on The Suppliants was an invigorating whirl of debates over gender politics, justice, loyalty, and the ascendancy of the heart in human affairs, fired with a vibrant physicality (riotous dances, slamming bodies, food fights) -- in short, a show tailor-made for the Rudes. Guided by director Darron West, this fierce tribe charged the play with energy, conviction, and wit, creating one heady, exhilarating dance.
2. Oklahoma! (Austin Musical Theatre) A vision of Rodgers & Hammerstein's frontier territory as sweet and bracing as a spring breeze on the open prairie. AMT's Scott Thompson and Richard Byron scraped away six decades of history weighing down this classic and recovered its freshness. A cast of exceptional verve, epitomized by Noah Racey's ebullient Will Parker.
3. Jouét (Zachary Scott Theatre Center) This saga of a globetrotting pop star whose life is emotionally and literally up in the air was a soaring triumph for composer Allen Robertson, a search for self in the modern world told with wit, ingenuity, and heart. As the titular diva, Meredith McCall hit the runway like a jet on take-off and rode the show into the heavens.
4. Cold Sassy Tree (Austin Lyric Opera) Another American opera brought to inspiring life by ALO. Composer Carlisle Floyd took us right to the heart of a Georgia town through his richly drawn characters, abundant humor, tenderness, and music with the smell of Southern soil in it, and a fine cast, headed by a thundering Dean Peterson, held us there, charmed.
5. Ascending on Fields of Air (Sally Jacques) Bodies suspended in space. Figures climbing scaffolds. Great doors sliding open to reveal the night sky. In an abandoned airplane hangar, Jacques, Austin's empress of site-specific performance, and an outstanding team of collaborators created something beautiful and poetic, a mystic communion with the heavens.
6. The Circumference of a Squirrel (Zachary Scott Theatre Center) Yes, another one-man show and, yes, another son who has issues with his father, but John Walch's script, with its cosmic wit and illuminating detail, made it fresh and compelling, and Martin Burke invested so much of himself in its performance as to make you feel his heart beating in your chest.
7. Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief (iron belly muses) and Anna Bella Eema (Refraction Arts Project/Physical Plant Theater) In a year noteworthy for strong all-female casts, these shows took top honors. Sterling ensemble work by Holly Babbitt, Lee Eddy, and Tamara Beland, and Deanna Shoemaker's cheeky direction made Desdemona, Paula Vogel's take on Othello, a surprising, funny, and deeply human exploration of tension between the sexes, the classes, and friends. With Anna Bella Eema, a wondrous team -- writer Lisa D'Amour, director Katie Pearl, and actors Jennifer Haley, Paula Rester, and Stephanie Stephens -- tapped something rich and strange; their dense, enigmatic odyssey through a haunted trailer-park world was haunting.
8. Wallpaper Psalm and Tilt Angel (Salvage Vanguard Theater) A pair of magical mystery tours inside the heads of some offbeat characters, both smartly staged by Jason Neulander. An intense score from Golden Arm Trio, Ruth Margraff's deliberately disoriented text, production designs creating a stark, spectral space, and fierce, fearless performances evoked in unsettling fashion the unsettled minds of Wallpaper Psalm's elderly heroines. Dan Dietz's imaginative script, salted with spectacularly florid dialogue rich in regionalisms and humor, revealed the shape of grief inside Tilt Angel's loquacious Tennessee simpleton, a figure made splendidly real by Jason Phelps' blazing performance.
9. Jelly's Last Jam (Zachary Scott Theatre Center) Director Dave Steakley's re-creation of the birth of jazz boasted plenty of New Orleans heat, sweat, creole spice, and sweet, sexy soul, plus a furious, astonishing performance by Ronn K. Smith as Jelly Roll Morton.
10. Lypsinka! The Boxed Set (Zachary Scott Theatre Center) The Spirits of Divas Past -- Crawford, Davis, Garland, Merman, and their ilk -- channeled through John Epperson's divine alter ego with almost otherworldly skill, to sublimely hilarious effect.
11. Requiem for Tesla (Rude Mechanicals) The neglected genius returned to life, like Frankenstein's monster in a Universal film, via vivid theatricality, melodramatic flourishes, performances verging on the operatic, and lots of electricity. It was alive!
12. Romeo and Juliet (Ballet Austin) Though Shakespeare's lovers never spoke a word in this balletic version, there was poetry just the same, in Stephen Mills' dramatic, elegant, eloquent choreography and his company's lively, lovely dancing.
Honorable Mentions
Art (Zachary Scott Theatre Center)
Hyper Zoo (ethos)
Ann Hampton Callaway (Austin Cabaret Theatre)
The World Goes 'Round (Zachary Scott Theatre Center)
.com and JASS (Tapestry Dance Company)
The Chairs (State Theater Company/Actors Repertory of Texas)
