Magical moments of CT theater in 2020
I’ve been doing lists of memorable theater moments for the Courant since 2016. That five years went from “Anastasia” pre-Broadway at Hartford Stage to “Anastasia” post-Broadway at The Bushnell, interspersed visits from “Hamilton” and some of the greatest theater artists working today, from Peter Brook to Taylor Mac.
They’re not “best” lists because I don’t pretend to see everything or appreciate everything or be able to figure out how or why, say, a brilliant comedy and a trenchant drama and a risky experimental piece could be ranked against each other. These rundown are simply a list of dazzlements worth remembering.
This year, the differences are more staggering than ever. Shows were live, virtual, and nonexistent. Short, long, pause-able. Musical, radio-style, cinematic. There were more theater talk shows than there were theater shows.
Most years, I’d be drawing my memorable moments from a list of over a hundred shows I’ve seen in the previous year. This year, that list is in the low dozens. It was a season without a middle: a busy winter, a sudden devastation in spring, a few tentative outdoor events in summer and a heartening surge in activity towards the end of the year.
The shows were scarcer and sparser and compromised in any number of ways, but when they clicked they clicked. The memories are no less strong, and some are even stronger, more durable and momentous, because of the circumstances from which they grew.
Here are 10 unforgettable moments from the theater year 2020. It was a year when we had a lot of other things to think about, so their resonance is all the more remarkable.
There’s an added bonus of a year when so much theater had to be videoed or streamed: several of these shows can still be found and seen online.
This year’s memorable moments, recollected here in chronological order, are a tribute to theaters that made theater happen — safely, smartly, and despite a slew of obstacles.
“Anastasia” at The Bushnell, January.
This was the year that “Anastasia” returned home from her long international journey. The musical, based on a couple of films plus histories and myths , with whole new characters added by playwright Terrence McNally, had its world premiere at Hartford Stage in 2016, went to Broadway a year later. Quite a few things had changed, between Hartford and Broadway then between Broadway and the road. But the standout scene remained the same: the suspenseful train voyage from St. Petersburg to Paris, done this time without a turntable stage. Anastasia lives.
“One Day More” in Hartford’s West End. Timing is everything. In late March, with spring warming up, isolating at home was starting to feel like prison. (Little did we know how much longer it would last.) Local choreographer Carolyn Paine talked her Hartford West End neighbors into a sing-along of the stirring anthem “One Day More” from the musical “Les Miserables.” Some of them really got into it, brandishing swords and wearing shawls or vintage military garb. The results, while admittedly hokey and slapdash, were heartwarming, and it’s hard to watch the final soaring moments of the video without weeping.
“Russian Troll Farm” by Sarah Gancher, October/November.
A co-production of TheaterWorks Hartford, TheatreSquared in Arkansas and New York’s Civilians, “Russian Troll Farm” showed how online theater can rise to the occasion. Sarah Gancher’s well-researched torn-from-social-media black comedy
based on the real-life Russian efforts to undermine the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, this was in some way a site-specific piece, since the characters are slaving away on the internet. The show deliberately shifted styles and paces to make its point that the Russian interference was some sort of epic theater. But the production also knew how to build in power gradually, then hit you with a dizzying array of images and sounds for a psychological tornado of an ending. There was shocking animation and effects, but for my money the most disarming images were the close-up of the ruthless office manager played by Mia Katigbak. Her anger oozed right through the screen.
“Jesus Christ Superstar” at The Bushnell, February.
We’re blessed that one of the last big national musical tours to play Hartford before the shutdown was one that still resonates strongly months later. This was an acclaimed version of the rock opera done by —-, on its first American tour. It was an unexpectedly lavish, multi-platformed production of a show that is often done with bedsheets and boulders. As befits a savior, this one show contained multiple miraculous memorable moments: one as simple as tossing handfuls of glitter in the air, others involving a series of ominous masks which telegraphed how the government was getting more and more oppressive and Jesus’ support was dwindling.
Quick Quarantined Play Festival, ongoing since April.
Dip into a sea of isolation. What’s intense about this online compendium of new short plays, produced by Sharese Sellem of New Haven’s Vintage Soul Productions, is that happened urgently (with a day of writing, then a day of rehearsal and filming). Also that there are so damn many of them: twelve rounds so far, with usually at least 15 plays in each round. They’re mostly monologues, and occasionally fit into themes: blown relationships, missing family, grief and despair. What’s striking is when they circle round to similar songs or props. I was most struck by early rounds when the same young actor used REM’s “It’s the End of the World (As We Know It)” to express otherwise ineffablefeelings.
“More Or Less I Am,” Arts & Ideas, June.
The International Festival of Arts & Ideas, which has happened every June in New Haven for the past quarter century, was on the verge of announcing its 2020 schedule when COVID hit. This is a festival that likes to fill New Haven Green and also makes use of dozens of indoor venues. Cancelling the whole festival would seem to be the only possibility. Instead, with just weeks to make it happen, Arts & Ideas announced that it would the entire shebang online. This meant changing cooking demos so that recipe ingredients could be picked up curbside, or making a walking tour virtual. In the case of the multicultural theater troupe Compagnia de’ Colombari, which overhauled its modern take on Walt Whitman, “More Or Less I Am,” into four bite-sized episodes of between five and twelve minutes each, filmed by the performers in their own homes. Somehow this brought a community spirit to the endeavor that would have seemed forced onstage. The joy in reaching out and sharing songs and verse was palpable.
I’ll never forget the delirious joy of actors dancing around their kitchens. You can still find “More Or Less I Am,” and most of the rest of the 2020 Arts & Ideas festival, online at artidea. org.
Pilobolus’ Five Senses Festival, New Preston, July/August. The Washington Depot-based internatiostannally renowned dance/movement troupe is used to bending reality. When the shutdown occurred Pilobolus instantly started brainstorming how its outdoor summer Five Senses Festival — in just its third year — might still happen. The result: breathtaking vignettes and distanced performances staged on vast lawns and danced around trees in a state park, all viewable from in or around your car, safari-style, with music and a meditative calm. The arresting vision of a woman on a white horse, alone far away in a field, is the image I savor.
Elm Shakespeare’s “Race & Shakespeare” series, October. Let’s face it; online theater has been overwhelmed by online theater talk shows. The talkbacks and curtain speeches are going on without the shows. Hartford Stage, Goodspeed Musicals and other theaters host online chat shows that discuss plays and musicals without being able to show you those productions. For theater junkies and insiders, this can be a dream, for others it can be profoundly boring. It always comes down to the energy of the conversation, and that always put over the top if there is an attentive audience that’s not scared of posting to the chat room. One of the best examples I’ve seen of this vibrant new theater form was Elm Shakespeare Company’s “Race & Shakespeare” discussion series, which opened with a screening of Keith Hamilton Cobb’s “American Moor.” Cobb joined ElmShakes artistic director Rebecca Goodheart for a conversation that went on for longer than the performance had, a deep dive into themes of representation, bias, bigotry, theater traditions and more. The memorable moment was just Cobb deciding to stay past the agreed-upon time and make sure the conversation continued. You don’t see that sense of purpose very often; at events like this, you’re most accustomed to seeing someone look at their watch.
“All is Calm,” Playhouse on Park, December 2020/ January 2021.
”All is Calm” isn’t exactly a play. It’s more of a song cycle, or a service of lessons and carols. But it has a story: the oft-told tale of a World War I no-man’sland battle between Allied and German troops that is halted so that the soldiers can celebrate on Christmas eve. Playhouse on Park hoped to do “All is Calm” on its stage then, when forced to rethink, staged and filmed it in an open field. The magical moment comes mid-way through, when the assembled soldiers rally for a magnificent, firm yet gentle rendition of the show’s title song, with blends “Silent Night” with thoughts of war and peace. “All is Calm.” still available to stream through Jan. 3 at playhouseonpark. org.
“Shakin’ the Blues xAway,” Goodspeed Musicals, October.
This gala fundraising effort was a video tribute to a theater desperate to reopen. Veterans of Goodspeed Opera House musicals danced and sang all around that historic building, from its grand staircase to the balcony outside the bar, overlooking the Connecticut River, and on the bar counter itself.) Frothy and odd as this could get, I found myself overwhelmed with emotion while watching it, and basically had the show on for 48 hours straight. Beyond the high kicks and vocal belts, what I found most affecting were the sly, wistful sidelong glances of performers like Klea Blackhurst and Gisele Jiminez, who captured both the joy of performing and the sadness of not being able to.
Other pleasant theater memories to stave off some of the real-life memories of a horrible year: the buoyant, life-affirming “Every Brilliant Thing” at TheaterWorks, one of the first local productions to have to tackle issues of social distancing and audience participation; Brian Syms’ entrancing ballet vid “Dying Black Swans”; the collaborative effort among a host of transgender and nonbinary theater artists that turned the oft-bleak monologue “I Am My Own Wife” at Long Wharf into a celebration of community; the original radio series “Up and Down the River” commissioned by HartBeat Ensemble to explore local Native American history on its own terms; and the endless delights of the student puppet slams orchestrated by the Ballard Institure and Museum of Puppetry, which this included lots of powerful political content as well as an entire event devoted to the history of women’s suffrage.
Here’s hoping 2021 can match that range of expression, entertainment and sheer emotion. Here’s hoping it also has a middle, some continuity, a sense of safe social enjoyment.