Shining light on pain of human condition
Mortality was on the Broadway menu this year — most all of the best works of the calendar year shed light on the pain of the human condition, especially once we’re past the first blush of youth. Whether the observer was Eugene O’Neill, Edward Albee or Kenneth Lonergan, the works that lingered the most were the explorations of our constant inability to deal with our own limited time on the planet.
We can get angry of course. But Broadway had that covered too. Better, perhaps, just to make like SpongeBob and make every day the best day ever.
Here are the 10 best Broadway shows of 2018, ranked:
1. “Three Tall Women”: After the death of Edward Albee in 2017, the great writer’s estate could have decided merely to maintain Albee’s resistance to highconcept treatments of his precisely penned works. But they chose instead to give directors and designers more freedom to interpret Albee’s profound explorations of the human condition. Joe Mantello’s superb spring revival of “Three Tall Women,” a revelatory production of a terrifying play about life, death and how old we have to get before we know anything worth knowing, proved the wisdom of that decision. Actors such as Glenda Jackson and Laurie Metcalf allowed for no escape from the existential chills; a life-changer, for those willing to listen. This was the best Broadway production of 2018.
2. “The Ferryman”: A sprawling, Shakespearean, unruly masterpiece of a play that will be around long after its critics are dead and buried, this work by Jez Butterworth looked at the battle between the Irish Republican Army and British loyalists not as a relatively contemporary political matter but as the latest manifestation of the warmongering human tendency, coupled with unbridled lust for power. Sam Mendes’ imported production caught all of the messiness of life, of how domestic happiness can co-exist with dread, love with brutality. Here was further evidence of the “Hamilton” lesson — audiences lust for shows with scale and ambition, works that connect the moment to timeless currents of human behavior.
3. “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”: No, we’re not safe in the world. Children understand this from the moment their brains start to compute complexity, which is why they quickly tire of the bromides fed them by their parents, and gravitate to works like the iconic Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. By the time Rowling and Jack Thorne’s theatrical sequel arrived on Broadway, there was evidence of Potter fatigue and resistance to further brand extension. But that did not change the masterful theatricality of John Tiffany’s epic production, a fabulously entertaining and life-affirming show that embraced all the quirks of Potterdom while focusing relentlessly on what matters most — the populist storytelling, the character with dilemmas like the ones we face every day, and the dispensing of timeless Rowling wisdom to arm you against the vicissitudes of life.
4. “The Iceman Cometh”: Of all Denzel Washington’s recent appearances on Broadway, nothing compared to his volcanic work as Theodore Hickman atop Eugene O’Neill’s chronicling of just how far down booze can take an unsuspecting person. George C. Wolfe’s production (overlooked by some in a crowded spring) had the best ensemble cast of the season — a bevy of deep-diving thespians ready to hit bottom so that others might float. Washington clearly knew all about his man’s reliance on a smile and a shoeshine and the severity of his potential fall. This was a gorgeous, self-effacing performance that wanted only to belong to the terrifying whole.
5. “Carousel”: Decent human beings crave nothing as much as the chance to correct their own mistakes, especially those that cause misery for those they love. In 1945, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote a musical about the agony of running out of time, making terrible choices and trying to recover. Despite its astonishing melodies and other beauties of form, “Carousel” fundamentally is a musical about human frailty and our timeless propensity to screw up that which matters the most. And for all its flaws, Jack O’Brien’s vulnerable, honest revival understood that fragility and thus what matters most in any “Carousel.” And the likes of Jessie Mueller and Lindsay Mendez had hearts big enough for you to want to lean forward to catch hold of their feelings.
6. “Lobby Hero”: Heroism requires a cause — but for some of us, the world remains no bigger than an anteroom. That’s what Kenneth Lonergan’s 2001 play — a work that arrived on Broadway 17 years after its debut — is all about. Trip Cullman’s revival, which starred Michael Cera, Brian Tyree Henry, Bel Rowley and Chris Evans, was a strikingly profound and well-acted meditation on how power imbalance throws off morality and chokes human interaction. The production understood that the show looks at life with a glancing blow — and all its wisdom lies therein.
7. “Network”: Bryan Cranston’s devastating, highly flammable performance was at the center of Ivo van Hove’s revival of a 1976 movie that seemed to anticipate both the anger of our current moment and our inability to fully articulate its cause. “Network” had its flaws, but this was still a notable attempt to contextualize just how much the search for ratings — or clicks, or likes — has undermined the moral underpinnings of American society. By inflicting upon us a dizzying array of stimulating images and experiences, “Network” reminded us that our anger long has been cultivated, harnessed and harvested for someone else’s profit.
8. “The Waverley Gallery”: The greatest Broadway performance of the fall came from none other than the octogenarian Elaine May, making her first major stage appearance in decades and revealing the fragility of old age and the American inability to help our most senior citizens grow old with anything approaching grace. The play might not seem like a Broadway offering, but May turned an observational work by Kenneth Lonergan into an agonizing exploration of one honest woman’s mortality. It is a performance that has been impossible to shake.
9. “Mean Girls”: The score had some issues, and the musical version of one of the best movies ever made about teen tribalism wasn’t entirely sure whether to belong in the past or the present. But none of that stopped Tina Fey, still the gold standard when it comes to warmcentered satire and lucid American social commentary, from writing what was far and away the funniest book to a musical in 2018.
10. “The Prom”: The best musicals — even the silly ones — can offer a meditation on what is worrying America. “The Prom,” wherein Broadway stars headed off to Indiana to save America, wasn’t grounded in much hinterland knowledge. But its heartbeat was the need to unify this divided nation, to have each side understand the other a little better and join together in a big, fat show-tune. And if Broadway doesn’t believe in its own societal destiny, then who will?
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.