Recession Be Damned: Best Theater of 2009
A thriving year for stage in L.A.
8. Hamlet Shut Up! Jonas Oppenheim’s 90-minute rendition of Shakespeare’s brooding classic at Sacred Fools Theatre Company with ’nary a word spoken was presented in the style of a silent film. This was a monument to theatrical imagination, and a lark as well, like the Reduced Shakespeare Company but without even the shorthand language.
9. Blackbird Jade Dornfeld and Johnny Clark portrayed a co-dependent couple in a New York walk-up — Danny Cistone’s brick-lined set played perfectly off the venue’s brick walls. Adam Rapp’s grungy love story had a striking authenticity, as staged by Ron Klier in a VS. Theatre Company production at the Elephant Theatre Lab.
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10. Impro Theatre In their improvised, full-length re-creations of works by Jane Austen, Tennessee Williams and other literary luminaries, Dan O’Connor’s troupe finds just the right blend of parody and homage in their witty, erudite entertainments.
Also noteworthy: Druid Ireland (Ireland), TR Warzawa (Poland) and Theatre Zar (Poland), all at UCLA Live; Arias With a Twist at REDCAT; Kit Steinkellner’s Adeline’s Play at the Powerhouse; Culture Clash’s Aristophanes riff, Peace, at the Getty Villa; South African drag artist Pieter-Dirk Uys’ Elections and Erections, at both UCLA and REDCAT; the Wooster Group’s eccentric take on Francesco Cavalli’s 17th-century opera La Didone, also at REDCAT; and Tom Salamon’s site-specific kidnapping mystery, Accomplice: Hollywood.
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