Best of 2022: These were the best Bay Area stage shows in a comeback year
Here are 10 memorable theater productions that graced Bay Area stages in 2022
It was hardly the best of times, but we’ve seen a lot worse. After a long dry spell in and out of quarantine, 2022 saw the first full year of in-person theater on Bay Area stages since 2019, even if productions were still fewer and less robustly attended than in pre-COVID days.
It’s been a year of upheaval and renewal, with the departures of Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s longtime managing director Susie Medak and a bunch of artistic directors, including California Shakespeare Theater’s Eric Ting, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival’s Rebecca Ennals, AlterTheater’s Jeanette Harrison and Marin Theatre Company’s Jasson Minadakis.
Point Richmond’s Masquers Playhouse reopened after six years of rebuilding. San Francisco’s venerable EXIT Theatre closed its doors, and San Jose’s Dragon Productions Theatre Company shut down. Cal Shakes has announced that it might not stage any productions of its own next year.
Amid all that, there was a whole lot of excellent theater on local stages. Here, in no particular order, are 10 of the most memorable moments in Bay Area that I was fortunate enough to witness this year.
“Indecent,” San Francisco Playhouse: Paula Vogel’s masterful play is centered around the 1923 Broadway premiere of Sholem Asch’s Yiddish drama “God of Vengeance” that got the whole cast arrested for obscenity, but it tells a much larger story of the controversy that accompanied that play from the beginning, juxtaposed with the rising tide of antisemitism in Europe. Director Susi Damilano gave it a hauntingly resonant production with a marvelous cast shifting smoothly from role to role in a beautifully theatrical play within a play.
“Dana H.,” Berkeley Repertory Theatre: Playwright Lucas Hnath’s gripping one-person play tells the story of his mother’s months-long abduction in her own words and her own voice, embodied by Jordan Baker in a stunning performance in which it’s easy to forget that she’s lip-syncing to the real Dana’s recorded interviews. Both the true story and director Les Waters’ staging were gut-wrenchingly visceral and immediate in this rare post-Broadway engagement of a dazzlingly unique drama.
“Hadestown,” BroadwaySF: Orpheus finally came to the Orpheum in writer-composer Anaïs Mitchell’s enthralling 2019 Broadway hit with irresistibly catchy folk-jazz-blues-pop songs and a lovely, lively and heartbreaking take on the tragic tale of Eurydice and Orpheus’ descent into Hades, set in a Depression-era Speakeasy. Kimberly Marable especially stole the show as a party-loving Persephone, queen of the underworld.
“the ripple, the wave that carried me home,” Berkeley Repertory Theatre: Christina Anderson’s world premiere drama spans decades (and their respective fashions) in recounting one family’s story of lobbying to integrate public swimming pools in one Kansas city and the toll it took on their relationships. It was powerfully told with beautifully eloquent language peppered with humor and great performances in director Jackson Gay’s excellent production.
“This Much I Know,” Aurora Theatre Company: Just as Oakland playwright Jonathan Spector’s last brilliant Aurora world premiere, “Eureka Day,” opened in London, he returned to the Berkeley company to unveil this delightfully brain-tickling examination of the nature of truth and perception. Artistic director Josh Costello’s compelling staging featured wonderful performances by Rajesh Bose as a compulsively pedantic psychology professor, Anna Ishida as his grief-racked wife and as Stalin’s imposing daughter, and Kenny Toll as a semi-reformed white supremacist.
“Goddess,” Berkeley Repertory Theatre: A musical about an African goddess of music had better dazzle in that department, and this world premiere really delivered. With a book by Jocelyn Bioh and songs by Michael Thurber, “Goddess” sweeps you up with propulsive rhythms, electrifying choreography by Darrell Grand Moultrie, stunning vocals by Amber Iman as the titular deity in disguise as a Kenyan nightclub singer and plenty of humor and heart. A number of musicals have made their way from Berkeley Rep to Broadway in recent years, and this one overflows with energy that should carry it there.
“Colonialism Is Terrible, but Pho Is Delicious,” Aurora Theatre Company: Another great world premiere at Aurora was Dustin H. Chinn’s time-hopping triptych of scenes on 1889 and 1999 Vietnam and present-day Brooklyn, each centered in some way around soup as a vehicle to playfully but poignantly explore issues of colonialism, cuisine and cultural appropriation.
“Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812,” Shotgun Players: Past Shotgun collaborator Dave Malloy’s acclaimed Broadway “electro-pop opera,” based on a section of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” finally makes its way to the Bay Area, and it’s magnificent. With a terrific cast and a sumptuous score in an eclectic mix of styles, it’s hilarious and heartbreaking and dizzyingly dazzling. This one’s still running through Feb. 5 and is well worth checking out ($7-$75; www.shotgunplayers.org).
“The Sound Inside,” Marin Theatre Company: Adam Rapp’s drama centers around a disturbingly obsessive creative writing student and the Yale professor who’s troublingly fascinated with him. There’s no way it can end well, but exactly where it’s headed keeps you on the edge of your seat. And actors Denmo Ibrahim and Tyler Miclean made that tension palpable in MTC artistic director Jasson Minadakis’ spare and suspenseful production.
“Moulin Rouge!,” BroadwaySF: No stage musical could be more decadent than Baz Luhrmann’s fever dream of a 2001 movie, but this Tony Award-winning 2018 Broadway hit gives it a good shot with even more insanely jam-packed mashups of pop hits from the intervening decades as well as the breadth of the 20th century. And its tragicomic love story of bohemian artists, courtesans and aristocrats in a lurid Paris cabaret circa 1900 is as over-the-top as ever.
Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.