Theatergoing in the San Francisco Bay Area is one of life’s treats. No question about it. If you love theater, this is a wonderland. In this devastating economic climate, may that only hold true for the next couple of years.

There is so much good theater here, so many incredible actors, writers, directors and crafts people that an annual Top 10 is often difficult to wrangle. That’s why the Top 10 is followed by a list of other shows that should, by all rights, also be included in the Top 10, but numbers being the chronological beasts that they are, dictate on show per number (still, I cheated with No. 6 and included two shows by one playwright).

1. TheatreWorks’ Caroline, or Change by Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori – My favorite show of the year peeled yet another layer of this incredible musical to reveal a work of sheer genius. Director Robert Kelly and his extraordinary leading lady, C. Kelly Wright, offered some of their best work ever, and that’s saying something.

2. California Shakespeare Theater’s Pericles – Adapted and directed by Joel Sass, this incredibly colorful telling of one of Shakespeare’s oddest tales was entrancing and memorable, especially on a warm summer night in the gorgeous Bruns Amphitheatre in Ordina.

3. Campo Santo and Intersection for the Arts’ Angry Black White Boy adapted by Dan Wolf from Adam Mansbach’s novel – The year’s most exciting new work was a bold act of contemporary theatricality, blending hip-hop, spoken word, drama and movement into a seamless blend directed by Sean San Jose. Good news for anyone who missed it – the show returns to Intersection Jan. 29-Feb. 15.

4. SF Playhouse’s Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party by Aaron Loeb – We had to wait all year for a world-premiere play that entertained as much as it titillated and thrilled. Funny, serious and wacky, this Chris Smith-directed musing on a divided America proved to be as smart as it is imaginative.

5. Traveling Jewish Theater and Thick Description’s Dead Mother, Or Shirley Not All in Vain by David Greenspan — Weird and wild barely begins to describe this play about a gay son who essentially becomes his dead mother. Outstanding, memory-searing performances came from Liam Vincent and Deb Fink in Tony Kelly’s production.

6. SF Playhouse’s Shining City and Marin Theatre Company’s The Seafarer, both by Conor McPherson – Ireland’s top-tier playwright received two outstanding productions by local theaters, each demonstrated his compassionate (and slightly warped) humanity.

7. Shotgun Players and Banana, Bag & Bodice’s Beowulf – This rock musical take on one of college lit’s greatest hits was one of the year’s most delightful surprises. Composer Dave Malloy and writer Jason Craig breathed new life into an Old English classic. This one comes back for one performance only, Jan. 8, at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre, before heading out to conquer New York.

8. Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s TRAGEDY: a tragedy by Will Eno – Audiences were sharply divided over this existential dark night of the soul as filtered through a TV news team. I loved its Beckettian aridness and humor, and Les Waters’ production was anchored by an outstanding cast.

9. Magic Theatre’s Octopus by Steve Yockey – Water poured and unease flowed in director by Kate Warner’s splashy production of a challenging, unnerving play in which death and disease ooze into every nook and cranny.

10. American Conservatory Theater’s Rock ‘n’ Roll by Tom Stoppard – ACT often does its best work with Stoppard, and this was on exception. Director Carey Perloff revealed the rich rewards of this dense, emotional work.

And now a few other greats in no particular order: Theatre Rhinoceros’ Ishi: The Last of the Yahi by John Fisher; Cal Shakes’ An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde; Magic Theatre’s Evie’s Waltz by Carter W. Lewis; SF Playhouse’s Bug by Tracy Letts; Word for Word’s Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin; Aurora Theatre Company’s The Busy World Is Hushed by Keith Bunin; ACT’s The Quality of Life by Jane Anderson; Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s The Arabian Nights by Mary Zimmerman; Aurora Theatre Company’s The Best Man by Gore Vidal.

It was quite a year for excellent solo shows as well. Here are some highlights: Nilaja Sun’s No Child… at Berkeley Rep; Colman Domingo’s A Boy and His Soul at Thick Description; Roger Rees’ What You Will at ACT; Ann Randolph’s Squeeze Box at The Marsh; Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking at Berkeley Rep; Judy Gold’s 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother at the Marines Memorial Theatre; Billy Connolly live at the Post Street Theatre; Mark Nadler’s Russian on the Side at the Marines.

And, it has to be said, not everything is genius. Here are shows that lingered less than fondly in memory: Darren Romeo’s The Voice of Magic at the Post Street Theatre; Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector at ACT; Cybill Shepherd in Bobby Goldman’s Curvy Widow at the Post Street Theatre; Edna O’Brien’s Tir na nOg (Land of Youth) at the Magic Theatre.

The cast of Aaron Loeb’s Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party performs an elaborate opening number in the SF Playhouse world-premiere production. Photos by Zabrina Tipton.

History, politics, utter zaniness collide in Honest Abe’s `Dance Party’
««« ½

Aaron Loeb’s world-premiere play Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party at the SF Playhouse embraces adventurous theatricality. There’s drama, comedy, dancing, politicized fourth graders, absurdity, murder, betrayal, romance, insanity, corruption, rampant homosexuality and even more rampant conservatism.

In short, this is an ambitious play that includes just about everything you can think of. By rights, the play shouldn’t work. With so much going on, the focus should be shot and the play’s intentions scattered all over the place.

But the great thing about Loeb, working with director Chris Smith (former artistic director of the Magic Theatre), is that he’s a ferocious entertainer. As he demonstrated last year, also at the SF Playhouse, with First Person Shooter, he builds plays with a sort of maniacal energy that helps them careen from scene to scene and back again.

Abraham Lincoln, which opened Saturday, is above all else, a hugely entertaining show. The fact that it has something serious on its mind is less immediately apparent when the cast of seven – all dressed as Abraham Lincoln — is performing an elaborate dance number (choreography by Kimberly Richards and Tom Segal) that pays goofy homage to the likes of Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse.

There’s even a gimmick afoot to complicate the proceedings. The cast invites the audience to vote on the order of the three acts (with two intermissions). As we hear about the “trial of the century” in Menard County, Illinois, we’re asked if we want to hear first from the defense attorney, the prosecuting attorney or the reporter covering the trial for the New York Times.

On opening night we began with the defense attorney, Regina (Velina Brown), a black Republican senator with designs on the governor’s office (hard to imagine anyone at this moment in history wanting to be governor of Illinois). Her mentor and dear friend, Tom (Joe Kady), a disgraced senator of the Regan vintage, has surprised her by wanting the governor’s chair for himself.

Tom is using the bully pulpit of a county courtroom to stage his comeback. He’s prosecuting a fourth-grade teacher (Lorraine Olsen) for allowing her students’ Christmas pageant to claim that Abraham Lincoln liked to sleep with men and was likely in love with his friend Joshua Speed (as some historians have claimed).

Not to be outdone by Tom’s grandstanding, Regina and her trusty assistant, Tina (Sarah Mitchell), head for the cornfield county and proceed to play dirty and grab some headlines for themselves.

Loeb plays fast and loose with styles here. On Bill English’s highly efficient, Lincoln-plastered set full clever compartments and cupboards, action shifts quickly. We have realism in the offices of the politicos, then we have broad slapstick, as with the members of the press. The hayseed reporter, Sparky McGee, is a rube with flashes of brilliance. The blogger is a Bluetooth-y ass. And the New York Times reporter, Anton (Mark Anderson Phillips, above right, with Michael Phillis), arrives wearing a kingly cape amid reverent huzzahs.

It turns out that Anton will become an actual character in this drama, and his story was the second one we saw on opening. He arrives in Menard with his best gal pal, fashion photographer Esmeralda (Brown again in a zesty comic performance) and immediately makes a beeline for Tom’s pie shop-owning son, Jerry (Michael Phillis). If Tom is so insistent on continuing the gay witch hunt he began in the Reagan administration, Anton is going to make sure there are no useful secrets in the former senator’s family closet.

Anton’s story is the most poignant of the three because of his interaction with Jerry, a sensitive young man trapped by family in a painfully untenable situation. The two men have a heated scene in the thick of a corn field (English’s set triumphs yet again), and Loeb’s writing crackles with intelligence and intensity.

The third act on opening night was told from Tom’s point of view, and this proved to be the trickiest of the trilogy. Tom’s anti-gay crusade is never fully explored, and as issues of mental health enter into the picture, his motives become even fuzzier. Still, Kady gives an extraordinarily full performance as the troubled family man who isn’t above hiring a Karl Rove-like operative (Brian Degan Scott) to smooth the way to the governor’s office.

It’s hard to overstate the skill of this ensemble. Everyone plays multiple roles, and they all zip from comedy to drama and back (not to mention all the dancing) with ease. They all have individual moments to shine, but the greatest impression comes from their work together. There’s real connection here, and that’s another element that helps this scattershot approach adhere.

That said, Phillips and Phillis do extraordinary work together, and their characters both end up being far more interesting than first impressions would indicate.

Through it all, Loeb keeps returning to Abraham Lincoln, whose iconic visage permeates the entire production, both in serious and comic ways. A statesman, a humanitarian, an enigma and, perhaps most importantly, an American, Lincoln lends a certain gravitas to the evening. Even at its zaniest – and things do get zany – there are serious issues, both political and personal, being thrown around.

But here’s the thing: Loeb and this fantastic production aren’t on any soapbox. They’re throwing an all-American bash, and we’re all invited.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party continues through Jan. 17 at the SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter St., San Francisco. Tickets are $40. Call 415-677-9596 or visit www.sfplayhouse.org.

Shining City by Conor McPherson (Oct. 1-Nov. 22) – Wonderful Irish playwright’s modern-day ghost story.

Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party by Aaron Loeb (Dec. 3-Jan. 17) -This new comedy by local scribe Loeb tracks the happenings surrounding the outing of Abe Lincoln by a fourth grader at a Christmas pageant.

Landscape of the Body by John Guare (Jan. 28-March 7) – Long overdue Bay Area premiere of Guare’s part-play, part-musical.

The Story by Tracey Scott Wilson (March 18-April 25) – Drama based on the true story of a New York Times reporter fabricating a story. A co-production with the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre.

TBA (May 6-June 13)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey and Dale Wasserman (June 24-Sept. 5) – Nurse Ratched, oil up your sneer. It’s time to head back to the asylum.

For information visit www.sfplayhouse.org.

I can always tell whether a theater year has been good or not so good when I sit down to hammer out my Top 10 list. If I can summon five or more shows simply from memory, it’s a good year. This year’s entire list came almost entirely from memory (which is a feat in itself as the old noggin’ ain’t what it used to be), so it was a good year indeed.

Here’s the countdown leading to my No. 1 pick of the year.

10. Anna Bella Eema, Crowded Fire Theatre Company — Three fantastic actresses, Cassie Beck, Danielle Levin and Julie Kurtz, brought Lisa D’Amour’s tone poem of a play to thrilling life.

9. First Person Shooter, SF Playhouse and Playground – What a good year for SF Playhouse. This original play by local writer Aaron Loeb brought some powerhouse drama to its examination of violent video games and school violence.

8. Bulrusher, Shotgun Players – Berkeley’s own Eisa Davis’ eloquent play, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for drama, turned the Northern California dialect of Boontling into poetic drama as it told the story of an outcast young woman finding her place in the world.

7. Avenue Q, Best of Broadway/SHN – Hilarious and irreverent, this puppet-filled musical by Jeff Marx, Robert Lopez and Jeff Whitty made you believe in friendship, life after college and the joys of puppet sex.

6. Jesus Hopped the `A’ Train, SF Playhouse – It took a while for Stephen Adly Guirgis’ intense drama to make it to the Bay Area, but the wait was worth it, if only for Berkeley resident Carl Lumbly in the central role of a murderer who may have seen the error of his ways. And note: This is the second SF Playhouse show on the list.

5. Emma, TheatreWorks _ Paul Gordon’s sumptuous, funny and, of course, romantic adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel came marvelously to life as a musical, with a star-making performance by Pleasanton native Lianne Marie Dobbs.

4. Argonautika, Berkeley Repertory Theatre _ Mary Zimmerman’s athletic retelling of the Jason and the Argonauts myth fused beauty and muscle and impeccable storytelling into a grand evening of theater.

3. Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People, Word for Word – Actually, the second half of Strangers We Know, this stage adaptation of Lorrie Moore’s short story was brilliantly directed by Joel Mullenix and performed by Patricia Silver and Sheila Balter.

2. Man and Superman, California Shakespeare Theater _ This unbelievably vivid version of George Bernard Shaw’s massive existentialist comedy benefited from superior direction by Jonathan Moscone and an impeccable cast headed by Elijah Alexander and Susannah Livingston.

1. The Crowd You’re in With, Magic Theatre _ The team of playwright Rebecca Gilman and director Amy Glazer fused into brilliance with this slice-of-life meditation on why we make the choices we make in our lives. Local luminaries Lorri Holt and Charles Shaw Robinson brought incredible humor and tenderness to their roles, and T. Edward Webster in the lead managed to make ambivalence compelling.

Now it’s your turn. Please post your favorite theater moments of 2007 — no geographical limitations, just good theater.

SF Playhouse’s sharp `Shooter’ targets violence, video games
three [1/2] stars Current, vital

We love tidiness in our news. The worse the news, it seems, the less we want to think about it, so we welcome a hasty generalization here, a rush to place blame there. Stories become so simplified so quickly we often lose sight of certain things — like the human cost of whatever horrible event has transpired.

Taking his cue from the Columbine tragedy (Virginia Tech happened well after the play was finished), Berkeley playwright Aaron Loeb invents a school shooting that might have been inspired by a violent video game and then lets the jagged, messy pieces fall into a dramatic pile that is anything but tidy.

And that’s a good thing.

Loeb’s First Person Shooter opened Saturday in a world-premiere production at SF Playhouse. The play was commissioned by PlayGround, the group that presents short plays by local writers on a monthly basis.

Loeb, who has won multiple awards in the short-play format, expands to full length with relative ease and reveals himself to be a writer of distinct skill. Much of the play is set in the offices of a hip, geeky video game company, and Loeb’s ear for contemporary rhythms and dialogue is unerring.

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that Loeb’s day job is as COO of a San Francisco video game company.

But more than that, Loeb is able to cut through the frenzy — of money-hungry gamesters, of lawsuits, of media madness — and find the heart of tragedy.

This is not a play about whether or not video game violence (or violence in movies or in rap music for that matter) causes real-life violence. Rather, Loeb uses his dramatic muscle to wrest the story out of the sound byte realm and back into the world of three-dimensional human beings dealing with grief, confusion, fear and a need to place blame.

“We need to hold some of the people accountable for some of the evil in this world,” says one character.

That sentiment covers a lot of ground here. In the wake of an Illinois high school shooting _ two teen shooters killed 14 classmates, including the only African-American student in the school _ makers of a violent, gun-based online video game called “Megaton” are pulled into the glare of the national spotlight.

Prior to the killings, one of the shooters left a message on the game’s Web site essentially saying “thanks for the practice.”

The lawyers then converge on the rural Illinois town with statistics claiming that video games alter brain chemistry and that “it’s only a matter of time before boys try to live out the game.” Their goal is to recruit as many grieving parents as possible for a lawsuit against the video game company.

Clearly, coming from the video game industry, Loeb has a distinct point of view when it comes to whether or not video games are responsible for real-life violence. But that’s not what interests him here.

He deflects that issue by focusing on the game’s primary creator, Kerry Davis (an intense Craig Marker, above), a damaged man still suffering his wife’s violent rape/murder.

There are distinct correlations between this particular video game and this particular killing spree, and the connection dredges up issues of racism, vengeance and accountability.
If anything, there’s too much packed into Loeb’s two-hour drama. Action shifts back and forth from the video game company’s offices to an Illinois farm.

At the office, Kerry deals with co-workers who are sympathetic (Kate Del Castillo as Tamar), jerky (Chad Deverman as Tommy) and terrified (Sung Min Park as Wilson). And on the farm, we meet the father of a murdered student (Adrian Roberts as Daniel) and his second wife (Susi Damilano, left with Roberts, as Rose).

The play comes into clear focus when the two grief-stricken men _ Kerry and Daniel _ are forced together in a TV news interview (an extraordinary scene) and later when they attempt to relate one-on-one as men suffering unthinkable loss.

Director Jon Tracy’s production is lean and powerful (video projections by Brian Degan Scott, Nick Bruty and Kevin Wright put us inside the video game), though he doesn’t seem to trust the drama of the play enough. He continually has his actors pounding and slamming furniture between scenes as if to remind us this drama has impact.

He needn’t worry. Loeb’s play is that rarity in theater: an insightful examination of current events that seems at once relevant and timeless.

For information about First Person Shooter visit www.sfplayhouse.org.

Playwright Aaron Loeb is what you might call multitasking. He has a 16-month-old daughter, Talitha Jane; he just moved from Oakland to Berkeley; he’s readying his play First Person Shooter for its world premiere Saturday at the SF Playhouse; he has a short play in the Best of PlayGround festival coming up; and he’s just finished another commissioned play, Abraham Lincoln’s Big, Gay Dance Party!

“It’s a lot, I know,” Loeb says with a laugh. “It’s really kind of silly.”

Foremost on Loeb’s mind is Shooter, a play that deals with issues of violence and video games in the wake of a Columbine-like incident.

Loeb actually works in the video game industry –_ he’s the COO of Planet Moon Studios, developer of video games — and he remembers after Columbine, the rush to blame violence in games and movies.

“Looking back, it’s terrible that that’s what we were talking about at the time,” Loeb says. “Nobody was talking about the parents or the kids except in basic terms. We as a culture try to nail down a simple, easy explanation of something so unexplainable, so unspeakable.”

What Loeb wanted to accomplish with First Person Shooter (the title refers to the type of video game in which you see the action through the shooter’s eyes, gun in hands and all) was to explore both sides of the violence in video games debate: those who say the games ruin children and those who say they don’t.

“I also wanted to humanize both sides and explore the need for human connection in the face of tragedy rather than finding the easy sound byte that makes it easier for us all to look away.”
We’ve heard similar types of conversations recently in the wake of the shootings at Virginia Tech. That gunman did not play video games, but there are still commonalities.

“There’s a similarly dehumanizing national conversation we’re having,” Loeb says. “I’ve seen it in the reaction of the parents: Please stop showing (the shooter) every 30 seconds and talk about my kid!

“I can’t imagine what it must be like for them. And we as a nation want to get through it quickly so we can go back to talking about Anna Nicole.”

First Person Shooter Saturday, May 5 at the SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter St., San Francisco. The show continues through June 9. Tickets are $36. Call (415) 677-9596 or visit www.ticketweb.com.