Tolstoy was never like this: "Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comedy of 1812."        Karli Cadel Photography

     You’re seated in the theater. The lights dim to darkness. Then they come up again.
     You’re in another world.
     No television watching, streaming or multiplex experience can compare.
     Call it escapism? Maybe. Looking back on the past six weeks or so of 2024, I’ve rarely wanted to escape as badly as I do now. The presidential election has left me crushed. Angry. Dismayed. Grappling for hope.
     This is where theater comes in, and it certainly will in 2025 when the awful realities of what America has done to itself begin to crystallize.
      But live theater is not merely an escape. No, it’s a heightening of the spirit, a cleansing of the soul. It’s somewhere to go for inspiration and entertainment, and also for critical thinking and belonging to a community that cares about the collective humanity, and about a craft that examines that community with the fullness of who we are as people.
     The politics of ’24 may have been a nightmare, but the year in San Diego theater provided every inch of that aforementioned inspiration and entertainment. Let’s look back on, to my mind, the top 10 productions of the year.
     1. “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812,” Cygnet Theatre. Tolstoy was never as much fun as this extraordinary operatic musical drawn from a 70-page sequence of “War and Peace.” Cygnet’s West Coast premiere of Dave Malloy’s imaginative spectacle was transformed by the team of Sean Murray (director) Patrick Marion (musical director), Katie Banville (choreographer), Shirley Pierson (costume designer) and Mathys Herbert (scenic designer) into a thrilling, immersive experience that was great fun while also exploring the depths of human existence. Leading a game cast was Kurt Norby as the melancholy Pierre whose first-act solo turn was for me the most stirring emotional moment of the 2024 theater season in town.
     2. “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” CCAE Theatricals. Among the most ambitious productions of the year, “Curious” was a remarkable achievement for the still-young CCAE Theatricals and director J. Scott Lapp in Escondido. Based upon a novel by Mark Haddon, “Curious” is an alternately enlightening and harrowing adventure inside the neurodivergent brain of a 15-year-old boy whose investigation of the killing of a neighbor’s dog becomes much, much more than that, challenging his sense of self and confronting a more personal loss. Daniel Patrick Russell (“Billy Elliot,” “The Music Man” on Broadway) portrayed teenager Christopher Boone with uncommon energy and sensitivity. 
      3. “Into the Woods,” Moonlight Stage Productions. What would a theater year be without Stephen Sondheim? Missing something – that’s what it would be. So bravo to Moonlight’s own Steven, producing artistic director Glaudini, for bringing James Lapine and Sondheim’s deconstructed musical fairy tale to Vista for the first time in more than 30 years. Fittingly, Glaudini’s spouse, Bets Malone, who played The Witch in that production, reprised her role this past spring. She was part of an amazing ensemble that also included Larry Raben, Allison Spratt Pearce, Courtney Blanc, Brooke Henderson and Steve Gunderson – all of them clad in costumes from the original Broadway production of “Into the Woods” from ’87-’89.
       4. “Fat Ham,” The Old Globe. A highlight of the Globe’s ’24 season was this re-staging of the Broadway production of James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning take on “Hamlet.” In lieu of a ghostly Denmark, the setting is a backyard barbecue in the American South and the dramadies therein of a family in crises, major and minor. The “Hamlet” character is Juicy (Sola Fadiran), who is fighting to assert his sexuality among relations for whom self-assertion is sometimes explosive. Directed by Sideeq Heard, “Fat Ham” did serve up lots of laughs at its onstage BBQ, but its signature moment was a poignant one – when Juicy bravely belted out Radiohead’s “Creep.” Audiences responded with standing ovations. Deservedly so.
      5. “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company. A highlight of 2023’s theater year was the confrontation between Deborah Gilmour Smyth and Jessica John as broken mother and daughter in Backyard Renaissance’s production of “August: Osage County.” Round Two, albeit inhabiting different but equally broken mother and daughter characters, found Gilmour Smyth and John in Martin McDonagh’s torment-driven “Beauty Queen.” In the confines of the Tenth Avenue Arts Center, Mag (Gilmour Smyth) and Maureen (John) battled demons and each other. Meanwhile, anyone watching, myself included, had to have been battling claustrophobia as the walls of the Irish cottage closed in on the combatants.
      6. “Henry 6,” The Old Globe. It’s hard to know where to start with this epic undertaking conceived by Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein, the production of which capped the theater’s feat of having produced all 38 of William Shakespeare’s plays. The two-part “Henry 6,” presented on rotating nights, featured 30 actors playing 60 parts. Dubbed “Flowers and France” and “Riot and Reckoning,” the plays tracked The Bard’s “Henry VI, Part 1,” “Henry VI, Part 2” and “Henry VI, Part 3.” As always at the Globe, the production values, costumes and set pieces were outstanding, and many stellar performances were delivered in both “Flowers” and “Riot.” As spectacle, “Henry 6” was in a class by itself this past year.
       7. “Sense of Decency,” North Coast Repertory Theatre. The only world premiere on this list was a taut and very tense adaptation of El Hai’s 2013 book about the sessions conducted in a Nuremburg prison between Army psychiatrist Douglas M. Kelley (played at North Coast Rep by Brendan Ford) and Nazi field marshal Hermann Goring (Frank Corrado, in a strong, layered performance). Jake Broder wrote the script for this theatrical adaptation of Hai’s book, and it’s a compelling one that relies heavily on the mind games Goring plays with the probing but nervous Kelly. What was illuminated at the end of the play, besides the nature of evil, was the reality that the Nazis had America’s own terrible history with slavery as inspiration.
       8. “Jersey Boys,” CCAE Theatricals. If there was any doubt about Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice’s now-20-year-old show about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons being the granddaddyof all jukebox musicals, that was dispelled by this faithful and flamboyant production in Escondido. How do I know? I attended with someone who’d never seen “Jersey Boys” before and who wasn’t particularly interested in the pop group that soared high on the charts in the ‘50s and ‘60s. She was cheering halfway through. T.J. Dawson’s direction of a dynamite Nicholas Alexander as Valli and a worthy supporting cast was complemented by the glittery period costumes by Janet Pitcher and Dana Solimando’s kinetic choreography.
        9. “The Color Purple,” New Village Arts Theatre. One of the most gifted casts of 2024 elevated this triumphant production of the 2004 stage musical based on the novel by Alice Walker. Specifically: newcomer Nio Russell as Celie; Hadiyyah Noelle as Shug Avery; Taylor Renee Henderson as Celie’s sister Nettie; Eboni Muse as Sofia; and Jasmine January as Squeak. NVA should be applauded for accommodating and choreographing a full cast of 17 on its relatively compact stage all while maintaining a bigger Broadway feel. The only disappointment was the ensemble’s singing to prerecorded music rather than to a live band or small orchestra. Something for the Carlsbad theater to aspire to?
       10. “English,” The Old Globe. Before it staged beginning in late May the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama winner with “Fat Ham,” the Old Globe opened in January a production of the 2023 winner, Sanaz Toosi’s thought-provoking drama “English.” Set in a classroom near Tehran where a group of students is preparing to take the TOEFL exam, this smart and relevant play broached with intensity the quandary of assimilation. It was a talky drama for sure, but one that had so much to say, especially as we approach an ominous future in our own country, one in which identities will be questioned – Americans’ and those who long to be among them. “English” was directed by Arya Shahi, a founding member of New York’s Pigpen Theatre Co.
       Honorable mention: “A View from the Bridge,” North Coast Repertory Theatre; “Beautiful The Carole King Musical,” Moonlight Stage Productions; “Outside Mullingar,” Lamb’s Players Theatre, “Misery,” Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company

Francis Gercke and Maggie Carney in "Misery."                                                           Photo by Daren Scott

            With its taut and terrifying production of William Goldman’s “Misery,” Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company caps an exceptional 2024 season that also included Paula Vogel’s “How I Learned to Drive” and Martin McDonagh’s “The Beauty Queen of Leenane.” Each show more unnerving than the next, Backyard demonstrated – as it has practically from its very beginning – that its work is bold and unafraid to unsettle.
            “Misery,” of course, is Goldman’s adaptation of horror novelist supreme Stephen King’s 1987 novel which three years later became a film (written by Goldman and directed by Rob Reiner) best remembered for a towering performance by Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes, imprisoned writer Paul Sheldon’s “No. 1 fan.”
            Under the deft direction of MJ Seiber, Backyard Renaissance’s production exploits the smallish confines of the Tenth Avenue Arts Center theater to create a thick air of claustrophobia essential to the storytelling. Not only is crippled Paul (Francis Gercke) trapped in the little Colorado house that belongs to wackadoodle Annie (Maggie Carney), but so are we the audience. It isn’t 10 minutes into the story before we want out of that bed, out of that house, out of the clutches of Annie, whose initial solicitude gives way to mania.
            Furthering the suffocating atmosphere are Curtis Mueller’s muted lighting and sudden bursts of sound (including a kitchen alarm clock and later a horrific gunshot). For this production, Logan Kirkendall is sound designer, Jeffrey Neitzel special effects coordinator.
            I’m not sure why the between-scenes playing of mostly ‘60s pop songs works as well as it does, too. Maybe it’s the incongruity of hearing the cheerful, jangly tunes in the midst of this frightening tale.
            The production opens with Paul already in a sickbed, having been pulled from the wreckage of his ’65 Mustang (hey – that works fine with the pop tunes!) by Annie, a trained nurse who is ministering to him mainly out of sheer adoration. She lives for – and she tells him so, over and over – his “Misery” romance novels, Victorian sagas of heroine Misery Chastain. It quickly becomes obvious, to Paul and to us, that Annie’s devotion is rooted in the crazy zone. Still, as she goes off the rails we’re startled, even when we know something violent is forthcoming.
            I’ll leave out the particulars but will say that they’re as graphically portrayed as possible in a stage production.
            As with Hitchcock at his sliest or Spielberg with “Jaws,” the terror resides in what is not seen or shown … until it is. Goldman’s script of King’s novel, and this Backyard Renaissance production, employ that same dread anticipation and smoldering suspense. The looming question is: Will Paul get out of this?
            None of this would be as effective and gripping without the right Annie and the right Paul. This production has both. Carney, who relocated to Los Angeles several years ago but returns to San Diego (as she did last year for Backyard’s “August: Osage County”), ideally mixes Annie’s doting folksiness and eruptions of ferocity, all while not trying to channel Kathy Bates’ definitive portrayal. Carney’s is an Annie all her own – changing on a dime from hero worship to insanity.
            Gercke is not shackled by the restrictions of playing a character who can’t walk. His anguish and agony, and the cunning Paul employs in attempts to extricate himself from his living nightmare, are vivid and visceral. Just his cries of pain when he tries to crawl on the floor get under our skin. It’s a stout performance that has a desperation all its own.
            Alex Guzman appears for a couple of scenes as Buster, a sheriff who is rightly suspicious of what might be going on in Annie’s house. He’ll be sorry he was curious.
            As a writer, I wonder what I would do if I encountered an obsessive fan. Being neither Stephen King nor Paul Sheldon, I doubt this will happen. But should I ever find himself driving through a blinding snowstorm, I’ll be sure to take it slow and cautious just the same.
            “Misery” runs through Dec. 7 at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center downtown.