The future of the Barrymore Awards is up in the air since the Theatre Alliance disbanded this year — but Best Actress is so played out, anyway. Can’t we get some more interesting categories? As the stage breaks between fall and spring, City Paper’s theater and dance writers bring you the Barryless Awards — a bit more specific, a lot less carefully calculated.
➤ Breakout Performance: Aubie Merrylees as Dorante (The Liar, Lantern Theater Company, Nov. 1-Dec. 9)
Merrylees has been a versatile ensemble member around town, but he hit the big time with a masterful comic performance as a swashbuckling ladies’ man in an adaptation of Le Menteur. —DF
➤ Breakout Performance by a Minor: Vincent Crocilla as Winthrop (The Music Man, Walnut Street Theatre, Nov. 6-Jan. 6)
The Walnut’s production of the classic musical had strong leads, but tiny Crocilla stole the show, turning “Gary, Indiana” into a positively Idina Menzelian, gravity-defying moment. —DF
➤ Achievement in Toughness/Déjà Vu: Peter Andrew Danzig (The Drowsy Chaperone, Villanova Theatre, Nov. 6-Dec. 2)
Danzig played “Robert Martin” in spite of debilitating kidney stones — just like the real Robert Martin, co-author and star of The Drowsy Chaperone on Broadway. —MC
➤ Best Musical Seen Seated Next to a Large Dog: Less Miserable (Beaumont Warehouse, July 6-7)
This DIY version of Les Mis (name presumably tweaked to avoid copyright trouble) staged in a West Philly warehouse was crowded, stiflingly hot and sometimes a bit out of tune (plus, our seatmate was a panting Husky). But it was more in tune with the pro-proletariat, revolutionary themes than any mirror-polished, big-theater production (or movie) could hope to be. —EG
➤ Least Fun Incorporation of Left-Right Politics: The Republican Theater Festival (Nov. 12-14)
Director Cara Blouin’s controversial roster of original one-act plays was created to express points of view seldom encountered in American theater — her idea being that theater people, tending more to the left than average, were imposing their liberal views on audiences that might think differently. Unfortunately, this actually materialized as a parade of left-wing stereotypes that made us want to cry foul — Blouin made her point that it’s no fun to be the butt of someone else’s joke, but the key words there are “no fun.” —MC
➤ Most Fun Incorporation of Left-Right Politics: Maria Moller as William F. Buckley and Rob Wetherington as Noam Chomsky (Chomsky vs. Buckley, 1969, Sept. 7-8)
To counteract the somewhat dry, hyperintellectual transcript of the famed 1969 Chomsky/Buckley debate that served as script, this Fringe play was set in the living room of director Bruce Walsh, and Moller and Wetherington played the dialogue with an utterly charming vibe of sexual tension, as if they might start angrily making out at any moment. (An interlude in which the two dance while glaring at each other was particularly delightful.) —EG
➤ Best-Kept Secret: Bryn Mawr/Haverford Theater Program
Director Mark Lord’s small bi-college program at Bryn Mawr College never fails to astound — if you can find out what they’re doing, and when. Anyone who enjoys Fringe-y fare like Pig Iron and New Paradise Laboratories should keep an eye out for next semester’s as-yet-unannounced production. —MC
➤ Close the Play, Tour the Scenery Award: David P. Gordon (Freud’s Last Session, Arden Theatre, Oct. 25-Dec. 23)
Amid the turgid oversimplication of the imagined conversation between Freud and C.S. Lewis, there was at least visual relief in Gordon’s yummy re-creation of the good doctor’s study. —DF
➤ The Next Generation Award: SoMoS (Merián Soto Performance Practice, Oct. 12)
The large crowd gathered in a North Philly parking lot to watch an experimental dance piece included plenty of youngsters, who happily stood still and watched, seemingly spellbound by the abstract tableaus of dancers manipulating large branches in ultra-slow motion. —DK
➤ Best Choreography in a Non-Dance Work: Sophie Bortolussi (Red-Eye to Havre
de Grace, Live Arts Festival, Sept. 7-16)
For her exquisite portrayal of Edgar Allan Poe’s deceased wife Virginia, Bortulussi created and performed imaginative, supple movements that hit notes of the surreal and the sublime with exceptional ease. —DK
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