2016 was a rich year in which local theatre companies gave us such things as Macbeth and The Threepenny Opera and The Vicar of Dibley and Uncle Vanya alongside Wicked and Funny Girl and Anything Goes and Next to Normal and Catch Me If You Can and The Music Man and there was a good-looking production of Sweeney Todd at the ANU. (And it is hard to know how local theatre will cope with the intended loss of the ANU Arts Centre, which has been home for years not only to student and community shows but also to various kinds of theatre and cabaret at restaurant Teatro Vivaldi.) Original works surfaced from writers like Kirsty Budding, Raoul Craemer, Tom Davis and Rachel Hogan. Notable imports included Bell Shakespeare's Othello with a majestically atmospheric set and Luckiest Productions' eerie Little Shop of Horrors.
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Here are the five that seemed particularly memorable.
Playhouse Creatures
When the monarchy was restored in 1660, so was theatre, and Charles II's reign saw women officially introduced to the English stage. Pigeonhole Theatre and director Jordan Best gave April de Angelis's 1993 play about the earliest English actresses a superb production. It was elegant and full of powerful performances and had a real sense of Restoration theatre about it. The stories of those early actresses and their struggles to be taken seriously as artists still resonate.
Antigone – the Greek Project
Senior members of Canberra Youth Theatre did an outstanding contemporary take on Sophocles' Antigone under directors Katie Cawthorne and Alison Plevey. The CYT space was rearranged to create a tightly intimate echo of the ancient Greek theatre. The terseness and impact of the original tragedy was preserved while the look of it was challengingly full of imagery and the disciplines of Butoh.
Spring Awakening
Phoenix Players made a brave choice with Spring Awakening. As a 2006 musical it is a bit of a curiosity that does not quite do the original 1891 play by Frank Wedekind justice but sends you off researching to find that first, less sentimental version. This was a spirited, passionate and elegant production. Yes, it was occasionally over noisy but that seems sometimes to be the style of the modern musical. Ultimately this show was heartbreakingly evocative of a period and place of sexual and emotional ignorance. The mostly young cast under directors Grant Pegg and Kelly Roberts rose with admirable assurance to the challenges.
She Stoops To Conquer
In a Canberra Repertory year that included a number of classics it's not odd that this is the one that sticks in the mind. Under Tony Turner's direction it was all of a piece, gently, consistently funny, and true to its 18th-century origins without being slavish. A large cast revelled in Anna Senior's bewigged costumes and in the farcical goings on of the rambling story. A clever set designed by Cate Clelland and its ongoing manipulation by the servants, onlookers and layabouts who worked as a kind of chorus ensured that there was never any hold up to the action. As a result the machinations of character and plot were entertainingly clear.
Mother
Over the border at the Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre program manager Stephen Pike continues to bring in some terrific touring shows. Mother by Daniel Keene is a ferocious and socially aware one-woman play written specifically for actor Noni Hazlehurst. In her skilled hands the story of the woman Christie, damaged, ageing and homeless, became a blast of a piece, surreal, savage and moving.
