It has been – at last – a good year for women on stage. It began with a visionary play by Caryl Churchill. Escaped Alone took Everywoman as a default position. It did not talk about women but embodied feminism in its casting. In James Macdonald’s sharp production, four marvellous actors – Linda Bassett, Deborah Findlay, Kika Markham and June Watson – delivered a richly worded version of a back-garden apocalypse. Which predicted that the obese might start selling slices of themselves. The year ended with Phyllida Lloyd’s Donmar Shakespeare Trilogy. In a welcome new pop-up theatre in London’s King’s Cross, Lloyd completed the project of all-female casting that she began four years ago, adding The Tempest to the previously seen Julius Caesar and Henry IV. She has proved that gender-blending in Shakespeare need not be restricted to one lead actress. And that the results are vibrant.
In the year of the Brexit vote, the Shakespeare play that deals with the break-up of a kingdom was staged frequently and ingeniously. King Lear was played by Michael Pennington, Antony Sher, Don Warrington and Timothy West (with Stephanie Cole as the Fool). An adaptation by the Australian Malthouse Theatre set the action among the Northern Territory’s indigenous community. The most headline-snatching casting was Glenda Jackson in Deborah Warner’s modern-dress production. She was magnificent. Scything her way through the part, she made the fuss about a woman playing the king sound like gibberish. Lear is now performed more often than Hamlet. In the age of displacement, the appeal of a play that makes a fervent plea for the outcast is unlikely to wane.
The theatre has been slow to produce new work about people in flight and on the move. Isango Ensemble’s A Man of Good Hope was much needed, as was Battersea Arts Centre’s London Stories: Made By Migrants. Stories about coming to London from Syria, Jamaica, China and Auschwitz were told by the people who lived them. And given another dimension in an exhibition of objects – a scatter of shells, a calling card from a detention centre – that were important to the tellers. This opposite of hi-tech theatre is one of the hopes for the stage. No other art form could deliver such an intimate, straight-from-the-heart experience.
It has not been a strong year for political drama. That may change. Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose School of Rock was rousing, was teased by Graham Norton with the idea of a Donald Trump musical. Lloyd Webber suggested it might be called “The Lady and the Trump”.
We saw a number of breakthrough performances. Billie Piper was glorious in Yerma and Helen McCrory indelible in despair in The Deep Blue Sea. John Tiffany’s buoyant production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child showed the spellbinding talent of Noma Dumezweni and also produced a new star. Anthony Boyle is an actor who deserves a tremendous future.
Manchester’s Royal Exchange was on a roll. Maxine Peake and Sharon Duncan-Brewster were luminous in A Streetcar Named Desire. As was the cast of Hattie Naylor’s beautiful adaptation of Sarah Waters’s The Night Watch. In which Thalissa Teixeira was outstanding – as she was again in Yerma. A dazzle to watch.
The year also saw the arrival of the explanatory title. Usually attached to a surprising subject. At Hampstead, Tony Kushner’s argumentative play about families and leftwing politics had its 14-word title shortened to iHo. At the National, A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer was one of the most lively and least likely of musicals. The trend continues. In 2017, Josie Rourke’s Donmar will stage a new musical. It is called The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee Takes Oral Evidence on Whitehall’s Relationship with Kids Company.
Top 10
Shakespeare Trilogy Donmar at King’s Cross
One of the most important theatrical events of the past 20 years.
Billie Piper as Yerma Young Vic
Lorca explosively reimagined.
Escaped Alone Royal Court
Caryl Churchill’s light-on-its feet apocalyptic vision.
A Man of Good Hope Young Vic
Marvellous, marimba-driven refugee story.
Glenda Jackson as Lear Old Vic Powerful and authentic.
The Night Watch Royal Exchange, Manchester
Hattie Naylor’s haunting adaptation of Sarah Waters’s novel.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Lyttelton
Glorious Sharon D Clarke as the mother of the blues.
Long Day’s Journey Into Night Bristol Old Vic
With a filigree Lesley Manville.
Faith Healer Donmar Warehouse
Lyndsey Turner’s luminescent production, with a superb rain design by Es Devlin.
London Stories: Made By Migrants Battersea Arts Centre
Urgent, first-hand accounts.
Turkey
The sacking of Emma Rice from the Globe.
• More from the Observer critics’ review of 2016:
Film, television, radio, pop and rock, classical music, dance, architecture, art and games
