ARNOLD ARONSON
Professor of Theater

On top stage performances in 2005:

Technically, it wasn't theater, but Patti Smith's "Horses" concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) surpassed any recent plays I have seen. Perhaps the whole idea of theater needs to be rethought.

But for my theater choices, here goes:

1) The Wooster Group's revival of House/Lights, based on Gertrude Stein's Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights. Thirty years after its inception, the Wooster Group continues to do the most innovative work of any American company. This was a revival of a production first done in 1999, and it was even better this time around. Also of note was their production of Poor Theatre, based on the work of Polish theater director Jerzy Grotowski from the 1960 and on the recent work of choreographer William Forsythe. In both productions, as in all their work, the group explores questions of theatrical space, framing, simulacra and text.

2) Isabelle Huppert's amazing performance in the French production of Sarah Kane's Psychosis 4:48—in its quietly intense way, the theatrical equivalent of Patti Smith. The "play" is a harrowing meditation on suicide, and Huppert's intense, rigorous, minimalist performance was devastating.

3) The New York City Opera's production of Handel's opera Orlando. Some of the most exciting work in theatre in recent years has actually been in opera where the staging possibilities are more open, and the budgets, size of the stage and technology allow directors and designers more leeway than in conventional theater—although such possibilities can also be abused. For about 20 years now, baroque opera has been rediscovered and explored as a medium for postmodern interpretation. Orlando, first staged at the wonderful Glimmerglass Opera, managed to combine superb singing and innovative staging to create something in equal parts provocative and charming.

4) The Moscow Cats Theatre, harking back to the days of second-tier vaudeville. The sheer delight of watching a cat do nothing—but doing it on cue in front of an audience—reminds one of what a simple joy theatre can be.

What's ahead?

1) We'll see more use of digital video projection in both commercial and experimental theater. Recent examples include The Woman in White on Broadway, Shelter and Super Vision at BAM, and the work of Collapsable Giraffe in the off-off Broadway world of Williamsburg.  In most cases, the cleverness of the technology was compromised by the limitations of the stage and even more so by the banality of the scripts; but the ongoing experimentation gives hope that something truly original will emerge.

2) Experimentation with online, real-time streaming of play rehearsals will continue. (Leading the way are Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theatre and Collapsable Giraffe.) It is not clear yet whether this will ever be anything more than a gimmick, but it does allow a certain insight into a process as crucial as the finished product.