The best of 2012, exciting comings up

La Jolla Playhouse’s ‘Yoshimi’ tops list, with Hershey Felder’s ‘American Story’ up next in January

By Charlene Baldridge | SDUN Theater Critic

A short note on what the nearsighted critic thought the best of onstage 2012: I once wrote a year-end wrap up with subcategories like “Everyone else hated it; I loved it. Everyone else loved it; I hated it.” Then there was a category titled “Few bothered to attend.” This year is no exception. There might be a new category titled “They raved; I was indifferent,” all of which causes one to ask, “Did we really see the same thing?”

Among the 180-some events, readings, concerts, operas, plays and readings I attended this year, there were many over which others, including laypeople, vehemently contested my views. Some did not see what I saw; others complained that I was way too kind or way too cruel. Oh, maybe not cruel, but perhaps a bit less accepting.

It’s an odd thing, loving the art form and occasionally finding the execution falling so far short of what might have been. And one never wants to be the executioner when those on the other side of the lights try so hard.

One such confrontation took place at a holiday party where I heard another critic say, “Ask Charlene. She liked it.” The subject was “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,” a new musical directed by former Artistic Director Des McAnuff recently at La Jolla Playhouse, and inspired by several Flaming Lips albums.

I am not a Flaming Lips fan, but I did some research and listening, and found their lyrics simple and profound when dealing so abstractly with the diagnosis and death of a promising young woman who loses her battle with cancer. The album was inspired by a friend of Lips leader Wayne Coyne, who is known sometimes for riding atop his audience in a gigantic plastic bubble. You’ve got to love that.

I knew from the get-go that Yoshimi couldn’t win: the cancer rollercoaster was truthfully portrayed, the pink-robot enemies (and one gigantic friend) in Yoshimi’s bloodstream were so wondrously conceived, the closing song so strong in its message, that I was totally involved and devastated by the battle and with the take-away message that we must love one another while we can.

The spectacle was equaled only by Jake Heggie’s opera “Moby-Dick.” The scenic designer for both was the amazing Robert Brill.

Productions I adored also include the world premiere of “Tortilla Curtain,” an adaptation of T.C. Boyle’s novel, produced by San Diego Repertory; circle circle dot dot’s “The Deconstruction of a Drag Queen,” which resurfaces in fringe festivals in San Diego and elsewhere this year; Moxie Theatre’s “A Man, His Wife and His Hat” and “The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek”; ion theatre company’s productions of “Topdog/Underdog,” “Chicago: A Speakeasy Cabaret,” “The Little Flower of East Orange,” and “Julia”; The Old Globe’s “Scottsboro Boys” (I paid to see it again), “Richard III,” “Good People,” and “God of Carnage”; Mo’olelo’s “Hoodoo Love”; La Jolla Playhouse’s wondrously prophetic “Blood and Gifts” and the world-premiere musical “Hands on a Hardbody”; Moonlight’s “Sweeney Todd” and “Fiddler on the Roof”; Lamb’s Player’s “Joe vs. the Volcano”; UCSD’s “In the Red and Brown Water”; Cygnet’s “Parade”; and Diversionary’s “Pippin.”

In the “I didn’t see what others thought so wonderful” category I find the Old Globe’s pop culture musical “Nobody Loves You” and “Allegiance—A New American Musical,” the latter with a great story and performances and so-so music.

To look for in January: the world premiere of Hershey Felder’s “American Story” at the Birch North Park Theatre Jan. 4 – Feb. 3; one-night only reading of Shakespeare’s “King Lear” with Ken Ruta and Jonathan McMurtry at North Coast Repertory Theatre Jan. 15; “Pygmalion” with Robert Sean Leonard at The Old Globe Jan. 12 –Feb. 17; the Pulitzer Prize winning “Clybourne Park” Jan. 10 – Feb. 10 at San Diego Repertory; and San Diego Opera’s “The Daughter of the Regiment,” opening Jan. 26 at the Civic Theatre.