Best Theatre of 2019

At this point, there is no more theatre scheduled for 2019 (though maybe a film or two before the end of the year...).  So here is my list of productions I enjoyed (either enjoyed thoroughly or I felt there were significant redeeming features).

Jan.
1979 by Michael Healey -- Canadian Stage
In the Next Room by Sara Ruhl  -- RedWit @ Tarragon

Feb.
Fine China/A Perfect Bowl of Pho -- Fu-Gen @ Factory Theatre
You Never Can Tell by GB Shaw -- George Brown @ Young Centre
Othello -- Shakespeare BASH'd
Little Menace by Harold Pinter -- Soulpepper (solid evening of shorts except for The Basement, which was weak)

March
Time Stands Still by Donald Margulies -- East Side Players
Kiss of the Spider Woman -- Eclipse @ The Don Jail
Betrayal by Harold Pinter -- Red Sandcastle
Retreat by Kat Sandler -- Hart House
Entrances & Exits -- Howland Company @ Crowsnest
Rear Window -- Theatre Passe Muraille

April
Copenhagen by Frayn -- Soulpepper
As You Like It -- Shakespeare BASH'd (excellent production)
Bigre -- Canadian Stage (had its moments but was about 45 minutes too long)

May
Too Good to Be True -- Video Cabaret (interesting experiment in their new theatre space taking VideoCab style and applying it to a non-history play)
Hand to God -- Coal Mine

June
Bloomsday by Stephen Dietz -- Chicago
The Memo by Vaclav Havel -- Chicago

July
The Tape Escape -- Outside the March (a guided escape room experience with full-blown audience participation)
The Taming of the Shrew -- Toronto Fringe
The Commandment -- Toronto Fringe
Three Men and a Bike -- Toronto Fringe (a little baggy but overall quite fun)
Tita Jokes -- Toronto Fringe
Molly Bloom -- Toronto Fringe
The Huns -- Toronto Fringe
Midsummer's Night's Dream -- Bard's Bus Tour (back in Withrow Park!)

August
Greenland -- Summerworks

September
The Glass Menagerie -- Bloor Village West Players
Yaga by Kat Sandler -- Tarragon

October
The Flick by Annie Baker -- Outside the March @ Crow's Nest
Jungle -- Tarragon
Cantatrice Chauve (with subtitles!) -- Theatre francais de Toronto
Henry VII -- Stratford (a well-done production of a very minor, non-essential (co-written) Shakespeare history play)

November
Trout Stanley by Claudia Dey -- Factory Theatre
The Learned Ladies, adapted from Moliere -- George Brown

December
Buffoon -- Tarragon (the acting was first-rate, though the storyline was unrelentingly grim.  Also, it was disrespectful to hold the curtain a full 15 minutes for late-comers...)
Between Riverside and Crazy by Stephen Guirgis -- Coal Mine Theatre
Christmas Carol -- Three Ships Collective @ Campbell House

It was a pretty good year, theatre-wise, though in several cases these were near-great performances. While I certainly saw more things at the Toronto Fringe in 2018, this was a more relaxed year for me, and I probably did enjoy it a bit more overall.

Now, normally I do err on the side of including plays on my list, so long as I liked one aspect of the show (the acting typically) even if I don't like the staging or occasionally the plot (though plot seems to weigh the most heavily with me).  However, I really didn't like the direction of Soulpepper's Streetcar Named Desire.  There were these musical interludes that stretched an already long play past the three hour mark!  I also thought that Stanley and Blanche started at such a high level of antagonism (and the play was done in a fairly realistic manner) that I simply couldn't believe that Stanley wouldn't have murdered her after week two, let alone let her stay the entire summer.  In other words, the production annoyed me so much that it actually made me reassess the play itself negatively!  The only reason I bring this up is that Glenn Sumi put this production in his top ten list of the decade(!), and I find it more than a little astonishing at how profoundly I disagree with him.

From within this list, I suppose my very favourites were 1979, Time Stands Still, Kiss of the Spider Woman (despite being on a metal stool for the whole show!), Betrayal (the Red Sandcastle production), Shakespeare BASH'd doing As You Like It, Hand to God, Yaga and Christmas Carol.

It looks like 2020 will get off to good start with Sweat at Canadian Stage and a few things I might check out from the Toronto Fringe Winterfest and then Shakespeare Bash'd doing Cymbeline.  I'm a bit on the fence for Kushner's Caroline or Change, but maybe I'll go this time around.  I'll report back in a year what I liked.