From Denzel to Pacino, it was a starry year

It may be hard to remember right now, but this was more than the year "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" didn't open. This also was more than the year a terrorist bomb did not go off in the busiest part of Times Square on an extremely lucky Saturday night.

On a brighter note, there were amazing performances this year by many of those high-priced stars that theater people worried would be just stunt casting. (To name just a few, start with Liev Schreiber, Al Pacino, Scarlett Johansson, Denzel Washington, Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones). It also was a year of spectacular work by American directors, especially Daniel Sullivan ("The Merchant of Venice"), Gregory Mosher ("A View From the Bridge") and Kenny Leon ("Fences").

Careful readers will note this list does not include productions of anything written in the last 30 years. There were breakthroughs Off-Broadway by impressive new playwrights (Annie Baker's "Circle Mirror Transformation," Kristoffer Diaz's "Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity," Kim Rosenstock's "Tigers Be Still").

On Broadway, however, the handful of adventurous new and newish plays failed to grab a mainstream audience - even with Mark Rylance and David Hyde Pierce ("La Bete") or Brendan Fraser and Denis O'Hare (the sweet, misunderstood "Elling").

An even more brutal audience disconnect was seen in the transfer of the irreverent "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" from sold-out embrace at the Public Theater to mild disinterest on Broadway. After this, and the quick folding of another Off-Broadway transfer, "The Scottsboro Boys," don't be surprised to see a slowdown in Broadway experimentation. On the positive side, this could refocus energy back to an overshadowed and withering Off-Broadway scene.

And what is happening to new Broadway musicals? In the spring, all four Tony nominees were rock shows, including the good but not great "American Idiot" and the glorified nightclub act, "Million Dollar Quartet." "Sondheim on Sondheim," Twyla Tharp's "Come Fly Away" and "The Scottsboro Boys" may have been imperfect, but at least they were by real theater artists. But they vanished, while three mindless pop-clone oldies keep bringing in the crowds ("Quartet," "Rock of Ages" and "Rain").

Business was shakier in the fall than in the spring. Still, despite indifferent-to-negative reviews, "The Addams Family" and "Promises, Promises" were in the $1-million-a-week club.

And happily, without help from Hollywood, the theater has been growing its own wonderful generation of star actresses. Most conspicuous are the radiant Lily Rabe, giving Pacino a worthy foil as Portia in "Merchant," and Katie Finneran, whose hilarious cameo made it necessary to endure the second act of "Promises, Promises."

Other women to cherish this year include Elizabeth Marvel (in the riveting deconstruction of "The Little Foxes"), Lisa Emery (in a splendid Pinter double bill), Laila Robins (imperiously gorgeous in "That Face"), Zoe Kazan (depressed but never annoying as the hardest character in "Angels in America") and, in an astonishing debut, newcomer Nina Arianda (in "Venus in Fur").

The Signature Theater had a terrific year, first with Horton Foote's nine-play "The Orphans' Home Cycle" and now with the don't-miss revival of Tony Kushner's monumental "Angels in America." The ever-admirable Lincoln Center Theater took two big chances, and stumbled big with "A Free Man of Color."

Neither "Women on the Verge" nor "Spider-Man" had out-of-town tryouts, and both suffered from having to work out their problems here in front of the New York chat rooms. Oh, and after four delays, "Spidey" is now scheduled to open Feb. 7. See you next year.

The best on and off Broadway in 2010

1. "A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE" (Closed)

Liev Schreiber was shattering as the Brooklyn longshoreman who loves his wife's niece too much, and Scarlett Johansson was altogether remarkable in her Broadway debut in Gregory Mosher's taut, muscular, unforgettable staging of Arthur Miller's 1957 folk tragedy. This play has never made as much sense to me.

2. "THE MERCHANT OF VENICE" (Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th St., through Jan. 9 then returns Feb. 1-20)

Al Pacino keeps finding quieter and scarier layers to his harrowing, beautifully restrained Shylock and Lily Rabe makes a wise, devastating Portia. Director Daniel Sullivan's haunting production, which transferred to Broadway after a smash at Central Park over the summer, finds the dark coherence in Shakespeare's most disturbing so-called comedy.

3. STEPHEN SONDHEIM

What an 80th birthday year it has been for America's master of the grown-up musical (and for us), with multiple concert tributes here and in London, a Broadway theater named after him, a long run for "A Little Night Music," his own brilliant bestselling book about lyric writing and, earlier this month, a delightful guest appearance on "The Colbert Report." More, please.

4. "FENCES" (Closed)

Denzel Washington and Viola Davis had subtle layers of sweetness and buried fury in Kenny Leon's splendid staging of August Wilson's structurally messy but glorious early Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about a man born too early for integrated major-league baseball.

5. "DRIVING MISS DAISY" (Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45th St., through April 9)

There's not a safe moment, not a disposable emotion in these stunning performances by Vanessa Redgrave, James Earl Jones and Boyd Gaines. Sure, Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama is manipulative, but it is supremely elegant manipulation, directed by David Esbjornson as a shimmering triumph of interlocking life studies.

6. "ANGELS IN AMERICA" (Signature Theatre Company, 555 W. 42nd St., through March 27)

The Angel has landed again, which means that Tony Kushner's monumental, subversive, altogether amazing masterwork is back in all its gargantuan, two-night, big-brain glory. Some of the world has changed since the Reagan-era-set AIDS epic won its Pulitzer and its Tonys. But director Michael Greif and eight indefatigable actors prove that the real cosmic and human crises are as perilous, yet as falling-down funny as ever.

7. "RED" (Closed)

Alfred Molina imbued Mark Rothko with a blowhard majesty in John Logan's visceral two-character study, which transcended pat expectations of biographies of artists. The London import, also starring Eddie Redmayne as Rothko's young apprentice, was a gripping portrait of the cranky and brilliant American abstract expressionist.

8. "GATZ" (Closed)

Director John Collins and the dauntingly original Elevator Repair Service invented a way to read us "The Great Gatsby" and play it out at the same time. The result at the Public Theater was a transporting eight-hour day that stayed freakily true to every word of F. Scott Fitzgerald's jazz-age novel while re-creating it as a playful work of pure imagination.

9. "BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON" (Jacobs Theatre, 242 W. 45th St., through Jan. 2)

This audacious musical, written and directed by Alex Timbers, is a politically savvy, politically incorrect emo-rock musical that toggles between a 19th century American history lesson and up-to-the-minute sensibilities. The show, a smash at the Public Theater last spring, is smart, irreverent and intentionally sophomoric - a combination that, alas, has not caught fire with Broadway audiences.

10. "WHEN THE RAIN STOPS FALLING" (Closed)

This riveting all-the-lonely-people epic followed generations of quiet desperation, back and forth, from England and Australia, from 1959 until 2039. Written by Andrew Bovell ("Strictly Ballroom") and directed by the smart and sensitive David Cromer, the extraordinary drama briefly wove its own quietly spellbinding, apocalyptic mystery at Lincoln Center Theater's Newhouse Theater. Seldom has on-stage weather felt as scary-sad. I'm sorry that most people missed it.