Boston Metro Spotlight: January 2009

With the holiday folderol over and done, Boston’s two world-class companies are free to go mano a mano again. The Huntington Theatre’s contestant is a revival of the 2007 Williamstown Theatre Festival production of The Corn is Green (January 9-February 8), starring Kate Burton as a flinty Welsh teacher who takes on the town tough (played by Burton’s son, Morgan Ritchie). The American Repertory Theatre counters with The Seagull (January 10-February 1), directed by Hungary’s János Szász, with rep member Karen MacDonald well cast as Arkadina.

Stacy Keach sweeps into town in the Broadway Across America tour of Frost/Nixon (January 27-February 8). Yes, it’s the same Peter Morgan script that debuted at London’s Donmar Warehouse, went on to the West End and Broadway, and is now out in film form, starring Frank Langella — offering a perfect opportunity to compare and contrast.

Nancy E. Carroll is Boston’s go-to actress for demanding roles (Homebody Kabul and Frozen, to name just a few), so expectations run high for her portrayal of Joan Didion in The Year of Magical Thinking at the Lyric Stage Company (January 2-31). SpeakEasy Stage Company, in residence at the Boston Center for the Arts, snagged Paul Rudnick’s latest, the charming tripartite comedy The New Century (January 16-February 14). Paula Plum plays Helene, the hyper-entitled Long Island matron whose parental bragging rights extend to her extravagantly gay offspring.

Tucked away amid BCA black boxes this month: Crying Deer (January 7-24), a Grotowski-inspired Iranian/American collaboration helmed by Vahdat Yeganeh; the new Boston Art Theatre launching director Robert Croft’s adaptation of Uncle Vanya, with Crofts as Astrov and fellow Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre alum Stacy Fischer as Yelena (January 8-24); and Zeitgeist Stage Company’s New England premiere of Robert Farquhar’s Bad Jazz (January 30-February 21), about a bunch of on-the-edge artists. Vermont’s Bread and Puppet Theater returns to the BCA’s grand Cyclorama space for The Sourdough Philosophy Spectacle (January 29-February 1), about “the need for human fermentation.” The piquant political/philosophical stew will be ladled out in two versions: evening shows geared to adults (12 and up, at any rate) and family-friendly “circus”-style matinees.

There’s another circus in town as well: Cirque Le Masque’s Carnivale at the Cutler Majestic Theatre (January 21-25). And for a sure-fire kid-pleaser, you can count on Seussical at the Wheelock Family Theatre (January 30-March 1), featuring Andrew Barbato — a recent stunner as Peter Pan — as the Cat in the Hat.

The Nora offers a new translation of The Cherry Orchard at Cambridge’s Central Square Theatre, with Annette Miller as Madame Ranyevskaya (January 8-February 1). The Actors’ Shakespeare Theatre branches out a bit with The Duchess of Malfi, presented at Midway Studios in artsy Fort Point Channel (January 8- February 1). ASP regulars Ken Cheeseman and Paula Langton are on hiatus, stepping out to perform Daughter of Venus by radical historian Howard Zinn at the Boston Playwrights Theatre (January 22-February 8): the story of a Jewish-Italian scientist, his fragile wife, and their resentful daughter (Angie Jepson), it’s part of a year-long, citywide “Zinn Fest.” BPT is also hosting Company One in an urban poetry revue titled ARTiculation (January 9-24).

In the suburbs, Watertown’s New Rep tackles Cabaret (January 11-February 3), with Aimee Doherty as Sally Bowles and John Kuntz as the louche emcee, a role he was seemingly born to. Merrimack Rep in Lowell wraps up a Richard Dresser trilogy on “the pursuit of happiness” in America with the regional premiere A View of the Harbor (January 8-February 1). Worcester’s Foothills Theatre celebrates Elvis Presley with Idols of the King (January 10-February 1), a bio-musical featuring Graceland-approved impersonator Jack Foltyn.

Out in the hibernating Berkshires, Shakespeare and Company is still astir: Elizabeth Aspenleider stars in Theresa Rebeck’s one-woman comedy Bad Dates (January 9-March 8). It’s flashback time in Rhode Island, as Pawtucket’s Gamm Theatre revives Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing (January 15-February 15), featuring Wendy Overly as the resolutely respectable Bessie Berger and artistic director Tony Estrella as a wisecracking boarder. Also, Providence’s Trinity Rep brings back Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (January 30-March 8), in which company member Joe Wilson, Jr. is sure to shine.