10. The Merchant of Venice - Royal Shakespeare Company.
Polly Findlay's melancholic production bold and striking, just what the RSC needed in a season of safe, uninteresting productions.
9. Measure for Measure - Barbican Centre / Cheek by Jowl.
This Russian-language production set the play in a fascist police state, with obvious similarities to Putin's Russia along with a stark design and gorgeous Russian folk music.
8. Antigone - Barbican Centre / Theatre de le Ville and Toneelgroep Amsterdam.
Ivo Van Hove's reserved, slow production disappointed some critics but blew me away with minimal movement and sudden explosions of voices and music in an idiosyncratic translation by Anne Carson. Full essay here.
7. Temple - Donmar Warehouse.
HRH Simon Russell Beale, ladies and gentlemen.
6. Lippy - Young Vic / Dead Centre.
This strange new play (the term is used in the loosest sense of the word) explored just about every theme that's vaguely relevant: religion, the media, family, death, life, hate and the very ways in which we construct narratives. A gem.
5. Hamlet - Barbican Centre / Sonia Freidman Productions.
Much like number 8, Lyndsey Turner's production of Shakespeare's greatest play disappointed some. I, however, loved the design by Es Devil and Jon Hopkins' beautiful soundtrack along with just about all of the performances. Full essay here.
4. The Crucible - Royal Exchange Theatre.
My first visit to the Manchester's favourite in-the-round-venue, I initially found this productions fusion of traditional and contemporary dress odd, but the acting (and a brilliant central performance by Jonjo O'Neill as Proctor) and a stunning coup de theatre in the second half had waiter flood the stage from below while rain poured down on the doomed residents of Salem.
3. Bakkhai - Almeida Theatre
The second in the Greeks season at the Almeida, James Macdonald echoed the original performance model, using three actors and a Chorus. While the songs of the latter did ware, the three leads all juggled their parts well in a modern, wiry translation by Anne Carson. Full essay here.
2. An Oak Tree - National Theatre / Tim Crouch
Tim Crouch's semi-rehearsed two hander about a stage hyptonistic begins as a play about a magician above a pub and ends a play about life and love and the very nature of theatre itself. A quite one, but shattering nonetheless.
1. Oresteia - Almeida Theatre
It's hard to say how much I fell completely and utterly in love with this production. Every aspect of it blew me away. My review-slash-love letter is here.
