The Best of ‘87--From Shaw to Children’s Shows : <i> As the New Year dawns, regular contributors to Stage Beat and Kid Beat reflect on the best theater they saw in the last 12 months. : </i>

Of the shows I reviewed this year, the most glittering production was Martin Benson’s staging of “Misalliance” at South Coast Repertory. It achieved maximum opulence without sacrificing the sharp edge of Shaw’s ideas and his wit.

The most glittering new script was Suzanne Lummis’ “October 22, 4004 B.C., Saturday” at the Cast. Caught between cosmic thoughts and human feelings, her characters could have just sat there and talked, and the evening would have been entertaining. But Lummis built the evening into something more by taking her people through an intricate set of narrative hoops.

Lummis’ comedy is bright and gentle. So is the charming byplay of the “Canned Laughter” revue by Jeanette Collins and Mimi Friedman, also at the Cast.

But a few other local playwrights showed a flair for darker cackles. Katie Ford’s “Out in America,” seen briefly at the Wallenboyd, was a surreal examination of a crazy family from the perspective of its youngest member. Ebbe Roe Smith’s “How Much Would Chuck?,” at McCadden Place, looked at a house of savvy women, fighting over the charms of a male cipher. Dan Zukovic’s “Who Killed Orson Welles?” was a slight but savage skewering of Hollywood.

Autumn was the season of plays about Eastern European emigres in New York, and I preferred the two I reviewed in Waiver theaters, Richard Nelson’s “Between East and West” and especially Abraham Tetenbaum’s “Heat of Re-Entry,” to the one that got the fancy production at the Mark Taper, “Hunting Cockroaches.”

“Misalliance” wasn’t the only outstanding revival. At the PCPA Theaterfest, John Fletcher’s staging of “Good,” a study of an oblivious man’s descent into evil, was a humdinger, alternately searing and chilling. (Although it wasn’t exactly a revival, Theaterfest’s lavish “Hans Christian Andersen” was another sign that this Santa Maria and Solvang institution is back on track after a couple of changes of management.)

The Old Globe’s “There’s One in Every Marriage,” an adaptation of Feydeau, and La Mirada’s “Noises Off” were polished to a fine sheen. Paul Blake’s winsome staging of “She Loves Me” fit its original home, the Lobero in Santa Barbara, better than it fit the Ahmanson.

No show tickled me more than Tom Henschel’s revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s “How the Other Half Loves” at Theatre 40. And Robert Ellenstein’s six-actor revival of “Hamlet,” a Fringe Festival production at the Megaw, was an impressive experiment.

Finally, a nod to a couple of women who transcended the shows they were in: Lori Wilner as “Hannah Senesh” and Jo Anne Worley, who instructed us to “Call Me Madam.” Whatever you say, Madam Worley.