Critics Circle Picks ‘Misanthrope’ for Best Production

“The Misanthrope,” the La Jolla Playhouse update of Moliere’s classic about an artist’s frustration with the shallow values of his culture, won for best production at the sixth annual San Diego Critics Circle Awards ceremony held at the Abbey Restaurant Sunday.

But “The Misanthrope” picked up no other awards in a year when no one production swept the votes as the Old Globe’s “Coriolanus” did last year and the La Jolla Playhouse’s “A Walk in the Woods” did the year before.

Instead, the 14 winners were drawn from 11 shows and eleven of the awards went to the Old Globe (seven) and the La Jolla Playhouse (four).

The remaining three awards went to the Lawrence Welk Resort Theatre for best musical (“She Loves Me”), Starlight Musical Theatre for best choreographer (Don and Bonnie Ward, Starlight’s artistic directors, for “My One and Only”) and UC San Diego for best scenic design (J. Michael Griggs, “Strindberg Sonata.”)

Only two shows, the Old Globe’s “The School for Scandal” and its current hit, “Breaking Legs,” won more than one award apiece.

“Scandal,” the Richard Brinsley Sheridan play about malicious gossip mongers in 18th century England, garnered a win for Old Globe executive director Craig Noel as best director, (Noel was last recognized in 1987 with a special award commending his 50 years in San Diego theater), Paxton Whitehead as best actor and Robert Wojewodski for best costume design.

“Legs,” Tom Dulack’s world premiere comedy about a playwright who gets into trouble when mobsters want to finance his play, picked up a best supporting actor award for Michael Genovese (who won the same award in 1986 for “Gillette” at the La Jolla Playhouse) and a best supporting actress award for Sue Giosa in her San Diego theater debut.

“Legs,” the only winner still running, plays at the Old Globe through Friday.

The Globe, which had dominated the nominations for the October, 1988, through Sept. 16, 1989, season with 24, won all the directing and acting honors, with the best actress award going to Sada Thompson for “Driving Miss Daisy,” Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play at the Old Globe.

The La Jolla Playhouse, which picked up 14 nominations for a season half the length of the Globe’s, won the awards which emphasized overall production, including best production (“The Misanthrope”), best road show (“Dangerous Games”) and best new play (“Nebraska,” Keith Reddin’s story about tensions among the people who watch the missiles).

But the San Diego Repertory Theatre, which had 10 nominations, including six for the critically acclaimed “Burning Patience”--the most nominated show of the evening--left empty-handed.

The San Diego critics differed sharply from New York critics in their assessment of “Dangerous Games” as best road show. “Dangerous Games,” co-created by Broadway choreographer Graciela Daniele and Jim Lewis as a dance/music/theater piece about torture, eroticism and machismo in a nameless Latin American country, closed on Broadway shortly after being savaged by the New York critics a little over a week ago.

A Broadway failure of 26 years ago was also honored by the San Diego critics when they gave the best musical nod to Lawrence Welk’s “She Loves Me.” The story, about two people who meet through the personals under pseudonyms and don’t realize they work in the same shop, has achieved cult status over the years in the regional theater circuit.

The San Diego Critics Circle gave out two special awards in addition to the 14. The financially beleaguered La Jolla Playhouse, a strong presence in the awards scene since the theater was revived in 1983 after a 19-year absence, was commended for “outstanding achievement in choosing and sustaining a standard of artistic integrity invaluable as a catalyst in San Diego’s emerging theater renaissance.”

Sledgehammer Theatre, a small, homeless theater which has made a practice of building temporary theater spaces in abandoned warehouses, was praised “for outstanding achievement in the creative carving of theater out of the void and their proof that rowdiness and art are not necessarily contradictory terms.”

The award winners were:

DIRECTOR: Craig Noel, “The School for Scandal,” Old Globe Theatre

ACTOR: Paxton Whitehead, “The School for Scandal,” Old Globe Theatre

ACTRESS: Sada Thompson, “Driving Miss Daisy,” Old Globe Theatre

PRODUCTION: “The Misanthrope,” La Jolla Playhouse

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Mike Genovese, “Breaking Legs,” Old Globe Theatre

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Sue Giosa, “Breaking Legs,” Old Globe Theatre

CHOREOGRAPHY: Don and Bonnie Ward, Starlight Musical Theatre

SOUND DESIGN: John Kilgore, “Down the Road,” La Jolla Playhouse

NEW PLAY: Keith Reddin, “Nebraska,” La Jolla Playhouse

MUSICAL: “She Loves Me,” Lawrence Welk Resort Theatre

ROAD SHOW: “Dangerous Games,” co-production of the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia, Spoleto Festival, USA and La Jolla Playhouse at the LaJolla Playhouse

SPECIAL AWARDS: La Jolla Playhouse and Sledgehammer Theatre.