1995 YEAR IN REVIEW : M.E. WARREN’S FAVORITE PRODUCTIONS

In chronological order:

* “Alegria,” Cirque du Soleil, South Coast Plaza mall, January. The latest extravaganza from the biggest of all big tops featured 10-year-old contortionists from Mongolia, a Russian who danced in the air with a giant spinning cube, and an international troupe of acrobats who used trampolines, bars, and the trapeze to fly through the air with--you guessed it--the greatest of ease. State-of-the-art circus.

* “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the Theatre District, Costa Mesa; March. Director Joan Lescot’s ambitious production of Dale Wasserman’s tragicomedy was vivid and memorable. Leading the impressive ensemble of performances were Kennedy York’s stuttering mama’s boy, Billy, Nancy Peterson’s tightly wound Nurse Ratched, and Brian Harvey’s manic Cheswick.

* “Beau Jeste,” Long Beach Playhouse, April. Director Robert G. Leigh found the humanity in James Sherman’s script, ably assisted by Tim Diamond playing an actor hired to impersonate the perfect Jewish man, and Warren Davis in a dead-on performance as a not-so-perfect Jewish therapist.

* “Cirque Eloize,” Orange County Performing Arts Center, May. Seven performers proved that less can still be highly entertaining in this scaled-down, intimate circus that had everything from clowns to gymnasts to jugglers. No aerial acts, but what happened on the floor left one feeling airborne.

* “The Baltimore Waltz,” Drama at UCI Stage Two, November. The star of the show was Paula Vogel’s script, in its Orange County premiere. Her tale of love and loss ricochets around the dark terrain of AIDS in a farcical, fantastical, whirlwind tour of Europe as a brother and sister search for a mad scientist with an unorthodox cure for a deadly disease.

* “Noises Off,” Gem Theatre, Garden Grove; November. Kevin Cochran’s well-cast production of this backstage farce rolled from laugh to laugh. My favorite was J.J. Snyder as Brooke Ashton, the ingenue with an empty head and a full figure who just couldn’t keep those contact lenses in her eyes.

* “David Copperfield: The Magic is Back,” Orange County Performing Arts Center; December. A master of illusion and theatricality, Copperfield put on a show that was slick, sumptuous and persuasive. Never mind that you know bodies can’t be sawed in half or people made to disappear--two hours of Copperfield’s magic make you wish you knew how to fly, too.

* Tony Reverditto/Way Off Broadway Playhouse, Santa Ana, eight seasons. Reverditto, the moving force behind this scrappy, unconventional production company, has moved on. WOB had a personality all its own, and it was largely his. Who else would have, could have, produced plays in a building that shook every time the train went by? Arrivaderci, Reverditto.