Hope springs eternal

ONE could argue that every production arrives with great expectations. Whether it’s Shakespeare or Sondheim, Beckett or Brecht, a quirky new musical or a political satire, there’s nearly always something to look forward to.

We had high hopes for many shows that opened this year. Whether they lived up to our hopes -- or their own hype -- was often another matter.

Numerous contenders didn’t quite make our cut, including Cornerstone’s Muslim adaptation of “You Can’t Take It With You,” the Southern California premiere of Suzan-Lori Parks’ “In the Blood,” Tim Robbins’ political satire “Embedded” and Del Shores’ “The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife.” What was perhaps the most highly anticipated theatrical event of the year was on TV: HBO’s “Angels in America.”

In the end, the verdicts came down with the final curtain. Here’s our take:

“The Producers” at the Pantages Theatre

Expectation: Kick lines of Nazi storm troopers? A dress shaped like the Chrysler Building? On a man? Shocking. Hilarious. This was what we first heard about Mel Brooks’ musical version of his irreverent 1968 movie. Then it reaped a record 12 Tony Awards. The headliners for L.A.? Jason Alexander and Martin Short. They played men trying to profit from a flop -- but “The Producers” had hit written all over it.

Did it live up?: They say a hit show has legs. This one had hands. Hands that picked your pocket for as much as $95 a ticket, plus fees. Hands that, once the curtain went up, grabbed you by the lapels and shook you hard, insisting you laugh, laugh, laugh. The production earned some legitimate laughs, but too often the jokes were a groan-inducing tough sell. Maybe that’s why director-choreographer Susan Stroman whipped the show to such frenzied peaks of energy. Alexander worked particularly hard, which had the backhanded effect of making him annoyingly manic. Same for Short, but that’s his usual MO, so he was better able to work it to his advantage.

-- Daryl H. Miller

“Homebody/Kabul” at the Mark Taper Forum

Expectation: Tony Kushner’s sprawling Anglo/Afghani look at global dislocation proved prescient when the Sept. 11 attacks transpired just before its New York premiere. Several original actors sign on for the new L.A. staging; Maggie Gyllenhaal hits the local boards for the first time since the indie film “Secretary” made her a star. Steppenwolf sage Frank Galati oversees all.

Did it live up?: Under Galati’s lucid direction, Kushner’s nonpareil dialectic struck nerves. This sparked walkouts, debates, vast thoughts and some return visits. Audiences capable of going the distance were rewarded with endless insights from an indelible cast, pivoting on the piercing Gyllenhaal. Linda Emond’s epic opening soliloquy -- a transcendent performance for the ages -- haunted this masterwork of our traumatized age.

-- David C. Nichols

“Anna in the Tropics” at South Coast Repertory

Expectation: Talk about a rapid ascent. After only one staging at a small theater in Florida, Nilo Cruz’s drama won the Pulitzer Prize for best play of 2002. In September alone, it was playing in three major resident theaters, and one of those productions stepped up to Broadway, with Jimmy Smits as the romantic lead.

Did it live up?: Juliette Carrillo’s South Coast staging conjured a dreamy sense of a distant time and place on the cusp of change, and Cruz’s sometimes audaciously artificial language felt at home in the hothouse on the Argyros Stage. Was it Pulitzer-worthy? There were others just as good, but if there has to be one winner, “Anna” is a worthy choice.

-- Don Shirley

Globe Theatre’s “Twelfth Night,” UCLA Live at the Freud Playhouse

Expectation: Well-spoken blokes in dresses in an all-male, “original practices” production of one of the Bard’s most personable comedies. Period props, costumes and music designed to evoke Shakespeare as the Elizabethans would’ve seen it 400 years ago in ye olde London’s Globe playhouse -- minus the swordfights at intermission.

Did it live up?: A gender-swapping production of this gender-swapping mistaken-identity play prompts a split verdict: Mark Rylance (looking like Good Queen Bess) and company, under Tim Carroll’s direction, delivered a meticulously text-centered production that some found lacking in atmospherics and conceptual energy. Others dug the chance to hear Shakespeare unplugged from the usual postmodern subtextual bells and whistles.

-- Reed Johnson

“Bounce” at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre

Expectation: The great composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim comes out with his first new musical in nine years and reunites with director Hal Prince in their first project since “Merrily We Roll Along” in 1981. The show about the legendary Mizner brothers, with book by John Weidman, had its world premiere in Chicago in late June and later played in Washington.

Did it live up?: The show lacks its titular ingredient. It’s not edgy enough in its love/hate brotherly dynamics and exploration in American rapaciousness, and it’s not funny enough to be a full-bodied musical comedy. It’s eh. And if there’s one reaction I thought I’d never have to a new Sondheim musical, it’s eh.

-- Michael Phillips

“The Boy From Oz” on Broadway

Expectation: Aussie-born Hugh Jackman, the angry Wolverine of the “X-Men” films, mutating into the endearingly swishy Peter Allen, a ‘70s Liberace, in a bio-musical of the late singer-songwriter (“I Honestly Love You” and “I Go to Rio”). The show quickly racked up a $10-million advance, proving the irresistible draw of Jackman, not to mention actors playing Liza Minnelli (whom the gay entertainer married briefly) and Judy Garland (whom he worshipped more).

Did it live up?: Critics slammed the schematic book (“Then I won an Oscar, then I sold out Radio City Music Hall and then -- unfortunately -- I died. But I don’t want to depress you so let’s go to Rio!”). The maraca-and-booty-shaking Jackman, however, earns raves and screams from the adoring audience every time he bares his sweat-glistened torso onstage. Give him that Tony Award now, mate.

-- Patrick Pacheco

“Caroline, or Change” off-Broadway

Expectation: Tony Kushner’s first musical is about a sourpuss black maid who mesmerizes the son of her Jewish employers in 1963 Louisiana. Would the leftist firebrand’s libretto fit with the more mainstream impulses of composer Jeanine Tesori (“Thoroughly Modern Millie”)? And what the heck is that title about?

Did it live up?: Enough to be transferring to Broadway next year, even though critics were decidedly mixed on the show’s “Southern/Jewish/black magic realism” that had a radio, moon and washer singing anthropomorphic counterpoint. Unanimous bouquets, however, were tossed at Tonya Pinkins in the title role (as the maid -- not the change she finds in the little boy’s pocket, which serves as a metaphor for her own internal conflict).

-- Patrick Pacheco

“Gem of the Ocean” at Mark Taper Forum

Expectation: August Wilson rounds third with the penultimate play in his decade-by-decade chronicle of 20th century African Americana. Would a centuries-old conjure woman named Aunt Ester -- referred to in previous plays but never seen -- bring it all home?

Did it live up?: Aunt Ester proved a signature creation, and Phylicia Rashad nailed her shamble and sass, though the play itself made a rather plain setting for this gemstone. At least it was better than “King Hedley II.”

-- Rob Kendt

“Passion” at East West Players

Expectation: Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine wrote the great “Into the Woods.” Then they won a Tony Award for “Passion.” Yet for almost a decade, the show was never fully produced in L.A.

Did it live up?: Yes. The Broadway production, notwithstanding its Tony Awards, was cold and formal. The East West production was throbbing with life and seemed wholly committed to the irrational nature of the musical’s tortured love affair.

-- Don Shirley

“The Taming of the Shrew” at the Orpheum Theatre

Expectation: It was gutsy -- and a potential disaster. Zoo District Theatre Company and L.A. Conservancy’s co-production of Shakespeare’s battle-of-the-sexes comedy would be staged for 80 people each night in the 2,000-seat Orpheum, a recently restored downtown L.A. movie palace. It would get nary a revisionist nod to gender equality and an environmental staging that would require both cast and audience to rush hither and yon. Bad timing (or a tumble down the stairs) and the whole enterprise would crash and burn.

Did it live up?: If you’re going to do a thoroughly unapologetic “Shrew” as a theatrical happening, this is the way to do it. Director Alec Wild and his fully committed cast, led by Tamar Fortgang’s fierce Kate and Ed Cunningham’s diabolical Petruchio, claimed the Orpheum’s gilded, ornate space with authority and spiked the combative romp with ferocious exuberance.

-- Lynne Heffley

“He Pounces” at Evidence Room

Expectation: Rococo local treasure Ken Roht, who’s choreographed everything from “Pinafore!” to “The Shaggs,” invades the Evidence Room for a one-hour show, arriving by way of his way-out Orphean Circus routes. Collaborators were culled from the cream of the agitprop crop.

Did it live up?: Roht’s riff on conquest was a surreal swirl of psychosexual musical theatrics, sidesplitting and savage. The decor was daffy, the numbers thrilling, the ensemble superb. Roht neared his kinetic zenith, an anarchistic visionary whose time is now. Late colleague Reza Abdoh would be proud -- or covetous.

-- David C. Nichols