Plays that really worked

Downsizing was the plague of 2008 as struggling businesses sent workers to unemployment lines. But in theater, small enterprises produced mighty results. Half of the top shows that N&O critics weighed in on this year featured a handful of players. Three said it all with only two actors. All tackled weighty themes without reaching for didactic crutches. Following are 2008's highlights, in random order:

Angels in America

Theatre in the Park

An ambitious staging of Tony Kushner's powerful six-hour, two-evening work. Director Adam Twiss pulled no punches in this frank exploration of race relations, religious differences, sexual orientations and political cover-ups, and he made us care about all the characters' hopes and fears.

Blue Door

PlayMakers Repertory Company

Director Trezana Beverley took playwright Tanya Barfield's potentially static theme -- a lonely man mulling his cultural identity -- and used her whole-body expression techniques to stir up a spirited one-act. Lelund Durond Thompson delineated his characters with grace and clarity, while Sam Wellington made his ornery searcher a man worth following.

Doubt

PlayMakers Repertory Company

A spellbinding production of John Patrick Shanley's tale about a moral battle between a church school's head nun and a local parish priest. PRC put all its professional resources into a near-perfect staging: top notch actors, magical sets and lighting, and crystal-clear direction by Drew Barr.

Dying City

Manbites Dog Theater

A dead soldier, his grieving widow and his manipulative twin brother made a war zone of a small New York apartment in Christopher Shinn's taut two-actor drama, superbly directed by Jeff Storer. Actors Dana Marks and Jay O'Berski tackled Shinn's erratic dialogue with assuredness, keeping his themes of political and emotional destruction at the battlefront.

Europe Central

Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern

Area playwrights John Justice and Michael A. Smith skillfully wrangled William T. Vollmann's epic novel about the 20th-century rise of Germany and Russia's authoritarian governments into a dazzling kaleidoscope of characters, images and sounds. Director Jay O'Berski's nightmarish production built to a final wallop, warning that freedom takes vigilance and courage.

I am an Insect: A Fluttering Processionary of Infinitesimal Ideas

Paperhand Puppet Intervention

Small audience members have always connected well with the creatures that inhabit Paperhand's world, be they tiny mice or a towering Buddha. But this year's show met them at their level, portraying the world they know best -- the one buzzing at their feet -- as an enchanting and ecologically focused collage for audiences of all ages.

The Island

Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern

Thaddaeus Edwards and Lamark Wright riveted with their intense, surprising and humorous depiction of defiance in the face of imprisonment amid the horrors of South African apartheid. Director Michael O'Foghludha kept the pacing and themes clear in this gripping Athold Fugard script.

Pericles

PlayMakers Repertory Company

Once again, PRC drew on its considerable resources to make Shakespeare's problematic script an enthralling experience. Joseph Haj guided 14 talented actors through 41 characters in this picaresque tale of reversed fortunes and miraculous recoveries, employing dazzling technical aspects and marvelous original music by Jack Herrick.

Phantom N.C. Theatre

Compassion is director Casey Hushion's hallmark, and the heart pounded loudly in this tale of deformity, artistry and love. Yeston & Kopit's thoughtful and musically complex rendering of Gaston Leroux's tale has been hidden from Broadway audiences, as Andrew Lloyd Webber's version reigns eternal. If it weren't for enterprising companies like N.C. Theatre, the power of Leroux's tale might never have been fully tapped.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf

Party Girl! Productions

Director Tom Marriott hosted a nightlong party at Durham's Common Ground Theatre that guests offstage won't soon forget. Real-life couple Nicole Farmer and Mark Jeffrey Miller, as the embittered Martha and George, picked at old scars and carved fresh wounds, while Ryan Brock and Beth Popelka disintegrated in the crossfire. The hours-long party flew by in minutes, remaining firmly out of bounds.