Best of the Decade

A Life (1980). An austere civil servant, terminally ill, looks back in anger on his self-thwarting days and sees, too late, that he has been surrounded by decency and affection. Irish playwright Hugh Leonard traced delicate and complex patterns of marriage, friendship and that old indefinable, love.

Nicholas Nickleby (1981). An 812-hour joyride through the thrills and terrors of Dickens' novel, magnificently captured by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The show alarmed audiences with its $100 ticket price but turned out to be the entertainment bargain of a lifetime.

Dreamgirls (1981). Michael Bennett, creator of A Chorus Line, shaped this propulsive story of black entertainers fighting for integrity while entering the mainstream. It suggested that key civil rights gains came when white youths accepted black music as "theirs." Jennifer Holliday gave the musical performance of the decade as a gutsy gospel-blues shouter.

Big River (1985). This winsome adaptation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn celebrated the frontier in music and lyrics by Roger Miller, a wistful lamenter of the lost open road. Designed and staged with shrewd simplicity, it glowed with sentiment: when Huck and the runaway slave Jim got onto the river, they lit cigars -- and ignited a skyful of stars.

Broadway Bound (1986). Jokemeister Neil Simon became a poignant and self- critical artist in a trilogy of which this final installment, the tale of his start in show business, was the darkest, most honest and best. The scene / of Simon dancing in the living room with his mother, encouraging her to recall the one glorious moment of a mostly lousy life, lingers and lingers.

Les Miserables (1987). Victor Hugo's tale of the downtrodden and a doomed revolution electrified 19th century Europe. Set to an emotion-drenched score and given a nonpareil staging, it has stirred audiences all over the late 20th century world.

The Road to Mecca (1987). South Africa's conscience, Athol Fugard, proved his compassion is universal in this Ibsenesque conflict between a fiercely independent artist and a society justly yearning for order.

Into the Woods (1987). Stephen Sondheim's best musical was gorgeous to look at, haunting to hear and thought provoking to remember. A fractured fairy tale that brought into the same forest Cinderella, Rapunzel and the like, it asked what comes after happily-ever-after, pondering what it means to grow up.

The Piano Lesson (1989). An heirloom from a slave ancestor threatens to sunder members of the Charles clan: one wants to keep it as a reminder of suffering, another would sell it to buy the farm where the family were once chattel. Playwright August Wilson was the most important American stage voice to emerge in the '80s, and this piano is the most potent symbol in American drama since Laura Wingfield's glass menagerie.

Love Letters (1989). Sly and genial chronicler of Wasp foibles in The Dining Room and The Cocktail Hour, A.R. Gurney went for gut emotion in this story of a half-century relationship told solely in letters. Weekly changes of cast (Jason Robards, Colleen Dewhurst, Swoosie Kurtz, Richard Thomas) demonstrate, despite individual triumphs, that the play's the thing.