Seat Filler: Best NYC Theater of 2012

4. The Whale
Young Frankenstein’s Shuler Hensley gave the most transformative, indelible performance of the year as a 600-pound gay man in out playwright Samuel D. Hunter’s immensely moving drama, which couldn’t be sunk by heavy-handed allusions to Moby-Dick and the biblical Jonah. Watching him struggle to tie up loose ends in his last days, we learn that Charlie’s obesity stems from the loss of a conflicted Mormon boyfriend who starved himself to death.
Playwrights Horizons, closed.