Peter Bergman Theater Reviews

Tennessee Williams wrote his memory play, "The Glass Menagerie," to exorcize the ghosts of his own childhood and youth in St. Louis when he was Tom, not Tennessee. He wrote of his sister, crippled by a mania that put her into hospitals and asylums, crippling his stage sister with a limp, socializing issues that were the mirror image of his real sister’s waywardness with men, and a reluctance to leave the house instead of her true desire to never stay home. He painted his mother in the play as a harridan who emotionally stalks her own children, when his own mother was an abused wife who over-protected her three children and financially supported her "poet" son; she reportedly never recognized herself in the portrait he painted of her in this play.
With all of the differences, Williams’ memory play is indeed a memory of his life in that nearly dim past of his family-entangled youth.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. Directed by Eric Hill.

The portrait of Tom, the son with a need for adventure, with a lack of patience, is Tennessee Williams and it is, perhaps, the most honest portrait of such a man in his formative years that we have in the American theater. On the Unicorn Stage at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge we have that portrait enlivened by a young actor who seems to restore the image to a vivid, vital life. Tom Story, as Tom Wingfield, born Tom Williams, is Tom.
For many fans of this play the final monologue, after Tom’s departure from the family that cripples him, is the telling moment. Here, in Tom Story’s hands, it is a simple after-thought, a reluctant acceptance of the importance his sister and their mother played in his life. That simplicity is touching, and it brings to his face and voice the darkness in which he leaves them in the play.
As monologues go, and there are several in this play, the one that touches me the most is the one in the middle of the play when Tom reveals his need for adventure, for experience, for imagination and in it he destroys his mother’s dreams for him and his sister’s favorite glass menagerie figurines. It is that smashing - right in the middle of this domestic drama - that provides us with a clear look at Tom Williams, the future playwright named Tennessee. As Tom Story plays this piece it is frightening and dynamic and the desperation in his voice and his body language tells us everything we need to know about the character and the man behind him.
As Amanda Wingfield, the mother from Hell, we have Kate Maguire. She leaves us with very few sympathetic moments for Amanda. Her rendition of the character is startlingly one-note and that note is a high-pitched c-sharp. She is demanding, coarse and curiously unloving, even as she states her love for her children to their faces. When she is transformed, in the second act, into the Belle of Blue Mountain, the change in her personality is reflected in the silver and pink of her dress. Her whole history is displayed in the tattered frills of her past and Maguire plays the sweetness of her character’s younger self without a single trace of embarrassment or even remorse. She becomes the obvious inspiration for her son’s own fantasies of himself as a central figure and she makes us understand her daughter’s reluctance to compete with this mother’s personal self-image. It is good work by an actress taking the difficult choices.
The Gentleman Caller, an obsession for Amanda, is played by Greg Keller whose pleasant face, body and voice make him an easy obsession for Laura and for Tom as well. He is charm personified. He is utterly likeable. The entire Wingfield family seems to be in love with this man, at least for an hour or so. Keller is an affable, likeable dinner guest, well cast in this role and nicely played, right down to his awkward exit from their lives.
The fascinating performance of the evening, however, the riveting center of the play in this edition, is Laura as played by Aya Cash. Vulnerability shines from her passive face and trembling hands. She portrays Laura with a smile that betrays fear and a glow that seems to be all that is evident of tears never shed. She lights up the stage with Laura’s disability, holding the visual evidence of it in check until she is forced to play the role of the vivacious daughter of a vivacious mother. The actress may not be the role, and yet after two hours with her it is hard to reconceive her as the actress, so clearly has she become the part she plays here. This may, in part, be due to the performance methods subscribed to by her director, Eric Hill, and yet it seems wrong to remove the reward of statue-like perfection from her shoulders and ascribe them only to her sculptor. My money is on Cash. She is a winner.
Eric Hill has created a wonderfully intriguing world for three people who circle one another emotionally and physically each of them prey and each of them scavenger. His work with the Wingfield family unit is perfect. When an intruder calls, the nice Gentleman of the play, his role as outsider is very clear: he is the fly in a web of spiders of all kinds, benevolent and predatory. His escape is almost like a miracle. That, in itself, is a tribute to the director’s work here.
Carl Sprague’s wonderful set allows this American classic quartet the room and the world in which to play their parts. Olivera Gajic’s costumes are very right for these characters. Only the lighting, designed by Matthew E. Adelson, seemed to leave something to be desires. He creates moods that are right, then spills light into the eyes of the audience in a most distracting manner altering our attention toward places where nothing occurs, where we should never be looking. It’s unfortunate because we miss a few key moments in these oddnesses of light.
An original score by Scott Killian adds the appropriate passion to the scenes and fills the need for a memory play’s sense of reality versus unreality.
Without a doubt this production of The Glass Menagerie is something to see. Considering the mainstage season to come at the BTF, with both gay and lunatic themes abounding, this could be considered the overture, and like the overture to Jule Styne’s GYPSY, or Leonard Bernstein’s CANDIDE, this is not one to miss.

 The Glass Menagerie plays, Thursdays through Saturdays with a few Sunday matinees, at the BTF's Unicorn Theatre on Route 7 in Stockbridge, MA through June 30. Tickets range from $38-$43 (students with a valid ID receive 50% off). Contact the BTF box office at 413-298-5576.

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A good musical is about transitions. This show, which opens the Mac-Haydn Theatre’s season, is about multiple transitions.

110 in the Shade by N. Richard Nash, music by Harvey Schmidt, lyrics by Tom Jones. Directed by Doug Hodge.

Based on the play "The Rainmaker" by N. Richard Nash, it removes illusions from some characters, creates adults from long-in-the-tooth teenagers, reinforces the sense of being special, shores up fantasies and holds in abeyance the miracle of self-realization to the point where we, the audience, want to scream in frustration. Conceived and created by the young songwriting/playwrighting team that brought us "The Fantasticks," it was a Broadway show with chorus and those trappings that made any David Merrick musical into something BIG. But on this stage, in the round, it has been reduced to its principals only, to seven people in a parched landscape where the average daily temperature is as hot and dry as the emotions of its players.
If you haven’t been to the Mac-Haydn before, be aware that this orchestra is reduced to synthesizers and percussion. Sometimes it works, but sometimes you cringe at the sound of it, especially when its pumped up volume overwhelms you. Many of the cast members are young, somewhat inexperienced players who may also make you cringe. But then, like the miracles held in check in this show, you finally come across some truly wonderful things, things that only in a musical can you expect to find.
Lizzie Curry expects miracles. She is a slightly over-the-hill, plain woman who has a girlish quality that threatens never to leave her. The only marriage proposal she has ever gotten came from a nine-year old. As her brother Noah tells her, marriage is an illusion for her. She is destined to be an old maid. Bill Starbuck is man who promises miracles, particularly rain for a parched landscape. However his presence brings more than promises. He brings a form of light that illuminates from within. When these two meet sparks fly, particularly in this new production.
Monica M. Wemitt and Rob Richardson bring a bizarre reality to their playing. In their first act duet, "You’re Not Foolin’ Me" it seems as though one or the other might be dead before the song is over. The electricity is palpable. By the middle of the second act he has transformed this ugly duckling into a graceful and gracious swan and she has taken him from self-acclaimed demi-God to anxious, delirious young man. Meeting in the middle as they do, there is great beauty on the stage in Chatham. Both sing well and act perfectly. It’s a delicious pairing.
As the cynical older brother, Noah, John Saunders also sparks in his scenes with Wemitt. His honest denunciation of her dreams and self-delusion near the end of Act One was so powerful that it brought honest tears to her eyes and to mine as well. When a musical gives you moments that actually choke you up then you have something special going on.
The rest of the cast do their best with their material. Michael Kreutz as H.C. is fine, the best of the rest. Al Pagano as File, the reluctant hero, is strained, especially in his singing, but at the finale he was good if a bit hard to believe - and that’s a problem with the book and the direction, not with his acting. Michael Salimbene as the younger brother Jimmy is just okay and as Snookie, his girlfriend, we have Erica Wilpon.
The minimal choreography by director Doug Hodge works well and his direction of his cast around the stage and into the characters is very good indeed. Everyone is well defined in their movements. The production design by Bob Hamel (costumes), Jimm Halliday (costumes) and Andrew Gmoser (lighting) is fine and, by the way, there will be rain at every performance.
After all, miracles matter in musicals.

110 in the Shade runs through June 3. Check with the theater for performance schedule and times. Prices range from $23.50 - $25.50. The theater is located on route 203 in Chatham, NY and the box office can be reached at 518-392-9292.

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Farce is defined in The American Heritage Dictionary as 1) a light dramatic work in which highly improbable plot situations, exaggerated characters, and often slapstick elements are used for humorous effect; 2) a ludicrous, empty show, a mockery.
"See How They Run," on stage through June 3 at the Ghent Playhouse is defined as an "Hilarious British Farce" and I must opine that the use of "British" as a modifier changes the dictionary definition markedly.

Without a doubt, the English theater has created a modified form of comedy, creating a classic structure for what might once have been an empty, ludicrous display of bad behavior, bad language and poor morals. What they have presented us with, a model for contemporary sitcoms, dramedies and other confused television formats, is at the core of what entertains us on a daily basis. Situations that are not necessarily funny become so through the creation of these British-style farce plays.
Not all of them are the best. Not all of them thoroughly tickle the funny bone, but if we give ourselves over to the premise that what we’re watching is aimed at amusement and not at destruction of our moral sensibilities, then what we see is very funny indeed.
"See How They Run" is a farce about moral people caught in a series of dilemmas that could have been avoided if each of the characters would only behave themselves according to the standards of the others. If Corporal Clive Winton, for example, could only observe the proprieties of respect for marriage, much of what follows his entrance into the play would be avoided. If Miss Skillon could take her righteous indignation down a peg she wouldn’t end up the mess she turns into after an accident knocks her out cold. If The Bishop of Lax could swallow his religious pride and stay in a hotel, many mistakes of judgement could have been completely deflected. Morever, if the Toops, husband and wife, were better suited to one another the entire play would not exist.
The fact is, however, all of these people, and a few more, do make the normal human mistakes they make and on which this comedy is based. And it’s a good thing, too, because the show is funny, the dialogue is silly, the comedy is multi-leveled — even calling in a scene and a song from Noel Coward’s non-farce human comedy with farcical elements, Private Lives. Luckily for local audiences this production of the Episcopal farce is graced with talented actors and a director who knows how to time a door closing.
As the Toops, Ted Phelps and Sarah Cooke set up a pace in the first scene, with tea and muffins and some over-the-top glances, that makes the merriness almost giddy. Fourth onto the stage, Cooke is a vocal presence from the moment the play begins and her off-stage caroling is a hoot in more ways than one. Kathy Wohlfeld as Miss Skillon begins her lengthy turn as an English version of Margaret Hamilton and ends up a demolished Margaret Dumont. Burnell Shively as the cockney maid, Ida, takes on the historic image of a young Angela Lansbury and turns that to her advantage as she flirts, squirms and grinds out some of the funniest moments in the play.
Ted Sickels is Clive. That’s it. He is Clive. He embodies the role and when his desperation overwhelms his passions he is truly funny. Fred Gibbons is the embodiment of self-righteous indignation and it pays off big in a thankless role. Mike Sanders is hilarious as the Supply Priest who accidentally arrives too early for his own good and the cast is rounded out by Myron Koch as a clueless policeman and Tracy Trimm as an escaped Communist.
Gulliver has her arms full (there’s too much here for just hands) moving this crew of players in, out, around and through her seven doors. She uses the stage masterfully and the chase sequence, which takes much of the company through major dramatic scenes being played out center stage, is truly hilarious.
Bill Camp has provided a perfect setting for this midland Vicarage in the late 1940s and the costumes by Vivian Wachsberger and Joanne Maurer are wonderful.
This is a fine example of why farce is a secretly respected form. Not the depressing, meaningful, informational dramas we are supposed to like, in spite of ourselves, plays like "See How They Run" entertain us, give us a momentary glimpse into the morality of our neighbors and a chance to view just how easily we can slip into our own peculiar comic worlds. All it takes is an extra suit or clothing or two, an escaped Communist and an American soldier converging on your home at the same time and, Good Lord, it could happen to you.
That’s farce.
See How They Run plays at the Ghent Playhouse, located just off Route 66 in Ghent, New York, through June 3. Tickets range in price from $12 to $15 and the box office can be reached at 518-392-6264. Memberships and season tickets are available. You can also go to their website at www.ghentplayhouse.org.

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"A Picasso" by Jeffrey Hatcher. Directed by Tyler Marchant.

Midway through Jeffrey Hatcher’s one-act play, "A Picasso," the drama which opens the 13th Barrington Stage Company season, painter Pablo Picasso and his Nazi interrogator Miss Fischer come to grips with one of the major issues of the play, the role of the critic.

It is essential that Picasso begin to think like one in order to determine which of three sketches, allegedly his own, will be destroyed in a public burning of decadent art. Told to think like a German, so he will understand their motivations, then to react to his work like a critic so that she can take back evidence of decisions to her superiors, he reacts: "First I have to think like a German, now I have to think like a critic? How stupid do you want me to be?"
It is crucial that the audience understand the artist’s political conscience and the depth of his understanding of the unnatural power being wielded in his direction in the tiny room in which he has been held for questioning. It is 1941. Paris. Picasso has come face to face with his past, has come abruptly upon his present situation and his inability to master it. His charm won’t work. His talent has no place in this dark, grey basement under the Paris streets. It seems quite probable that he may not have a future. And then ... the role of the critic comes into play.
Reacting critically to many aspects of his own life seems to be a natural source of inspiration to the ex-patriot Spaniard. It turns out that his questioner is also a critic, her specialty: Picasso. Two minds set to the same exploration of purpose, inspiration and communication glance off one another like steel swords in an Erroll Flynn swashbuckler movie. Tyler Marchant, directing this battle of minds, moves his two bodies around the small, central stage with the grace of caged tigers in a circus arena. There is animal magnetism aplenty when these two titans engage. There is a remarkable intensity and the audience, like flies on the wall in this case, are the only safe creatures in the cellar.
Thom Christopher and Gretchen Egolf as the participants in this meshing of minds and bodies are kegs of dynamite, each of them ready to ignite at a moment’s notice. When their eyes lock it is almost too dangerous to watch them. She is tall, slender, blonde, wide-eyed and sullen-mouthed. He is broad, angry, bald, tense and coiled. Even pleasantries come out of their mouths with barbs attached. Throughout the play we are held suspended over the emotional heads of these two as they each battle for supremacy in their encounter. Both actors are brilliant, both shine in their self-centered superiority. I cannot conceive of a finer cast for this play.
On a surprisingly well-proportioned set, in this theater in the round experience, designed by Brian Prather, the antagonists circle and employ corners as needed. The monotone of grey offsets the colors that each bring to their meeting, he in brown with a touch of bright colors at the throat, she in a uniform that matches the space, until she reveals the brightness of a pale, off-white satin, the beige of a lacy undergarment. The use of color here in the costumes designed by Guy Lee Bailey reflect the sepia of Picasso’s painting Guernica, a subject which occupies the two characters for at least five minutes. As lit by Jeff Davis in a stark and remarkably focused way, nothing ever distracts us from the faces of Fischer and Picasso. We may pay attention to a detail here and there, but it is their two faces that remain in the center of our line of vision.
Nazis not your thing? It won’t matter, for here we deal with critics. Picasso, the artist and manipulator of women, of little interest in your life? It won’t matter for here we deal with concepts of art and life. And critics. Don’t care about critics? "Third person superior" is how Picasso describes the work of critics. What can be said in their defense after seeing this play is that they sometimes save what is important in spite of themselves. This play, at the company’s second stage in the lower depths of the Berkshire Athenaeum in Pittsfield, calls into question one single item of conflict: the value we place on ourselves and the rights of others to determine that value.
That is your job, to determine the value of this play. For myself, I place that value high. This is a remarkable work of art.

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By J. PETER BERGMAN
Thirty-two years ago, when this show was new, and was really the first reality show on Broadway, about Broadway and about the business of Broadway, things were different.
Developed in the first officially sanctioned workshop, then played at the still-new Joseph Papp’s Public Theater in Greenwich Village before moving on to a spectacular, lengthy Broadway run, it broke rules and new ground with equal measure.
But things were different then.

Body microphones, those taped on extensions of people’s hair, weren’t being used, and the chorus dancers of the day had become the chorus singers of the day as well. The old-fashioned show with 20 singers and 16 dancers had been abandoned in favor of the multi-talented dancer/singers. And they sang. Not every note was a true note, but they sang their hearts out.
They had to. They had no mikes.
What is missing in this edition of “A Chorus Line” is that sense of hearts being wrung out to dry. Too much dependence on the microphone, perhaps, highly visible on cheeks, controlled by unseen hands in the stage manager’s booth, has depleted the true story of the contenders for a job in this show’s plot. These are desperate people, eager people, people for whom this next job is everything. On the stage at Berkshire Community College’s Boland Theater, however, the emphasis seems to be on conserving energy, saving it up for the “moment” when a solo might happen.
The opening number, “I Hope I Get It,” is sung here by 25 people and even from the fourth row it sounded like a quartet of singers facing upstage. There was no urgency, no expectant energy, no volume, no emotions pent up and waiting to burst. Thankfully, the orchestra played it guts out and, in part, made up for the lack felt in the singing of this ensemble. That’s different from the original presentation 32 years ago. Then you heard, felt, practically smelled the united need of these kids trying out for this show. And that’s what this show requires: need.
Maybe it’s the amateur, as opposed to the professional, in the roles. The cast in 1975 was made up of people who had lived through this sort of experience. They understood and could communicate what a chorus dancer/singer/actor worked for and required. These folks are all talented non-pros — well, almost all — and they will go back to work, back to school, back to their families and do whatever else they do. But the characters they portray do what they do for the sheer love of it; the job is their relationship, their reward, their daily bread.
Among the better performances in this production were Joe Breen’s Mike, Heather Rowley’s Sheila, Brenda Galenus’ Val and Constance Lopez’s Diana. Each of their specialties were nicely played. Brian Litscher did a good job as Al, and Peg Noonan as his wife Kristine was amusing and bright. Drew Davidson was effective as Bobby and Darrin French was equally well cast as Greg.
The three emotional spots in the show, reserved for Act Two, come through the monologues of Paul and the solo, “What I Did For Love,” sung by Diana with the cast’s support. Both Lopez in her song and Adrian Alcala in his monologue brought the hoped-for tears and emotional release. Then there’s Cassie, an almost-star hoping to restart her career. Tara Young does excellent work in this role making us believe there is someone here who understands that need missing in so many of the players. Her dance, her quarrels, her desire to fit in, all palpable and all flashing off the surface of her perfect makeup, give this production its sense of focus.
Michael Dunnell as the director, Zach, and Fran Martino as Laura, his assistant, survive the play, Martino with a snap, crackle and pop delivery and Dunnell as a far-more sympathetic director than I’ve ever seen before.
Stephen Sanborn as director and musical director has split his efforts and the music from the pit shines brighter than do the personalities on stage. This is not an easy show for either the actors or the musicians and it felt from out in the house as though more time and thought had gone into the musical work than into the characterizations. Perhaps the concept was that, using those mikes, the sound person would compensate in volume for what was missing in the direction: sound person failure; director misconception.
Bring back 1975, please, and the urgency and reality of this reality show.

J. Peter Bergman sleeps in Pittsfield, but spends his days with poet Edna St. Vincent Millay in Austerlitz. For more of his reviews, check out advocateweekly.com or his own Web site berkshirebrightfocus.com.

“A Chorus Line’ runs through May 20 at the Boland Theater at Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield. Performances are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 18-19, and 3 p.m. Sunday, May 20. Tickets are $17 adults and $15 students/seniors. Tickets: 866-811-4111 or theatermania.com.

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