Peter Bergman Theater Reviews

Two-Headed by Julie Jensen. Directed by Marc Geller

In the limited world where Lavinia and Hettie live, in Utah in the 19th century, small items of concern take on tremendous importance and larger, more universally influential moments become little more than happenstance. For these two Morman girls in 1857, age 10, their own universe is tumbling and twisting and producing freaks of nature all around them. Hettie has seen a two-headed snake and a two-headed goat, but never a two-headed calf and Lavinia claims to have one, pickled, in a cellar she keeps locked.
The girls are friends, but not best friends. Each has another interest: Hettie has a crush on Aaron; Letitia is mad for Jane, a slightly older girl. Even so, over the course of 40 years, it is Hettie we see with Letitia, and never Jane; Letitia we watch in torment with Hettie, and not Aaron. "Two-Headed" is the story of these two young women and their world, the one created by them, just for them.

Even with a protected community and an enforced way of life around them, Lavinia and Hettie are intrigued, involved and doubly smitten with the world outside their Mormon community. The two heads are not just their own, or their freak in a bottle. In this play they are the two voices of reason, each with its own validity and its own failings, one keeping close to the traditions, to protecting secrets and abiding with the laws, and the other crying out in the wilderness, spewing venom and occasionally truths that need to be spilled publicly.
"Two-Headed" is on the Unicorn Stage at the Berkshire Theatre Festival and it stars two of the region’s most valuable assets, Corinna May as Lavinia and Diane Prusha as Hettie. They play very different women, clearly, and they do so in very different styles. May is hard push. She drives a point home physically and vocally with an intensity that hits right between the eyes. Prusha is softer in all things but just as poignant, perhaps even moreso due to her voice which is perhaps the most evocative and sensual female voice this side of the grave of Colleen Dewhurst.
Both girls age in the five scenes of the play, 10 years between each scene, advancing from 10-years-olds to women in their 50s. Through each decade they are haunted by Mountain Meadow Massacre, a real incident which resulted in the deaths of a 127 people at the hands of violent Mormons living under the constant threat of government intervention in their way of life.
Lavinia, the seemingly more mature of the two girls, often behaves in the most childish manner. In the hands of Corinna May, an actress who has so much power in her slight body and round face, Lavinia is a borderline case, mad for an instant, rational for another. Her constant fluctuation betrays the character’s secrets without revealing them. Lavinia, who always speaks her mind, never speaks a complete truth, never unveils her thoughts for the world. Able to keep the darkest secrets for a lifetime, she sacrifices everything for the limits she imposes. May makes this all seem plausible somehow. She finds the hidden paths and reveals them with a gesture that forcefully obscures them. She manages to always be in conflict with her friend and with herself. It is a performance that is exhausting. That Lavinia is more careworn is amazing, for May plays her like a female Atlas, the world’s woes clearly laden on her inadequate shoulders.
Prusha is truly the opposite as Hettie. She seems totally incapable of secrets. Hettie promises to keep one early on, but there is no way she could ever do so. Her cooing, purring voice, her open, up-turned palms and her eyes reveal the presence of a secret long before her voice speaks it but it is clearly there. Her 10-year-old is a traditional 10-year-old. Her passionate 20-year old is all magic and moment and miracles. Prusha has a way of making us believe in her validity. Behind the Hettie we see there is another animal nature hidden and Prusha reveals that nature in her own restrained way. Never the clawing, snapping beast that Lavinia can become, Hettie is a theatrical scrim, back-lit, revealing everything. In one scene she remains standing completely still for an eternity, acting the role of Hettie with voice, gesture and face alone and this modest, tiny performance leaps into life and into reality with a shamefully accurate visibility.
The two women are directed in an open-faced performance of this play by Marc Geller, who seems to have taken notice of each character’s weaknesses and strengths and exposed both in the best way possible. Not a traffic cop, Geller has directed the internal play between these characters. It is that internal aspect provided by the excellent script that Geller works with best; his stage pictures are fine and the physical balance between May and Prusha is never incorrect or false for even a moment.
The Unicorn Theatre stage designers have done a brilliant job of using the stage to create a place in time and psychological space. The two actresses who are placed on it, inhabit it with an eagerness that makes it seem like the most familiar landscape.
Performed without an intermission, the play runs one hour and 22 minutes. It is time well spent as two of the Berkshires’ best play one of the best two-headed plays you may ever see.

"Two-Headed" plays at the Unicorn Theatre at the Berkshire Theatre Festival on Route 7 in Stockbridge, MA through August 18. Tickets range from $38-$43. For schedules, availability and tickets contact the BTF box office at 413-298-5576.

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Johnny Guitar, the Musical, book by Nicholas van Hoogstraten, lyrics by Joel Higgins, music by Martin Silvestri and Joel Higgins. Directed by Bert Bernardi.

Johnny Guitar is not his real name. Surprised? I thought not. Still, it is one of the joys of this musical where so little is as it should be, or at least as we anticipate it being.
The good guys, the moral code bunch, wear black — just like the classic villains in ancient westerns always did. The bad girl wears virginal white when she wears a dress at all. Otherwise she wears men’s clothing and looks better in them than most of the men. The bandit known as Dancin’ Kid actually dances. The man who wears no guns is a sharpshooter, and fast on the draw. There’s a character named Turkey.
If any of this sounds familiar, you may know the 1954 movie of the same name which starred Joan Crawford as Vienna, the woman no decent woman can tolerate, and Sterling Hayden as Johnny, the man no man dares oppose. Based on a novel by Roy Chanslor, who also wrote "Cat Ballou" the story in the hands of playwright Philip Yordan (he wrote the controversial "Anna Lucasta") and director Nicholas Ray became a tortured attack on McCarthyism, socialism and other hot-button topics of the day.

Mercedes McCambridge, who played the third lead, the "good girl" Emma, brought a rough and raw energy to the role which inspired many to believe the character was a thinly disguised lesbian and others to claim that she was really just another version of Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West.
It would seem, in this musical version, that McCambridge’s Emma is the inspiration for a production style that can only be termed "tongue-in-cheek." On stage at the Theatre Barn in New Lebanon, a talented cast is acting up in a script and score that is tuned up for the fun of it. Mention Johnny’s name, actually just mention Johnny, and an off-stage guitar theme is heard often alarming those on stage who seem to hear it also. Enter Emma, every time, with a legs-splayed stance and an up-raised, super-righteous arm. The only image from the film that is missing are Joan Crawford’s magnificent breasts. Played for humor, the production does justice to the product.
The story: Vienna runs an establishment for drinking and gambling. Her boyfriend is the Dancin’ Kid, a man desired by Emma. Vienna has just hired Johnny Guitar to entertain at her place. He and the Kid don’t get along, partially because Guitar was once Vienna’s lover. Emma’s brother has been killed in a stagecoach holdup and she wants Vienna arrested as the ringleader of the gang. Vienna maintains her innocence even when she is present at a bank robbery at Emma’s bank. Vienna is arrested and set to hang which excites Emma’s libidinous feelings. Things progress to a logical shootout between the protagonists, not the Kid and Johnny, no, but Emma and Vienna. It’s all a lot of fun, really, with the reversal of traditional gender-roles. And it still makes its veiled political statements, if you watch for them.
The cast in New Lebanon is delightful. Jerielle Morwitz is a terrific Vienna. She has beauty, a good voice and wears clothes well, a Joan Crawford clone in many ways. Megan Rozak is the enemy Emma. She resembles the Bride of Frankenstein as much as anything else in this show and she is very, very funny. Always on the brink of emotional suicide, she tortures and tantalizes with exquisite parody.
Scott Moreau, the Johnny, is a beautiful man. He has the looks and voice of a superstar confined to rural, non-pro theater and on the rare occasions when he smiles (this is all in character, by the way) it is with a wry sensibility. Matthew Daly imbues the Dancin’ Kid with talent and good looks, darker and more sinister than Moreau’s. The four principals so clearly and cleanly embody the types they play that they make the fun even funnier.
Michael F. Hayes is McIvers, Emma’s greatest ally. He does fine with his minimal role. Trey Compton plays Turkey, the young man who loves, betrays, then bests himself as an ally for, Vienna. He does is all with a set of facial expressions that may well have you convulsed with laughter. When he gets his rifle and Vienna shows him how it feels to use it, all subtlety flies out the window and the Nicholas Ray-style symbolism reaches new lows.
The rest of the company, playing both sides of the fence with aplomb, consist of Joseph Breen, Jim Nassef, and James Stover. They all do wonderfully in their various roles.
Michael McAssey and his three band members play extremely well and the score is nicely served by them. "What’s in it for Me?" "Branded a Tramp," "Bad Blood," and "Old Santa Fe" stand out as truly wonderful numbers. Of course, there is that "Johnny Guitar theme" which is almost ever-present as well.
Jonathan Knipscher’s costumes are terrific and Abe Phelps set, as used by this company of clowns, gets laughs when it should. Bert Bernardi, directing this delicate musical send-up, has established the style of the piece and maintained it perfectly right to the final moments. Without that sort of control the piece could easily have been banal and just odd, but under his fine direction it turns into a stylized, comedic masterpiece. Bernardi has a way of making the peculiar palatable and he was clearly the best choice for this company’s first musical of the season.
See the show, then watch the movie. As wonderfully odd a piece as the Nicholas Ray film is I bet you a dollar you’ll miss the score and some of these lovely players.

"Johnny Guitar, the Musical" plays at the Theatre Barn in New Lebanon, New York through August 5. Tickets are $18-$20 (and cheap at twice the price). For tickets and availability call the box office at 518-794-8989.

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Party Come Here, book by Daniel Goldfarb, music and lyrics by David Kirshenbaum. Directed by Christopher Ashley.

Shangri-La, that place where perfection resides, where all is good, all is for the best in mankind’s nature, exists in different ways for different people. For Orlando da Sylva, one of the protagonists in the new musical "Party Come Here," playing on the Nikos Stage at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, his personal Shangri-La lies within the depths of a cave on the Brazilian shore in Rio de Janeiro.
For Wood Weinberg, Rio itself is that certain place. In it he has built his house made of gold which shelters him and his nut-brown, native trophy wife Volere. For both men things change when along comes Jack, Wood’s son, a thirty year old would-be magician who hasn’t the confidence or courage to be himself without the approval of a woman, either mother or fiancé. For all three men, actually, things are about to change.
"Party Come Here" is that rarity we hear people talk about, a totally original musical.

Not adapted from a book, play, movie, poem or anything else, playwright Daniel Goldfarb has constructed a totally new piece from his own creative mind and collaborated with David Kirshenbaum on the final work. It is still a work in progress, but under the subtle yet specific direction of Christopher Ashley it is being presented as a polished gem, well set in G. W. Mercier’s fluid sets, and David C. Woolard’s defining costumes under Howell Binkley’s emotive lighting.
Jack, played brilliantly - and again with subtlety and warmth - by Hunter Foster, is the not-so-love child of a cold-hearted woman and an indifferent man. Daddy Wood - played for all his gold lamé costumes are worth by Adam Heller - unable to handle his wife’s societal chill, left early on for warmer climates. Mama Liberty - portrayed as the ice princess from hell who smokes constantly, has perfect hair and who causes snow to happen wherever she may be - is played for all she’s worth by Kaitlin Hopkins. This nuclear family is bent out of shape when Jack’s marriage to Kate, played by Kate Reinders (a very talented Kristin Chenowith look/sound alike), goes belly up just at the point of "I do" which turns into "I don’t, yet."
So, instead of a honeymoon in Paris, the unwed pair go to Rio to find Jack's father. There, Jack meets both his stepmother, Volere played delectably by Chaunteé Schuler and Orlando, Malcolm Gets displaying all his various talents. What happens to these six people when Jack meets Rio is partially the result of the actions of a seventh character, the huge statue of Christ on Corcovada.
In many ways this is a derivative piece, but the total effect is so original, so different and so much fun that the laughter never ceases, even when the play turns potentially tragic. This is due, in no small part, to the quality of the score. There are currently sixteen songs (not counting reprises) through which these characters interact and relate their deep emotional concerns. Even the darkest of them is funny in some way and the use of both the ancient Hebrew strains of melody and rhythm and the Brazilian Samba sensibility make them unusual, memorable and, frankly, delicious.
With what may well be the funniest wedding sequence I’ve ever seen, this show takes off in directions that astound and amaze. The opening number, which features a beautiful and elegantly Brazilian ensemble of four, "Miracles Happen," sets both the tone and the theme of the play. It could as easily be the title song of this piece as the equally festive and confusing "The Party Come Here" sung by Volere. Wood’s first song "Life is a Coconut", Orlando’s many theme-oriented solos including the deft, witty, clever and despairing "Everybody Hates" serve the show’s concept well. Liberty finally has a top-notch tune with "Woman on a Rampage" as she becomes Rio’s most unlikely tourist, outfitted for skiing.
The choreography by Dan Knechtges is a delight and although the ensemble haven’t all gotten the exact feeling of street dancers in Rio, they come darn close. The music is provided by a trio of players who often sound like more than just three, under the direction of Vadim Feichtner.
The creators of this new musical comedy, and it is a comedy, have turned out an elaborate pancake larded with pom-pom sized goodies. Malcolm Gets as Orlando has the opportunity to share most of those goodies and when he brings the "Lost Horizon" theme to its nadir it is both tragic and hilarious. His Shangri-La abandoned for love, and not just one kind of love, but many including the surprising, he pays the ultimate price. While Foster’s performance of the central character, Jack, may be the focus of the play, Gets’ Orlando is the dead center of the work.
This is a show with future and that future must have Broadway in its sights. I suggest you get up off the couch - RIGHT NOW - and get up there to see "Party Come Here." If you wait a day, you may have to wait a year for "Party Come Here." This is the big one!

Party Come Here is playing at the Nikos Stage in Williamstown as part of the Williamstown Theatre Festival season. It plays through August 5. Call the box office for ticket prices and availabilities at 413-597-3400.

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"Dulcy" by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. Directed by Carl Forsman.

Nonsense humor, the art of the non-sequitur, is a lost art these days. No one was better, in the era when such dialogue was all the rage, at creating characters who could make those thought sing than George S. Kaufman. As a collaborator he is credited with most of the funniest lines in plays he co-wrote with Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber, Moss Hart and a host of other major and minor playwrights.
In "Dulcy," his first hit show, written in 1920-21, Kaufman gave most of those lines to the title character, Dulcinea Smith, known as Dulcy, a character created by a third author, Franklin P. Adams, who would go on to found The New Yorker Magazine. This character was considered banal (drearily commonplace, predictable), but well-meaning. In the hands of a brilliant young actress named Lynn Fontanne, the character took on a resonance and a life-force that helped the play to run 246 performances in a season crowded with good theater. (That doesn't happen here.) It was one of 21 plays that opened in August, 1921, a slow month it seems for September brought in 26 new plays.
On stage in Dorset, Vt., at the Dorset Theatre Festival is a new look at Dulcy.

It is part of the new artistic director’s mission to produce all of the Kaufman plays. I’m not sure if he intends to do them in order, but he has gone back almost to the beginning of the author’s 47 major pieces for this one. If he does do them in order of original production I hope he will be a bit more careful to maintain a truer sense of the period. Produced at the beginning of the jazz age, the production seems to be set a decade later. At least that is how it looks and feels. Hairstyles, clothing cuts and movement seems geared to the more accessible Depression years than to the early throes of the Mods and Flappers. The script talks of millionaires and even in its comedy ribs the concept of working hard. No one has much to drink; it is prohibition after all and this is a businessmen’s weekend at the Smith’s home in Westchester.
Dulcy Smith has invited the Forbes family for the weekend with the object being a merger between Forbes’ synthetic jewelry empire and her husband’s own business. She is also intent on hooking up Forbes’ daughter Angela with a man she believes to be in love with the girl. On hand is Dulcy’s brother William, and a man "from the office" both of whom also have feelings for Angela. To round out the group Dulcy has invited a millionaire she’s met at two recent parties, Schuyler Van Dyck. We also have a butler named Henry who has recently emerged from prison and who has a remarkable attraction for pearls. If this isn’t a 1920's bunch of folks, I don’t what to call them.
Unlike "I Love Lucy" which the program notes liken this plot to, there is no zaniness, no crazy plotting that involves the women in confusing their husbands and dissembling. Instead there is a steady stream of misunderstandings, misalignments and dull-witted errors in judgement on the part of Dulcy. A handsome cast cannot salvage what they can’t grasp, and they seem to miss the needed "charm" in their playing style to truly carry off the comedy here.
Cheryl Lynn Bowers plays Dulcy with snap, crackle and pop but without charm. Her voice is reminiscent of the silent movie star in "Singing in the Rain" as played by Jean Hagen. It is not the voice of a woman who can cast a spell, get her own way and finally resolve the issues that could separate her from her husband for good. Her husband Gordon is played by Brit Whittle who seems almost as confused by his role as he is by the situation Gordon has landed in thanks to the inept machinations of his wife. Saxon Palmer plays brother William with verve and with pluck and an excellent sense of 1921 and he gets the laughs and he gets the girl and he saves his sister’s often protruding tush.
Phillip Clark is a very good Mr. Forbes, but perhaps for this play a hint of the cartoonish wouldn’t have been amiss. His wife is played by Kelly Deadmon with an excellent sense of period style. Angela Forbes misses on all counts in the hands of Alexis Hyatt who seems to be from another era entirely.
Thomas Jay Ryan gives a hoot and a hollerin’ performance as "scenarist" Vincent Leach and Mark Alhadeff is a very funny Schuyler Van Dyck. Teddy Coluca almost steals the show away with his perfect exaggerations in facial and body work as he carries bags, steals pearls and does a host of other things as the butler, Henry. Ben Hollandsworth almost gets his role right and D.H. Johnson plays his part as though he was in a play.
What I am saying is that there is no consistent style at work in this production. It needs to be pulled together to give us the real period, the real comedy and the real emotions in the writing.
Nathan Heverin does a nice job creating a wide box set in period style with black curtains taking the upper half of the stage picture. He doesn’t give us the set described by the authors, but his alternatives do the best they can. Too many mismatched chairs, however, make this feel like a show done slightly on the cheap side, whether or not that’s true.
Theresa Squire’s costumes are lovely, but feel so 1930s that they remove credibility from the texture of the script.
Forsman has a sense of the play, but he has not brought to bear all of the elements needed to show us why this show was a hit in a year that produced "A Bill of Divorcement" with Katharine Cornell, George M. Cohan in "The Tavern," "Liliom" with Eva LeGallienne and Joseph Schildkraut, "Bluebeard’s Eight Wife," "The Dover Road," "Six Cylinder Love," comedy that ran 344 performances and a play called "The Demi-Virgin" which lasted 22 performances longer than "Dulcy." It was Kaufman’s second work on Broadway and it helped to create the legend that was the man. That was the play Forsman needed to bring to his stage this summer.
I hope that his subsequent Kaufman revivals will bring with them a sense of their origins and their place in history. He has some wonderful material to work with, and some very talented actors and designers to employ. I look forward to better things, but will have to content myself with this near-miss for the moment. Dulcy lives on in the scatter-brained antics of the Billie Burke films of the 1930s that this play tries to be. It should have been given a better chance to reflect its own period and its own origins.

Dulcy plays at the Dorset Theatre Festival in Dorset, Vermont thruogh August 5. Tickets are $30-$35. The show plays Wednesday through Sunday and you can get full schedules and tickets through the box office at 802-867-5777.

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Black Comedy by Peter Shaffer, directed by Lou Jacob.

Take a 40-year-old comedy with a gimmick and throw it up on stage and see what happens: laughter.
Sometimes, as Barrington Stage Company proves with its latest endeavor, all you really need to do with a classic is do it right. Don’t update it. Don’t try to "fix" it for today’s audience. Just do it the way it was written and do it right.
That’s what they’ve done with Peter Shaffer’s comic delight, "Black Comedy" which first saw its stage quirks in the United States in 1967.

A cast of masterful troupers, including Lynn Redgrave, Michael Crawford, Donald Madden, Geraldine Page and Peter Bull took over the stage in this clever, British farce about a disastrous evening in the London apartment of sculptor Brindsley Miller.
Expecting his fiance’s father to visit at the same time as an important, and wealthy, collector of art is anticipated, Miller is extremely nervous. He has "borrowed" expensive furniture from his neighbor who is out of town and he has worked himself into a state of near-hysteria about meeting "Dad" and just at the wrong moment the fuse blows out and plunges the place into a pitch-black nightmare. For the balance of the evening, the building is without electricity and no one can see anything.
That’s the plot and the gimmick. In truth, the play is one that manages to do all this in reverse, something I probably shouldn’t put in print. But anyone seeing it will know it all too soon anyway. The fun here is as much physical comedy as situational or verbal comedy as everyone copes with the limited vision available in a totally dark space. Director Lou Jacob along with a talented cast has developed very individual physical movements for each character as they express themselves in their situation.
One of the funniest is Miss Carol Melkett, the fiancee, played by Nell Mooney. Her method of finding her way about in the dark is to dance the hula. Don’t try to understand that — you have to see it. Her distinct opposite is Miller’s ex-girlfriend Clea; gone for a few months, she obviously has spent a lot of time in this place in the dark before this. As played by Ginifer King, she is the winner in the groping sweepstakes, both as groper and gropee. King and Mooney are so different in their roles they almost serve as counterweights in the tale. Where Mooney is hysterically funny to watch, King takes over the verbal sparring with wit and charm. They make a nice team, trading funny moments for nearly half the 86-minute play.
Gerry Bamman plays Carol’s father, Colonel Melkett. The only man with a lighter, his work with the furniture is unbelievably funny, particularly his relationship with a rocking chair. A good actor, nothing can toss Bamman out of character and he maintains his gruff demeanor even in the face of the funniest acrobatics of the play.
There are two neighbors caught in the dark as well. Miss Furnival, from upstairs, is delivered to the stage by Beth Dixon in a performance that is howlingly funny. Her accent, and her lines create her character, but her delivery of them through some odd physical couplings, especially her relationship with a divan, is very funny indeed and very much in keeping with who Miss Furnival is in life. The neighbor from across the hall, the one whose furniture has been "borrowed" is played by Mark H. Dold in a performance that redefines the word "huff." Where Bamman’s Melkett is stiff but forgiving, Dodd’s Harold Gorringe is limp but immune to apologies.
Caught in the middle of the muddle he himself has created is Brindsly Miller, played by Brian Avers. Avers plays a non-stop furniture moving, clothing-challenged, mildly immoral, sexually ambiguous and vaguely ingenue protagonist. While our sympathies are with him at the outset, but the final curtain it is hard to continue rooting for him as he seems to have gotten everything wrong through no fault other than his own ambition. Avers plays the tangible and vigorous aspects of his part wonderfully well. He brings a bit less to the human side of Miller and leaves us (at least me) a little bit turned off and unsympathetic. It would be a hard trick to feel bad for this man who has made a muck-up of just about everything. On the other hand, I remember feeling that way toward Michael Crawford’s Miller way back in 1967. Of cours,e I was much younger and more ambitious myself and that may have had something to do with that.
The entire company, including Gordon Stanley as Schuppenzigh and Robert Lydiard as Bamberger, deliver one hundred percent. The laughter is rolicking and the surprises never cease. They do this with the able assistance of Scott Pinkney’s subtle, and not-so-subtle, lighting on a perfectly marvelous set by Adrian W. Jones. Ilona Somogyi has enhanced the period look of the play with costumes that reek of the late 1960s.
If this doesn’t emerge as the unlikely Big Hit of the summer season I will be very surprised. Black Comedy is not a mere trifle, not just a show with a gimmick. It is a well-played, well-produced comic marvel and certainly the show to see as quickly as possible. You might even want to go back a second time.

Black Comedy plays at Barrington Stage’s main stage on Union Street in Pittsfield through Aug. 4. Ticket prices range from $34-$54. For tickets and scheduled call the box office at 413-236-8888 or go to their website at www.barringtonstageco.org.

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White Christmas, by David Ives and Paul Blake, Music and Lyrics by Irving Berlin. Directed by Doug Hodge.

It becomes quite unlikely that every movie musical can translate into a successful stage musical when you consider that not every stage show moves easily into the filmic medium.
Why would one direction be any better, or safer, than the other? At the MacHaydn there have been two such transition shows produced back-to-back. The first one, "Thoroughly Modern Millie" was a hit. Sadly, their latest effort, "White Christmas" the old Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen show-biz flick, hasn’t made a smooth shift onto the stage in Chatham.

The story of a sister act that hooks up with a pair of wildly successful Vaudeville type stars for a show and then faces every show business cliche that mars the possible happy ending, including a better offer, a single act, a misunderstanding of motives, a misunderstanding of messages, an irritating lack of commitment emotionally, and so on and so forth, is simply tiresome. Enlivened by a thrilling new score it could be worth trying, but when it is burdened with sixteen Berlin standards, many of them reprised, there’s an exhausting sense of nothing new, nothing enticing.
The songs themselves are wonderful and far more difficult to put across than most people think, and here is where the MacHaydn orchestra needs some help. The thinness of the sound that two synthesizers make when not properly amplified, as is the case here, worked fine for "Millie" but this show needs the lushness of the strings, the stridency of the brass. That’s Berlin in his ballad and up-tempo moods. The singers are unsupported by sound and that leaves the stars almost singing a capella. The show suffers from a lack of music in a show that has almost too much music and, impractically, too little character development.
The Haynes Sisters, Betty and Judy, are played by the Shook sisters, Karla and Kelly L. They are both good, reliable musical comedy players. They play well together in spite of their very obvious differences in style and voice. Having real music behind them, under their tones, would greatly help them, especially in the ballads.
Their two swains, the Broadway star team of Wallace and Davis are played by Austin Riley Green and Jamison Foreman. Green is the better singer but Foreman has the cute moves. Green’s austerity is offset by Foreman’s sleaziness. Together they would make one interesting man. In their hands musical sequences that should elicit delicious laughter from us, like their rendition of the Haynes Girls big number "Sisters" is done in a dry, dull manner and accompanied by outrageous hysterics from two chorus girls which removes any hope of charm or humor for the audience. In this particular instance everyone is at fault, except the audience. They’re the unintentional victims of a musical murder.
Shawn Morgan is interesting as the General and Rachel Black gives Martha a touch of class. Little Susie is played nicely by Robin Spateholts (she alternates with another actress).
There are excellent costumes by Jimm Halliday, but unfortunately clothes don’t make the man or the woman. Andrew Gmoser does a fine job lighting this show which has the longest scene changes in history for Bud Clark’s small, but awkward set pieces. Christine Negherbon’s choreography alternates from large and awkward to small and awkward, then surprises us with a brilliant second act opener for "I Love a Piano."
This show is definitely not a Christmas present in July. Almost as old-fashioned as the medieval title (Gammer Gurton's Needle) thrown at the General as his most recent theater experience, it’s just a large package with very little of interest inside the wrapping.
White Christmas plays through next weekend at the MacHaydn Theater on Route 203 in Chatham, New York. For tickets and information call 518-392-9292.

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Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward, directed by Maria Mileaf.
Noel Coward’s world war two comedy is, literally, a drawing room comedy. It is set in the drawing room of a country house in Kent and all of the action of the play takes place there. It’s a ghost story. Its four principal characters are a man and his two wives, one living, one dead, and the medium, or psychic, who opens the door between this plane and another which allows wife number one to return. The spirit of the play is blithe: carefree and lighthearted.
It is also blithe: lacking, or showing a lack of, due concern. In the current production of this play at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, "Blithe Spirit" is brittle, witty, haughty, occasionally lighthearted (they got that part in), and definitely lacking due concern.

Director Maria Mileaf and her team of designers have moved the play from the drawing room of the country house of Charles Condomine into the living room of his mighty mansion in which a team of servants rearrange the furniture, totally, at least twice a day. As designed by Neil Patel, the same space serves Charles and Ruth in a variety of ways and conformations. It’s a surprise to us, but not to them that their massive couch can face the fireplace at one moment and face the wall behind itself at other times. How amazingly aloof this couple must be, how indifferent to their surroundings. It’s a wonder they even notice a ghost at all, considering all of the other things they have to accustom themselves to every time they turn on the lights in this room.
Mileaf has also removed the play from the 1940s and dropped it into the 1960s. Ruth Condomine seems to be the sort of Englishwoman who admired Twiggy, turning her into a role model. Her costumes, designed by Katherine Roth, include miniskirts that make her reside uncomfortably in her own chairs; her beanbag chair is only used when she is dressed for dinner in floor-length gowns.
Production aside, the cast assembled for this evening’s entertainment is a fascinating one. In this 1960s resort town in Great Britain, racial inter-marriage seems to be the thing. Both of Mr. Condomine’s wives are white, while he himself is bi-racial and their dinner guests are a black couple. That’s all just fine. That’s very 1960s, even if it doesn’t quite jibe with the formality of address the two couples use. Even after the experience of Madame Arcati’s seance when Ruth confides her later troubles to Violet Bradman she calls her friend, Mrs. Bradman, certainly not a 60s thing to do. Oh, well, they stuck to the script and who can complain about that?
Ruth Condomine is the very talented Jessica Hecht. In this little band of players she is the trumpet. She blares out her emotions and performs a triple-tongued display of fireworks when needed. She wears the 60s styles well and she makes Ruth only marginally sympathetic in her tirades about her treatment at the hands of her unworthy husband. She is actually very funny, but not touching. In the final scenes of the second act, when her shrewish side is truly revealed, there is nothing new to discover about her; we’ve already seen all this.
Elvira Condomine, dead wife number one, is seductive and silly and very corpulent for a ghost. She is played by Kate Jennings Grant. Grant is a bit one-note in her playing, but it’s the right note for a flute. She is soft and windswept and her poltergeist-like excursions produce the right sort of reactions from the living folk around her. Never quite the transparent character, her motives play out on her face from the first moment she enters the room. As good as she is in this role, Grant gives us too much too soon and the predictable motives behind her visit from beyond are all too obvious.
Charles, their husband, is played by Bernard White. He is really rather good. Even when Mileaf doesn’t give him the proper opportunity to converse with Elvira in a way that would definitely confuse Ruth, he manages that personal sense of confusion well. His final scene of triumph, one of three endings I’ve seen for this play, was gratifying. In spite of the double-barreled abuse hurled at him by his two wives, this man retains the tones of a cello and plays both melody and harmony aspects of the role of husband, provider and barely concealed genius with ease.
In her way, Wendy Malick’s Madame Arcati, the medium, is really an entire string section pulled in tight, shimmering the same solid notes over and over. She wears outrageous costumes, dances outrageous dances, goes into traumatic trances and glares with a broad comedy style. Her voice is like music. Her hands are always in motion. Her hair is too perfect, an Ann Miller trait, so 60s. When she says lines like "Good night, you foolish bird." we know she means it, that she knows the bird, knows its thoughts and its ridiculous goals. Malick is funny, even when she’s serious, and the strains of strings of cat-gut being stroked by the tails of horses are inevitable.
The Bradmans are played by Michael Boatman and Adriane Lenox, who seem just a hair out of place in this orchestra. They are the woodwind section and have little to do except add a harmonic aspect to the piece. Her accent is slightly Jamaican and his is unplaceable. She is, like a clarinet, lost in the confusion of the score and his oboe is untuned as yet. He wears clothing that makes little sense and adds little to the work, which is too bad, for when he gets it right, as he does in Act Two, he’s very good indeed. Perhaps it’s the 40s stiffness and formality reconfined to the 60s concept that defeats her work. It’s hard to know.
Edith, the maid, is played by Jenn Harris. Half a piano and half a harp, she is the glue that hold the story together, and in this production, she is the visual and vocal riot of colors that makes the audience sit up and respond. She is brilliant, that’s all there is to it. Quirky, odd, all arms and legs, she got the laughs the play needs with every entrance, every line, every gesture, every exit. Like Edith Bunker in the late 60s television series, "All In The Family," this Edith is the one to watch.
The company works hard, harder than they should need to, to make this play work. Malick, Hecht, Harris and Wright perform best in this company. Grant, Boatman and Lenox do what they can. The problem with the show is the way it has been set and the set boasts the best mirror in memory.
For pure wit and comedy, this Noel Coward can’t be beat. For quirky and odd, laugh-producing performances, Harris and Malick have it won, hands down. For visual delights, we have the beautiful Hecht and Grant. There really is something for everybody in "Blithe Spirit," but there’s nothing very blithe (definition one) about it.

Blithe Spirit plays at the Williamstown Theatre Festival through July 29. For tickets and information contact the box office at 413-597-3400

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By Dale Wasserman, based on the novel by Ken Kesey. Directed by Eric Hill
Go inside the mind of an Indian chief who has been diminished by the world he knows into a hulking shell of a man, a shell that communicates internally but not externally. See the world of denial through his eyes and experience the lust of a man for size, and nothing more, the restoration of his stature in the world.
That is what Dale Wasserman, the playwright who brought us this adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, would like us to know, from the inside out. He wants us to feel what this indian chief feels. He finally allows us to know the reasons why Chief Bromden has taken refuge inside himself, behind his mind, behind his abilities.
One more thing this playwright and novelist team have accomplished: they bring the chief a gift, a man named McMurphy, a gift in human form who opens the doorway to his capabilities, his capacities to achieve stature. It’s an incredible gift.

In its initial run on Broadway the gift was played by Kirk Douglas, a man whose notorious grin has been seen on the face of maniacs; it was a smile that gave away his own character’s madness. In the movie, Jack Nicholson in the same role brought that overly familiar grimace that nowadays screams "Here’s Johnny" to anyone familiar with his other edge of madness role in that Stephen King film.
On the mainstage at the Berkshire Theatre Festival we have Jonathan Epstein who embraces the role of McMurphy with a full face smile that is sometimes one of genuine amusement, sometimes a cover for other emotions. In fact, that smile may be as memorable as the other two in my memory because of its variation, its ability to astound, confuse or ingratiate. Epstein’s smile, his grin, his grimace is the key to his interpretation of this role and it is one of the finest performances of his local career.
Epstein is joined by an exceptional cast in this large cast show. Linda Hamilton, with a smile of her own that seems to convey anything but amusement, is Nurse Ratched. Her control, both of her emotions and her intent, is alarming as she warmly encourages participation from the inmates in her ward of the asylum while already prepared to bring them down with her concept of discipline. Hamilton is startlingly strong as she encourages McMurphy to fail by insisting that he succeed. She is almost, but never quite, a charmer.
Austin Durant as Chief Bromden almost walks away with the show. This actor has become one of my favorites in just two seasons. I am pleading with the management of the BTF to promise me and the public that they will always find a role for him in each and every season. As the man who want to restore himself but has no tools to use, he is both compelling and engaging. His power is not in his size but in his honesty. Even the craziest internal monologues he has a genuine spirit that carries his performance to a higher plane of reality. Once he becomes a participant in the plot of the play he rips our hearts to shreds as he engages with his cohorts and finds himself again.
That emotional resolution is denied to Billy Bibbit, played with warmth and with physical frustrations by Randy Harrison in what I think is his finest work on this stage. He has a moment in the second act where his Billy is almost whole again and when he loses it, crumples it up and throws it away at the feet of Nurse Ratched, it is one of the most touching and heart-rending moments in this highly emotional play.
Crystal Bock is a wonderful Candy Starr, the prostitute who "mock-marries" Billy. Robert Serrell is a wonderful Martini, making us see what he sees. E. Gray Simons, III turns Cheswick’s anger and angst into mini-monuments that crumble into dust the instant they are erected. Tommy Schrider give Dale Harding all of the peculiarities he can, both physical and vocal and leaves an indelible impression. The entire ensemble delivers nicely. It’s a joy to watch them play out their mental and physical disabilities.
But at the center of it all is McMurphy. Epstein’s performance, as already noted, is his very best work in a long time. Under Eric Hill’s classic direction of this play, McMurphy takes second place to the indian chief, a balance that has been hard to achieve in previous productions. Hill and Epstein allow him to be the fulcrum in this eerie balance board of a work. Often taking center stage for his bigger moments, he melds into the picture when necessary. Hill brings Bromden to the forefront slowly over time, even though we are seeing the whole McMurphy experience through the chief’s eyes. When he and McMurphy finally connect it is moving and when they play their final scene together, mute and emotional, it is devastating.
This is tough theater. This is hard, biting satirical drama. There are laughs, but they are often uncomfortable laughs. There are tears, but they linger behind the eyes. There is sense in all the nonsense and silliness in the tragedies that shouldn’t be. There are also cliches, but what are those if not realities we’re accustomed to in our own lives. Reality is on the stage in Stockbridge and it's alive with possibility.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest plays through July 28 at the Berkshire Theater Festival in Stockbridge, MA. Ticket prices range from $37 - $64. For complete schedule and availability call the box office at 413-298-5576 or visit www.berkshiretheatre.org.

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Boy Gets Girl by Rebecca Gilman. Directed by Phil Rice.

It’s a dangerous theatrical season. Everywhere you look topics are hard-edged, biting, satirical, historical or just dangerous.
Insanity at the Berkshire Theater Festival, gang wars at Barrington Stage, escaped killers in Williamstown. At the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, New York, this season’s domestic dramedy dealt with the Mafia in "Breaking Legs," and the comedy slot was the difficult "Tale of the Allergist’s Wife."
Now, where a traditional mystery usually resides, we have "Boy Gets Girl," a police drama, to be sure, but not the usual fare. No Agatha Christie here. Instead we have a stalker story, a tale of one woman’s one mistake and the toll it takes.

Theresa Bedell’s one mistake is agreeing to a second get-together with her blind date, Tony. Set up by a friend she has met this man at a bar for a beer. He seems pleasant enough, even if their chemistry isn’t the sort that ignites or inflames the spirit. Still, he’s nice enough, cute in a way, a bit over-eager, but tolerable. So she agrees to dinner. Dinner doesn’t go as well and she tells him she doesn’t think they should see one another again. But that’s not good enough for him, and so it begins. An awkward first meeting extends into a situation that escalates quickly to hysteria. Theresa is in trouble and she knows it.
There are elements in this tale that almost anyone in the audience can recognize and empathize with from events in their own lives. Everyone has known someone who is relentless. What becomes very clear is that the relentless ones are sometimes our own creations, the result of our own single mistakes. In this case, in "Boy Gets Girl," we discover that there is a pattern. That’s a shame, really, for if Theresa was the only known case of Tony’s stalking there would be a different sense about the man and the play. Author Rebecca Gilman takes the journey almost to the next step, to a third victim and a fourth, but she never really gets there and the final curtain, the moment of greatest fear, happens when lighting designer Robert Eberle provides us with the imprisoning view of Theresa as her world alters and narrows. We know, even if she doesn’t, that the stalker’s world is much wider than her own and that the fear will never leave her.
Kathleen Carey plays Theresa. She plays her as someone with a troubled past hidden behind an intellectualism that hides any emotional possibilities. Her wide-eyed stares are easily associated with the victimized; even though she manages to be severely stoic in her work regime, Theresa, in her hands, is someone who will not be toyed with by anyone, not co-workers, bosses, or the subjects of her work, yet she is clearly vulnerable. She is a writer for a major magazine and she will not be diminished by the people she interviews. Carey does all this very well. Her emotional restraint is a slight problem in her dealing with Tony. There is very little fear in her voice or her face as the increasing hounding by him rattles the character. Where we do see her fears is in her body language and there Carey excels and makes us see the woman beneath the facade. In the final scene of the play the entire person emerges and it is clear that Theresa has those characteristics that a stalker seeks; she is terrified of her future and Carey lets us finally see what lies behind the mask. It is a slowly emerging characterization and it is chilling.
Tony is played by Peter Diseth as a mild-mannered individual, pleasant but socially unable to suppress his disappointments. With a gesture that is overused in his few scenes, a fist pressed to his brow, we know his words aren’t his thoughts. It’s okay, but not the best solution to bringing us the mask of the man.
Michael F. Hayes and Ryan Wesley Gilreath are the two men closest to Theresa at work, her editor and another staff writer. Hayes is Howard, the editor whose sympathies are with Theresa. Hayes is a quiet, supportive actor who makes Howard into the man anyone would feel safe around if there needed to be a human safe haven. He is very believable in a role that is almost too general and sweet. Gilreath, as the younger man who superficially resembles Tony and gives Theresa her most physically startling moments, is excellent. He delivers in every scene.
Emily Crockett makes the most of her on-stage scenes as the ditsy, young secretary who inadvertently gives Tony access to her boss. As the policewoman assigned to the case Joan Faxon does what she can. The role is under-written and serves as an information source rather than as an interactive character in the tale. Gilman has not used her to the maximum, perhaps because the play, once the cop enters it, becomes more a documentary than a drama. With so many ways the story could turn, it remains focused on the double yellow line down the long, straight road.
John Trainor turns in one of his best character performances here as Les Kennkat, a film director and producer being interviewed by Theresa for a magazine profile. He is a porn film guy and his whole attitude becomes a counterpoint to the Tony story. Trainor, expounding on large breasts, is hilarious and gives us a chance to escape for a few moments from the more serious side of this play. What is less explored is the concept of mono-mania, something Les shares with Tony. Both men are fixated on something female, but their different manipulations of their fixations is what makes them interesting. Curiously, even though Les is a secondary character, he has as much stage time as Tony. It’s just that his emotional and intellectual weight on Theresa’s yarn doesn’t have the same impact.
Director Phil Rice has done very good work here, keeping the hysteria internalized, using an Abe Phelps set that is deceptively simple, yet transforms from one place to another behind a blaring jazz score that attempts to give a "film noir" essence to the piece. Jonathan Knipscher’s costumes serve the characters well, although the men’s ties and Les’ pants seem to center the play in another era, not our own.
"Boy Gets Girl" is not the romance that its title would lead you to believe it would be. It is a strong, dark story about a woman who says "no" at the wrong time, instinctively one date too late. It is a good evening of theater, but don’t look over your shoulder as you leave the theater; you don’t want to give some future stalker the impression you’re vulnerable too.

BOY GETS GIRL runs through Sunday, July 22 at the fully air conditioned Theater Barn with performances on Thursdays and Fridays at 8 PM, Saturdays at 5 PM & 8:30 PM and Sunday matinees at 2 PM. Tickets are $20.00 for all evening performances, and $18.00 for the Sunday matinee. For information and reservations, which are suggested, please call (518) 794-8989. http://www.theaterbarn.com

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 04:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Villa America, written and directed by Crispin Whittell.

Gerald Murphy informs his future wife Sara Wiborg that he wants their marriage to be an open book, with everything they do, everything they feel or think to be available to each other, to be totally transparent. She agrees with him that this would be wise, if not easy.
This dialogue happens in scene four of the new play "Villa America" currently on the Nikos Stage at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Scene four, which is the final scene in the two act play, is set on the beach in East Hampton, N.Y., in 1915. The scenes which precede it, counting backwards to scene one, take place in Antibes in 1923, Antibes in 1926 and East Hampton in 1968.
Yes, it’s a play that moves backward in time to that point where the tale really begins. When this has been done successfully, which is hardly ever, it is to provide a happy ending that never comes in life to the participants in the tale by providing a happy beginning. It averts the sense of tragedy.
In Villa America, however, tragedy is everything. Its principal characters include the Murphys, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemmingway and Pablo Picasso. There is also Zelda Fitzgerald, but she is never seen or even heard in this play; she is a passive, if essential, character much discussed but never apparent. Without her, scene two - the longest sequence of the play, could never take place.
That is one of the principal flaws of this seriously incomplete play.

While no intermission is indicated in the playbill, there is one and, distrubingly, it comes right in the middle of that scene. If you have consulted your program you conclude that the second act begins with scene three, set three years earlier, and the confusion in the dialogue is distracting until you realize that this is just a continuation. A two-hour evening, you understand later, is intended as a 90 minute one-act play.
That fact becomes more real when you analyze the play as a whole: there is little drama here, little conflict. It becomes a story of who does Gerald like more, just now, and why. And how transparent are his decisions, his thought-processes in his choices, even to Sara.
Sara is the one character who seems to connect with all of the others. She is the monied lady with the good sense not to commit emotionally to any of the men around her. The men are emotional enough without her, actually. Hemmingway and Fitzgerald, at the beginning of their stellar careers in letters and Murphy with his modern painting skills, Picasso with his overwhelming talent and modest social skills each have their moments with her, but in the case of Ernest and Scott their most potent relationships, with difficult wives, are never seen. Instead they act out with one another and the robust and manly Hemmingway gets the upper hand over the intellectual and effete Fitzgerald.
In scene one, we are given clues to the past as Sara mourns the loss of her husband, revels in her accomplishment in having his work acclaimed, and finds herself lost in the confusion over her misplaced amourous intentions toward Fitzgerald. Not of it makes much difference or sense until we hear the pledge of transparency in scene four. The only conclusion that is a conclusion is that this play, set backwards, might emerge an actual play, a better play, a decent play if it took us forward in time instead. It comes across, at this point in time, as a shallow piece, structured to confuse and not illuminate, with characters who do not develop so much as they defrock. But even with that as its motivation, we never get to the core of the Murphys, who they are and why they are what they are. We only know they existed in a time when great minds were in the developmental stages and that Sara and husband provided the beach on which they soaked up sun. The end.
The cast is wonderful, considering how little other than words they have to work with in this play. Nate Corddry is Scott and he has some powerful moments in the second half of scene two. He handles them well even if his character has grown annoyingly silly by that time. Matthew Bomer is the best of this company at providing the long, hard, sensual gaze. His ultra-masculinity is almost a parody in the playing of Ernest. It is as though the word Macho needed to be invented in 1926 and he had decided to provide the dictionary definition in his personality. The battle between these two men is well-delineated, even if it may not be accurate.
David Deblinger’s Picasso cannot hold a candle to this season’s earlier Picasso at Barrington Stage, as played by Thom Christopher. Of course, this is Picasso at an earlier stage, but even so, this is Picasso. Somewhere we should feel the magnetism of this man, and we, sadly, don’t feel much of anything.
As Gerald, Karl Kenzler has the most difficult role. He must be a man who cannot do much except control the surroundings of his environment. He does it with a quirky, gesture-laden performance that calls up images of a man unsure of his stature, his preference, his decisions. He plays this inner difficulty brilliantly, but leaves us uncertain of even the basic human spirit of the man he portrays.
Sara is played, primarily, by Jennifer Mudge, in an enigmatic, emotionally dry, physically arid manner. If this was Sara Murphy then dozens of books about them and the period in which they lived have been lying to us. Mudge plays the character as written and gives us what this Whittell intends her to be: a pristine goddess who can pass judgements and command attention, but who never gives herself away to anyone other than her husband, and then only when she wishes to delight him.
As the older Sara, and two other delicious characters, Charlotte Booker walks away with the play. She is scene one. She makes Sara in old age into the woman we would like to believe we will know better by the end of the show. "Villa America was your creation," she is told and that may well be correct, but in the reality of what follows it would seem that Villa America was only an image without a backing, without an interior, without anything of value, a movie set flat painted to resemble something in life, but only held up by struts and pegs providing little. Booker has a speech about home, lifted from a letter by Archibald MacLeish which appears in the program. It is wistful and whimsical. It tells us more about Sara than anything that follows.
You may have guessed that this isn’t my favorite play, thus far, of the season. You’d be right.

Villa America plays through July 22 on the Nikos Stage at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, in Williamstown, MA. Performances are Tuesday through Sunday. For tickets and complete schedule contact the box office at 413-597-3400.

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Scapin by Bill Irwin & Mark O’Donnell based on a play by Moliere based on Commedia Dell’Arte sources, freely adapted by Jonathan Croy and company. Directed by Jonathan Croy.

In two one-hour segments separated by hours, or days, of intermission — depending on how you choose to see it, Shakespeare and Company is giving free performances of a classic comedy that has been freely adapted to a contemporary format.
Though the language and the references in this version are very contemporary, the physical look of the show is definitely pre-World War I and the and tone is distinctly indistinct. The combination of styles and visuals and the playing of this wonderfully over-the-top company make the entire experience a delight.

In brief, here’s the story: Argante has enagaged his son Octave to the unseen daughter of his neighbor Geronte. The two fathers have gone to fetch the girl, due in from Toronto, but in their absence Octave has married an orphan named Hyacinth. At the same time Geronte’s son Leander has pledged to marry a gypsy girl named Zerbinette if he can raise the money needed to buy her from the gypsies (she was an abducted child). To save them both from their fathers’ wraths, they employ their two house servants, Scapin and Sylvestre, to confound the older generation, secure them the money they need to fulfill their desires and to cover their escape. Into the mix comes a strange woman looking for a man no one has ever heard of in this place and she cannot be convinced that no one knows him. In the end, everything turns out to be for the best, but not until a lot of physical and verbal comedy has taken place and a folk song about the wished-for death of the unwanted daughter has been sung at least twice.
I know it doesn’t sound like its that much fun, but believe me, it is. Half the humor is in the script and half the humor is in the players and half the fun is in the direction and half the fun is in the audience. I know that’s four halves, but that’s just the way it goes in Scapin. Two wrongs do make a right turn and four halves make the hole through which we are plunged into this madcap world.
Michael F. Toomey plays the title role. Schemer-in-chief, pompous servant (and vengeful-when-wronged), he seems to never leave the stage, to never give an inch and yet he is the most generous of performers.He shares his best moments with others and even when he disguises himself to save himself a beating with a large stick, his playing has the sting of reality about it mostly through the back and forth reactions to both visually and verbally funny moments.
Marc Scipione, playing the guitar, donning a moustache, finding his center, is often Toomey’s equal, and almost his better, at the physical hysterics demanded of the two servant roles. Especially when they work together to astound and confuse their masters, Argante played by Bob Lohbauer and Geronte played by Steve Boss, Scipione and Toomey are a delectable and dynamic duo.
Boss is very funny as the extremely serious and angry Geronte. No tragedy is too great for this man as he drags his character down to the depths of despair over his son’s betrayal and his neighbor’s son’s betrayal as well. While he never moans, it would seem as though that is all he does and the effect is very funny. Lohbauer is a much lower-keyed senior in this play. As someone who refuses to accept bad news in any form he strikes a continuous note of misplaced optimism and it works as a refreshing counterpoint to the madness going on all around him.
The two sons are well represented by David Joseph as Octave and James Babcock as Leander. Joseph also sings the infamous song by Christopher Michael Vecchio and Jonathan Croy, "I Wish That She Would Die," with terrific lyrics expressed with lyrical tones. Their chosen wives are played by Gillian Hurst and Jennie Burkhard Jadow. Jadow’s gypsy girl is appropriately sultry for a blonde and Hurst makes Hyacinth into the least "precious" girl of her type.
Dana Harrison is the mystery woman. As she wanders to and fro through the play, her distinctly foreign accent a plus in her interpretation, she pulls focus from the main story and opens up a world of possibilities for Scapin who cannot help but admire her various accouterments. For him there is some sort of "deja-voodoo" about her. She has the only softly quiet moments in the show and they are lovely.
If you are fond of Zubin Mehta, hyperbole, Xerox, Hydrangea, Zirconia or Hibiscus, Scapin is the show you must see this summer. All the above make their brief appearance or appearances in this play where words and actions suit their purveyors. Jenna Ware’s costumes delineate the characters perfectly. Performed under a tent in the Rose Footprint where the replica of the Rose Theatre will one day be built, the carnival aspect of the show is, at least in part, what makes this free Bankside Festival event so wonderful.

Scapin plays through September 1 in the Rose Footprint Theater at Shakespeare and Company on Kemble Street in Lenox, MA. Tickets are required, but admission is FREE. Call the box office at 413-637-3353 for more information on schedule and for reservations.

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July 4, 1944 in an old boathouse, or "folly," on the river near Lebanon, Missouri was an auspicious day in the life of Miss Sally Talley. It was that day of independence when she gave up her own to marry Matt Friedman, the exotic Jewish man born in Europe and living 200 hundred miled away from this spot her family owns but ignores. It was that day that Aunt Charlotte, or Lottie, got her way and foisted the nurses aide onto the accountant, got her off the property out of their lives, rid the family of their embarassment by using sugar instead of salt.
And all Miss Lottie did was get them both, Sally and Matt, down to the Folly, to Talley’s Folly.

Talley’s Folly by Lanford Wilson, directed by Greg Leaming

On the stage at the Dorset Theatre Festival in Dorset, Vt., this simple story is played out by real life husband-and-wife actors Todd Cerveris and Angela Reed. Reed is tall, slender, attractive in a 1940s way but without the glamour that so many women pulled onto themselves to attract a man. Cerveris is ethnic without making himself unpleasant about it — an accent that sneaks in when he’s not paying attention that says "foreign" or "yid" but never too clearly to be disconcerting. Together they make an odd couple in this play but they make one that works. It is obvious, from the start, that they belong together, but the trick is figuring out before them how to make that happen.
Sally is intent on family, her existing family. Matt is a loner who doesn’t want to be a loner. He doesn’t want kids; his own childhood was so traumatic that he fears what growing up could do to his offspring. Sally is his ideal mate in so many ways, but she fights him, tooth and nail, over this and other issues, even though she is his ideal mate.
The scrapping the two of them do is the heart of this play and the secrets revealed hurt the hearer more than they do the teller in each and every case. For a while it seems that if they stay together, even for this one day, this day of liberation, they could destroy themselves and one another at the same time.
A play about love that rarely uses the word "love," Talley’s Folly is as strong and moving a piece today as it was when it was first produced back in 1979 and winning the Pulitzer Prize. In the hands, bodies and voices of Cerveris and Reed it is both touching and beautiful while remaining hard and defined, a jewel cut to perfectionand set that way as well.
On Nathan Heverin’s excellent set, a decrepit old boat house and dock, Matt and Sally seem locked into spaces that cannot expel them. There is something about this open-air closed-in world they inhabit for 97 minutes that is just right for their deep-seeded needs. Josh Bradford’s lighting continues the effort to enclose these people as end of day becomes early night with a moon that rises but never high, travels but only wide, enlightens their histories but never their futures. Aided by the excellent ambient sounds provided by Daniel Baker, Talley’s world is complete with night crawlers, crickets and a band concert across the river that helps to complete the picture of Sally’s world. It is a world she knows before she hears it, before she smells it. It is a world designed to hold her securely, even if she claims to want change. It would be a hard world to leave even though she knows that it no longer cherishes her. Sound, light, presence make this all so very real for the audience.
Greg Leaming has given his actors a fascinating place to discover. Matt describes it in ways we never experience it. Leaming moves his pair of players into and out of intimacies without making a single mistake. If one of them turns a back to us we are only kept from a facial expression and not from the impact of that expression on the other player. It’s a job well done, accomplished by three creative and interpretive artists who know what they’re doing. As a team they make Talley’s Folly into Talley’s Triumph.
This is a near-perfect production of a one-act play that started Wilson on the road to The Fifth of July (also written in 1979). The Talleys were not done yet, not by a long shot and seeing this play will tell you why that is so. Here, in Lebanon Missourie, there are people with passion.

Talley’s Folly will play through July 15 at the Dorset Theatre Festival located at 104 Cheney Road in Dorset, Vermont. Ticket prices range from$30-$35; the show plays Wednesday through Sunday. For curtain times and tickets call 802-867-5777.

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"Thoroughly Modern Millie" by Richard Morris and Dick Scanlan, lyrics by Scanlan, music by Jeanine Tesori. Directed by Tralen Doler.

It isn’t often that I can heartily recommend a show with a two synthesizer orchestra, a sound that usually drives me crazy.
But at the Mac-Haydn Theater in Chatham, N.Y., there is a production of the stage version of one of my favorite movies that is so clever and so much fun that even two and a half hours of that jarring, grating noise-machine accompaniment didn’t bother me a bit. This edition of the stage version of "Thoroughly Modern Millie" is a delight. It may not be the most memorable theater piece you’ll ever see, but you should see it for what it brings.

Karla Shook plays Millie. With her bobbed red hair and her big toothsome smile she resembles a youthful Lotte Lenya but sings like Betty Boop and Helen Morgan combined. She dances well and she makes love with an appropriately innocent passion. She tosses her body around the set’s furnishings with abandon and her comedy timing is superb. Her Millie is equally involved with the two men in her life, the difficult Jimmy Smith and the self-important Trevor Graydon. Millie’s dilemma in this version of the story is not which to choose but why to choose whomever. The choice ultimately becomes a simple one.
Graydon is played with an over-the-hill Jack Cassidy sort of grace by John Saunders. He manages to get the romance into the role without sacrificing the "ideals" espoused by the character and keeps the man’s despair at rejection to a low-key, comic minimum. Jimmy is defined in the playing of Austin Riley Green right from the "meet-cute" designed by the book writers. He is handsome, youthful, a typical New Yorker whose arrogance is mitigated by his obvious sexual attractiveness. When he softens during his pursuit of Millie, he becomes what she needs, an irresistible force. Green does all of this very well and he sings and dances as well.
If you remember the story, you know there is a plot to kidnap young women and send them to China to work as prostitutes. Heading up this conspiracy is Mrs. Mears, the owner of the Priscilla Hotel where Millie and a whole host of young women live. This arch-villain is played to the comic hilt by Monica M. Wemitt. She handles the physical comedy, the music and the verbal distinctions between the woman she is at heart and the woman she plays for her roomers, with aplomb.
One of her intended victims is Miss Dorothy Brown from California, Millie’s new best friend. In this role, and in more pink than should ever be seen at one time, is Kat Fehrle. She does whatever she can to keep the saccharine levels at bay, but the role is what it is and she does have the surprise ending to end all surprise endings. Not a direction you expect if you know the movie, but still a delight.
Whitney Lee and Thom Caska are the two Chinamen cohorts of Mrs. Mears and they are very good in their roles, particularly Lee. An attractive chorus of women and men play everything under the sun and inside the speakeasies and they do it with amazing energy and talent.
As the socialite hostess Muzzy Van Hosmere, Kathy Halenda has show-stopping moments in song and comedy. In fact, after the glamour of her first two appearances her final moments in the show are among the funniest the evening has to offer.
Directed and choreographed by first-time director at Mac-Haydn, Tralen Doler, this show is a pleaser as the dancing spills off the stage and into the aisles. There is more energy here than usual and more fun in his movement and his use of the stage. There are times, especially in the early numbers when it seems as though he might be uncomfortable in the theater in the round format, but he overcomes that quickly with his vivid and fervent ensemble work. Doler is a keeper. Hopefully he will be back next season to continue expanding the theater’s horizons in whatever directions he can use.
Jimm Halliday’s costumes are superb. No other word need apply. Andrew Gmoser’s lighting is excellent as well and Bob Hamel has provided a perfect set for this 1922 urban experience.
While the songs are not the equal of the score in the film (only the title song and the ballad, "Jimmy," are retained) a few stand out, including "Forget About the Boy," "What Do I Need With Love," "They Don’t Know," "Long As I’m Here With You" and the trio "Muqin" (you’ll know it when you hear it).
Give yourself a treat. Go see the show that, in its first appearance on this stage, should become a habit. It may not be the most memorable evening in the musical theater, but it makes one heck of an impression.

"Thoroughly Modern Millie" plays at the Mac-Haydn Theatre on Route 203 in Chatham, New York through July 15. For tickets and information, call the box office at 518-392-9292.

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The Bully Pulpit by Michael O. Smith, directed by Richard Hopkins.

A one-man show can be tiresome, but when the single character is as multi-faceted, humorous, emotional, and historically attractive as Theodore Roosevelt and the only actor as multi-talented, humorous, emotional and historically representational as Michael O. Smith then the experience is more than just theatrical.

It is historical.

Set in the drawing room at Roosevelt’s home, Sagamore Hill, on the occasion of his 60th birthday, the sense is that the audience consists of invited guests to the party who have been granted a moment alone with the former U.S. President. He talks, jokes, cajoles answers to his little history quiz about his accomplishments like a carnival barker. He shows off his trophies, brags about his sons and shares his concerns about his daughter Alice. After a few minutes you feel you’re there. The two hours fly by and it is just the applause that reminds you that you have been in a theater watching a play.

Smith’s script has been in development with director Hopkins help at the Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota. Smith has appeared in Chester before as Roosevelt, in the two-hander, John and Teddy with Chester’s Founding Director Vincent Dowling. He seems to have taken Roosevelt’s own advice, "do what you can, with what you have, where you are," and crafted an evening’s entertainment that fits his age, body, voice like a rubber suit. Not once in the entire evening did I hear or see or even suspect the actor’s presence. He is that good in the role. He established Teddy from the first moment and never lets him go, even during the near break-down over the death of his favorite son in "Puddinhead" Wilson’s war to end all wars.
Amy B. Davis’ set holds all of the elements needed to show the many sides of this man who occupies the room. While it is not a visual snapshot of Sagamore Hill, it is a fine representation of the place. Rich with its red drapes and fine woods, elegant furniture but hunting trophies, the room seems to embrace its occupant with both the familiar and the necessary. Marcella Beckwith has provided period costumes that fit the man and his historical periods and Lara Dubin has done a very nice job with the lighting as well.
There is appropriately martial music to welcome the audience and it almost all works to the good of the show. Sousa marches lead the way and Sousa, as he tells us himself, was his favorite composer. "There are two kinds of music," Roosevelt says, "Sousa and everybody else." Unfortunately the sound person has included a very lengthy version of Broadway marches written by George Gershwin a decade or more after the date of this show (1918). They are so familiar that though the quality of the music is consistent, the tunes are jarringly out of place: the only note that misfires in this entire evening.
"Too old for service," Mr. Roosevelt has been adjudged by his peers; on this 60th birthday he shows himself to be too young to count over and out. If you don’t believe that, well, his wife Edith has her say in the matter during the evening. Complex but easily understood, this man, in this show, is the person everyone wants to know, if not be, at least for a while. And the celebration of his 60th continues unabated through July 15. Don’t miss the cake!
Chester Theatre Company performs in the Chester Town Hall, just off Route 20 in the Pioneer Valley. Ticket prices range from $22.50 to $27.50. For more information call 413-354-7771 or go to their website at www.chestertheatre.org

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The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles Mac Arthur. Directed by Ron Daniels

There are plays that express the deepest concerns of men. The Front Page isn’t meant to be one of them and yet, in a way, that is exactly what it is.
From its title to its watch-cry "I’m a newspaper man." it is concerned with only one thing, really, the need to perform well at a job that can only be done one way, the hard way. It demands sacrifices of a man, even if those things being given up are exactly what he has worked for his whole life.
A hard-boiled look at what makes a great newsman is what this play is all about except for one small thing. It happens to be a comedy, one of the best if it’s given its head. At the Williamstown Theatre Festival’s mainstage opening night it was given exactly that and, in spite of its worn, familiar material it made its point and then some.

The longest act is the first one and it is so riddled with characters creating the larger overview that the audience could hardly pay attention to the principal character, Hildy Johnson. Hildy is saying goodbye to all that primary devotion. He’s getting married, leaving Chicago and going into business elsewhere. At least that’s his intent. His editor, Walter Burns, has other ideas.
Just getting to this simple point in Act One is difficult in this production with its irregular pacing and peculiarly laconic style. But there is a retribution, a pay-off for anyone who sticks it out for the second and the third acts. They hit on all cylinders and make the lengthy, nearly three-hour, evening worthwhile.
Set in a press room in a building adjoining the state prison, a bunch of reporters are waiting for the execution of a local terrorist-type named Earl Williams. When he breaks out of jail, the plot finally gets going. God bless Earl Williams.
The show has had a few lines added to it, but that hasn’t made it longer because one character has been removed. Those new lines are given to Walter Burns so that he can be a distinct presence in the first act. In a way this diminishes the impact of his entrance in Act Two, but it does help to establish his difficult relationship with Hildy. Burns is played here by Richard Kind and he is just about the best thing on this stage. His third act con of the reporter and poet Bensinger, played to perfection by Robert Stanton, is nothing less than brilliant acting of a brilliant passage of prose. Kind is unlike the man we see on television, sappy, silly, vapid. Here is a powerful figure without scruples. He plays the character with more than an Orson Welles delivery; he gives it a personal strength that is uniquely his own.
Hildy hasn’t got quite the sense, courage or willpower in the hands of Jason Butler Harner. In the first act he talks too fast, losing the audience. In the second act he becomes driven and takes on a more honest and realistic facade, but in the third act he steps into the shoes of Mr. Johnson and lets loose with the energy and honesty the part requires.
His fiancé is played by Amanda Leigh Cobb without a true sense of person or period. She is never more than a foil for him and never the equal of Kay Walbye who plays her mother in a very funny way. Likewise John Cariani makes the messenger role, Irving Pincus, into a small gem of a character part and is very funny. Bill Cwikowski’s escaped murderer Earl Williams is a treat.
The ensemble of newsmen are just fine, although their first act pace is what holds back the comedy, holds back the play. They don’t seem to care enough about what they’re doing inside those roles.
As the sheriff who allows the escape to take place Wayne Knight has more than a few shining moments and Tom Bloom playing Chicago’s Mayor is his equal in every scene. Bloom has never disappointed in his appearances with this company and once again he delivers a solid character.
Not so for Kathy McCafferty as Mollie Malloy. She has two scenes in which to get it right and her first one was a bust and her second was much, much better. Her Mollie could be a classic if she could only establish herself in her first pass through the press room. She might be great in this part by the time you see it, so keep your fingers crossed. She certainly has the talent.
One more stellar performance: Sean Patrick Reilly as Diamond Louie is practically perfect in every way. Bravo!
Riccardo Hernandez delivers a wonderfull complex period set and Linda Cho has given her many characters their looks with an eye to the writing of those characters and not just the actors’ bodies. Charles Foster produced lighting that added to the feeling of the time and place and Nick Borisjuk provided a sound ambience that felt equally right for this play.

The only major problem here is the first act, sluggish, rushed, sluggish again and just too painful. There’s no reason it should be like that, but the fact is that’s what you get. But stick around for the last half of the evening. It’s worth the wait.

The Front Page plays through July 15 on the main stage at the Williamstown Theatre Festival with performances Tuesdays to Fridays at 8:00, Saturdays at 8:30 with matinees Thursdays at 3:00, Saturdays at 4:00 and Sundays at 2:00. Tickets are $48 to $58 depending on the performance. For the final performance of THE FRONT PAGE on Sunday, July 15, ticket prices include a $10 donation to fund next season’’s Christopher and Dana Reeve Apprenticeship. Festival performances are held at the ’’62 Center for Theatre and Dance of Williams College at 1000 Main Street (Route 2) in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The theatre is wheelchair accessible. Assistive listening devices are available.

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"Calvin Berger," the new musical, loosely based on Edmond Rostand’s comedy "Cyrano deBergerac," is a charmer, but one whose charms are only loosely hung on a gold-plated chain bracelet.
We’re in high school, somewhere in the United States, in the present, and our four principal characters are seniors with problems. Rosanna is just too pretty to be appreciated for her mind; Matt is too vacuous to make a sane and responsible statement on any subject, whatsoever; Brett has big butt issues; and Calvin has an overly self-conscious sense of his appearance, which has become centered on his hook-nose.
In author Barry Wyner’s world here are the dynamics that control the relationships among the foursome: Calvin loves Rosanna and Matt wants her. Rosanna loves Calvin as a brother and desires Matt. Bret is Calvin’s confidante and loves and want him but he is obsessed with Rosanna.
Two hours later everyone gets what they really want. It seems.

Not surprisingly, there are few surprises in this script. It is fairly obvious from the get-go that the outcome will be what it eventually turns out to be and everyone is happy by the end of the finale. Equally without surprise or shock, this is an audience pleaser. Opening night there were teenagers galore in the audience and they cheered and rocked with laughter at every obvious turn of events. The older element in the audience was having a fine time with the show as well and that’s to the advantage of the show. It is a pleaser. It is nice to have things turn out the way we want them.
Calvin Berger serves up a light supper that pleases and satisfies, but it is still a light supper, not a hearty meal.
When I was in high school, we had a Calvin Berger-type named Ira Lipschitz. Self-conscious about his name. and socially shy as a result, he always planned to change his name when he was of age. When we were 21, he followed through on his plan and at a party he announced his new name, the change that he knew would alter the course of his life.
He was forever to be known as Larry Lipschitz — not the outcome any of us expected. In this new musical, Calvin changes his appearance, but not his nose, and comes to an understanding about attractiveness and what it is and what it means and how it functions. He is, like Larry/Ira, a contented human being with a brighter future. Even though it is exactly what we expected all along, we say "Good for Calvin!"
A rather beautiful cast of four players is performing this new show at The Athenaeum in Pittsfield through July 14. It is the first play in this year’s series in the Barrington Stage Company’s Musical Theater Lab under the watchful eye of William Finn. The gorgeous and curvaceous Elizabeth Lundberg is Rosanna. The blonde and hunky Aaron Tveit is Matt. Gillian Goldberg plays Bret. As Calvin we have David Perlman. All four performers are young, attractive and very, very talented. They act, sing and dance with a professional aplomb that overwhelms. With not a flaw among them, except the ones their characters claim hinder them (and we never really see those — only they do), they give us a delightful evening of teenage angst, teenage power and teenage romance. It’s like a beach-blanket movie without the extras, without the conflicts.
Where, we wonder, is that fifth wheel, the anchor that holds the conflict in place? Why is there no one else in this mix to add that bit of confusion or distraction or suspense about decisions? What happened to Rostand’s deeper concern about the social status of his characters, about the parental intention that needs to be over-ridden by the determinations of youth? What, I personally wonder, would that have brought to this modern-day Cyrano, to Calvin the boy, Calvin the man, Calvin the play?
But taking the show as it is, there is much good entertainment here, if no suspense, no drama. The songs are delightful, if not memorable musically. The lyrics are superb and the dialogue funny and sometimes touching. Calvin sings of his concerns to a Mister Potato-Head, changing its nose to suit his face. Matt makes every mistake possible in his untutored dialogues with Rosanna; for example: She says "...my sense of direction is, like, infantile." and Matt replies, "My dad sells tile." Sexual inuendo becomes a way of life in the simplest conversations between them and the younger set in the audience adore it while their elders in the next row remember those moments fondly, and with that remembered embarrasment, blush a bit.
Among the highlights are the songs "We’re The Man", "Never Know," both sung by Calvin and Matt, "Perfect for You," performed with so much heart by Bret that you can die from the honesty in it, and Rosanna and Calvin’s duet "More than Meets the Eye." Director Stephen Terrell is the only movement person credited so the choreography in the show must be his as well and particularly in "We’re the Man" he delivers a perfectly wonderful sense of that youthful exuberance that so clearly defines both the guys.
Brian Prather has delivered a fine set in this three-quarter thrust performance space. Amela Baksic knows the right clothes for the right characters in the right moments. Scott Pinkney delivers excellent lighting for the show, focusing our attention where it needs to be.
This is a light evening of amusing musical theater, a perfect family show as long as the kids aren’t too young. For a summer entertainment it approaches perfection, but it is a slight piece with only just enough real substance to amuse for a brief time. We’re not talking great musical theater here, only the promise of great things to come from Wyner and his superb quartet of players.

Calvin Berger plays at The Athenaeum, 1 Wendell Avenue, in Pittsfield, MA through July 15. Tickets are $25-$30. For schedules and tickets contact the Barrington Stage Company's box office at 413-236-8888 or go to their website: www.barringtonstageco.org.

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