Peter Bergman Theater Reviews

Little Shop of Horrors, book and lyrics by Howard Ashman, music by Alan Menken. Directed by Keith Andrews.

At the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y., where young musical stars are born, the best rock musical since "Hair" is playing to ovations that are decidedly deserved.
For the first time in all the productions I’ve seen, Seymour Krelborn, the leading male character, is being played by someone who actually looks like a person that the abused Audrey could love. That’s something very, very new. Usually some nerdy guy whose thick, black-rimmed glasses make no difference to his appearance, on or off, plays the role, sings fine, acts OK, looks funny and gets to be the accidental anti-hero.
In this presentation, however, the company has given the role a young actor who looks, acts and comports himself with class, glasses on or off, but needs a bit of help in the singing department. He carries his tunes well, but he could use a bit of volume. Even so, he is a romantic lead and his downfall is all that much more depressing because he has so much going for him to start with. It gives an unusual twist to the tale.

Seymour is an orphan, taken in by the florist Mushnik, who toils all day and all night developing new plants. He has finally hit on one that revolutionizes the florist’s business at his Skid Row location. The only problem is the plant food needed is hard to come by and Seymour does what he must to keep things growing. The result, or at least the temporary result, is universal adoration, personal love and adoption papers. The outcome, in true Sci Fi fashion, is the demise of Peoria, which is not where the show is set. More details? Go see the show and find out for yourself.
Trey Compton is an adorable Seymour. You actually believe this boy is serious in everything he does, says, or wishes. He is not stupid, which helps. He is not nerdy, which helps. He is not vulgar, which also helps, especially in his romantic entanglement. If Compton could just sing out so his lyrics were heard in the seventh row, he would have it all.
John Trainor plays Mushnik. He is just about right for the role. He handles it with an honesty that is unusual in this part, without over-acting, or hammy acting and he makes the florist a bit less sympathetic than he sometimes appears to be.
laine Hayhurst plays Audrey, the abused sales girl, who find true love with Seymour only to lose it to the boy’s work/hobby/cross to bear. She is not the sexiest Audrey, but she plays it as though she was and she does just fine. A bit more fear and terror in her body would have been nice as she dealt with her dentist boyfriend, but even without that she managed to get across the character she was playing here. In fact, with the exception of one actor, everyone mentioned played with a realism that is unusual for this show.
Matthew Daly, in multiple roles, gave this presentation much more of the traditional renditions, but even he was somewhat restrained. As Orrin, the dentist, he was brutal and pretty. As everyone else he was that rare multiple, an actor who quickly adapted to the needs of the moment. This is something he does very well, and the show’s laugh track is greatly dependent upon his fine work. In his scene with Compton in the dentist’s office, there was room for broader, more blatant, comedy but even there he was with his character as directed and it worked well.
Three women who sing beautifully together play the Greek Chorus of this show, Chiffon, Crystal and Ronette (each named for a girls rock group of the period). Jillian Wallach, Masonya Berry and Kristyl Dawn Tift do very well as the ubiquitous trio.
Then there’s Audrey II, the plant developed by Seymour. The role is divided into two parts, like ancient Gaul (which may have been three parts, but in her own way, so is Audrey II). John Edwards manipulates the plant and Edgar Acevedo provides the vocals. Audrey II is a winner here, in more ways than one and delighted the audience constantly.
Keith Andrews should be applauded for his humanized version of this show. While his more realistic characters may be depriving the audience of a few laughs, they are laughs at the expense of exaggeration and he has replaced these with the much more solid, genuine laughter given to the familiar experience being repeated by younger, more foolish individuals. He has brought a solid sense of tenderness to this show and it works.
Abe Phelps' set is perfect and Jonathan Knipscher’s costumes certainly express their characters. Robert Eberle’s lighting is not all it could be in this show and sometimes not even what it needs to be. Michael McAssey’s musical direction with his trio of players is just fine, but he needs to coach his singers a bit more.
This is the final musical of the season at the Barn, and it is one that provides musical highlights, comedy, pathos and a sense of science fiction wonderment. When you go remember it is a parody of the sci-fi/horror genre and also a parody of the big, heart-tug musicals of the golden age of the Broadway show. As both it works really well and provides a good, solid two hours of entertainment.

Little Shop of Horrors plays through Sept. 2 at the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y., right on Route 20, just west of town. Tickets are available through the box office at 518-794-8989.

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Educating Rita by Willy Russell. Directed by Richard Corley.

Finishing its summer season with a mini-Shaw festival the Berkshire Theatre Festival’s Unicorn Theatre is the site for Willy Russell’s play "Educating Rita," a formulaic update of George Bernard Shaw’s "Pygmalion."
In the newer play Frank, a college professor and poet, tutors an uneducated hair dresser in an open university arrangement, helping her to better herself and become a woman he could love, only to have her throw him over for a student at the regular university, but then, just as Eliza Doolittle does in Shaw’s play, she comes back and gives him a trimming.
It is a sweet little play, one that has had a long life already, complete with a film version starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters. In Stockbridge, its cast consists of Jonathan Epstein and Tara Franklin. Both actors do well by their characters.

Franklin is an exuberant, exciting Rita. She bursts into rooms. She spouts her opinions. She towers over her teacher when it comes to personal news, emotional reactions and even to carousing. Franklin works well with her heavy Liverpudlian accent up top and her more discreet stage British lingo in the second act. Her hair, makeup and clothing, all provided by Sarah Reever, show her progress well. Franklin is an excellent Rita.
Epstein’s performance is totally different. While we can see his growing interest in his student, he never plays his emotions outright except in an occasional denunciation scene. His Frank is a man who lives in the bottle and the book and accepts nothing he hasn’t already offered. It is a quiet performance and it is a touching one.
These two characters do not easily mesh and, like Eliza and Higgins in the prototype, they never completely understand one another. They are just too different. Even as Franklin’s character gains poise and pride in herself as the new woman she has become, Epstein’s character has difficulty seeing anything other than the woman behind the lady. We can see it in his eyes and his body language. He reads the lines Russell has written sincerely, but his entire visual persona is housing his diffidence.
Contained within the elegant university rooms that Joseph Varga has designed, these two play out their story. There are no surprises here, no unexpected flies in any ointment. This tale of transformation is as old as the hills and as comfortable as the grass on those hills. Even so, that comfort value is what makes the evening acceptable.
Corley has been busy with his small cast and larger crew creating an atmospheric play where hundreds of props are brought in and taken out between the many scenes of this episodic play. More often than not those props are not touched, referred to or anything other than set dressing and half the time they are not even noticeable during the scene played among them. Loud music and a dim half light cover the changes and watching the choreography of those shifts in the scenery are fascinating. As Epstein rarely leaves the stage, he is a part of the visual display and that is more fun than it should be. Corley’s concentration may not have been on this aspect of the entertainment, but it is certainly one that the audience seemed to relish.
The BTF has mounted this play for a split run. It plays 10 days now and a longer period of time from September into October, an attraction in a major regional summer theater for the autumn leaf peeper crowd. This show is a good choice for such an offering, as it deals with changes, with an autumn/spring relationship, with school terms and with a deeper understanding of the human values that are important to us all.

Educating Rita is being played in the Unicorn Theatre at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge through August 31. It reopens on September 27 and plays through October 20. Tickets are $38-$43 and students with valid ID receive 50% off. For full schedules and tickets call the box office at 413-298-5576 or visit their Web site at www.berkshiretheatre.org.

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La Boheme by Giacomo Puccini, libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa with English supertitles by Celeste Montemarano. Directed by Chuck Hudson.

Classic seduction plays a central role in the story of Mimi and Rodolfo, the ill-fated young lovers in Puccini’s "La Boheme," based on incidents in the book "Scenes de la Vie de La Boheme" by Henri Murger. One of two operas created at virtually the same moment in time, 1896-97 (the other version by Leoncavallo remains more faithful to the book), but set in the Paris of the 1840s, the Puccini opera has been a popular favorite and major money-maker for opera companies since its premiere in the Belle Epoque.
Berkshire Opera has wisely reset the opera in the era in which it was written and is performing it in the beautifully decorated and recently restored 1903 Colonial theater in Pittsfield. Here is a jewel-box setting for an intricately cut and excellently mounted gem of a production.

Like Rodolfo’s seduction of Mimi, or hers of him if you prefer to think of them that way, this company seduces its audience. To an almost completely sold-out house the opera on stage is what this collection of opera watchers wanted, asked for, needed. That sense of seduction across the footlights, the back and forth romance of the romantic story and romantic music, was all pervasive and that was just as it should have been.
This theater reopened after more than half a century of darkness with a touring production of "Rent" the Broadway musical which was taken from the same source material as "La Boheme" and now it has housed the all-time winner in the bohemian song race and proven, once and for all, that this theater requires no microphones, amplifiers, or rock bands to provide both quality public presentations and quantity attendance.
The orchestra pit contained 35 musicians and the conductor. There was a chorus of sixteen along with five non-singing extras, seven principal singers wearing period costumes and a set that was both functional and attractive. Opening night’s gala audience included Governor and Mrs. Deval Patrick, the mayor of Pittsfield and Mrs. James Ruberto, and beautifully dressed people willing to pay up to $90 a ticket to see a work considered a "war-horse," a piece produced at some point by every opera company in the world, professional, non-professional and amateur. This was not something new, but rather something old and comforting and compelling. Lessons to be learned, I hope, by presenters in the region. Good, first-quality material will always draw attention.
The performance itself was grand. Local diva Maureen O’Flynn, now an internationally acclaimed opera star, performed the role of Mimi, the not-quite innocent girl who seduces the young writer Rodolfo. Sari Gruber, whose appearances with this company over the past several years have been neo-legendary, played the role of Musetta, the best flirt in Paris. Tenor John Bellemer was Rodolfo and Musetta’s favorite swain, the painter Marcello, was performed by Troy Cook. This superb quartet of players brought fire and passion and humor to their roles, all of them sung with fervor, clarity and an intensely interpretive style.
Cook and Gruber were the better actors in this group, never varying from the characters they played. Bellemer was moving as he burned his manuscript in act one and equally emotional at the opera’s end. His passion and fire seemed to die out in Act Two at the Café Momus. O’Flynn was touching, heart-rendingly ill and needy in the last two acts, but a bit stand-offish in the early acts. Her singing was delectable, but her role required a bit more physical beauty at the outset.
In the supporting roles were three men who could not have been better cast. Ryan Allen was a hilarious landlord, Benoit, and an equally fascinating Alcindoro - an older man courting Musetta. He sang both roles well, but unlike so many before him he took on Benoit as the comic challenge he should be and made the most of his scene. Marcus DeLoach was Schaunard, the musician among the Bohemians. An excellent baritone he made the most of the smallest and least significant of the four young men roles. Jason Hardy as the philosopher Colline, was outstanding. He has a flair for physical comedy and bass voice that could melt butter. In his fourth act aria, Vecchia Zimarra, in which he says a reluctant farewell to the coat he is willing to sell to aid the recovery of a dying Mimi, he was touching and nearly stopped the show in its tracks. A call of "Bravo!" was appropriate and it rang through the auditorium. His program bio indicates that he will sing Leporello in Don Giovanni soon, but quite frankly his style, his extraordinary good looks and his voice make him a perfect choice for the Don himself.
Hudson has taken this opera into the plains of reality with strong physical kinships and a sense of realism that sharpened those relationships. He has painted pictures that make sense and that aid in the tugging of our heartstrings. It is beautiful work and this company will be fortunate to have him back in future seasons. Kathleen Kelly,  conducting the orchestra, brought the most beautiful sounds to life from the pit and simultaneously guided her singers in perfect harmony and ideal entrances
The set designed by Jean-Francois Revon is both functional and attractive. With this one intermission version (the second act cuts help with the timing), there is a decent flow on the double raked platform which dominates the stage left area. It did point up one flaw in this otherwise lovely performance space. There seemed to be a dead spot for sound just right of upstage center. Several times as singers passed through that point voice levels dropped to an almost imperceptible level.
The costumes by Charles Caine were perfection. Each character was defined by his her clothing and Mimi’s in particular showed us the subtle lies in the seduction. It’s a careful and clever choice made by the designer. The evening’s lighting was superb. John Demous understands the needs of an opera that must define its time and place while being defined by its seasons. The romance begins in winter, ends in late Spring. He has given us all we need through color, placement and cuing. He has also underscored the emotions of the final act perfectly.
For those unfamiliar with the opera I will warn you that the first act is a series of amusing ensemble pieces for about 21 minutes and then it gives way to the memorable melodies for which Puccini is so rightly celebrated in this particular work. The surtitles help the uninitiated, and for the comic moments, straighten us all out a bit.
It is the double joy of hearing and seeing wonderful opera in a place designed to showcase it that makes this season’s major offering by The Berkshire Opera such a pleasure. Indulge yourself.

"La Boheme" will be performed four more times this coming week at The Colonial in Pittsfield, MA, August 22 and 24 at 8:00PM and August 20 and 26 at 2:00PM. Tickets are $40-$90. Some student tickets may be available FREE. For information and tickets call the opera company at 413-442-9955 or the Colonial Theatre box office at 413-997-4444.

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"The Fantasticks," book and lyrics by Tom Jones, music by Harvey Schmidt. Directed by Eric Peterson and Terrie M. Robinson

America’s musical, "The Fantasticks," is 47 years old. First produced in 1960 at the Sullivan Street Playhouse, where it ran for 40 years or more, it has been seen by more people than its tiny theater could make possible. It has toured, been seen in small regional theaters, large regional theaters, high schools, colleges and even on television with Ann-Margret playing a 16-year-old and was filmed not long ago with Joel Grey playing the girl’s father. Its principal songs, "Try to Remember," "Soon It’s Gonna Rain, "and "They Were You" became instant hits and are still being sung today.
Especially today. They grace the stage at the Oldcastle Theatre Company’s production in the beautiful theater in the Bennington Center for the Natural and Cultural Arts.

Many people have started their careers with the roles in this show, or cemented their places in the theatrical pantheon. Jerry Orbach was the original El Gallo, for example. Rita Gardner and Kenneth Nelson were the girl and the boy.
In Vermont, the boy, Matt, is played by Dennis Clark, a charming young man with a lovely, light voice and an easy manner, all of which certainly puts him into the Kenneth Nelson category. He might move easily onward to bigger and better things from this show. He charms. He blends his voice nicely when the script requires it. He stands out in the small crowd of players he works with here
As the girl, Luisa, there is a young woman named Megan Grocutt. Her work is not as good as her boyfriend’s. She is less experienced. Her voice is smaller and needs training or amplification (which at Oldcastle should never be necessary). She can play sweetly, but the tarter aspects of the role are not readily hers as yet. When she tells Matt that girls mature sooner, she isn’t convincing because her understanding of the part is not being communicated thoroughly.
As their fathers, Hucklebee and Bellomy we have two men who know how to "Plant a Radish." J.C. Hoyt is the girl’s father, Bellomy, and Philip A. Lance is the boy’s father, Hucklebee. They are a terrific duo. Lance has an excellent voice and Hoyt knows how to make a simple gesture into a personal laugh-line. The two men are conspiratorially delicious.
Richard Howe plays El Gallo, a role that requires seductive qualities that Howe cannot quite summon. He does well with the songs and seems to enjoy playing with his cape, but the need for a suave and sinister side that this character asks of its portrayers never emerges in his playing. It is a shame, too, for he has the looks and the voice, if not the moves, and when he takes his leave of Luisa he doesn’t do so with the impact that matures a young girl into a woman.
Tim Foley and Mark Vaughan have a fine old time with the roles of Henry and Mortimer. They make their entrances and exits in a way that must be seen to be believed and they do what they do with style, panache and wit. Chris Restino plays the very important role of The Mute. The silent figure is not what he seems and is often more than the sum of his part. Restino, under the guidance of choreographer Terrie M. Robinson and director Eric Peterson, emerges as a subtle, delicate mime artist.
Good work has been done by the production team, most especially the set designer Wm.John Aupperlee and the costume designer Patti Brundage. Peterson has guided his players deftly through the vaudeville aspects of the piece.
America’s musical reeks of age and at the same time triples its freshness when adorned with talent. It all seems so familiar and it is simultaneously a delight to rediscover how unique the piece is after all this time. No one has duplicated its style. The songs are telling and intelligent and bring tears to the eyes and laugh to the heart.
This production has every element of the original going for it, with very few exceptions. Sue Maskaleris, the musical director and keyboards player, could pick up the tempo now and then and give the show a bit of drive and energy. At two hours and eleven minutes it runs about ten minutes too long.
Take advantage, I say, of the presence of "The Fantasticks" and see what the rest of America has already seen: youth and its enthusiasm enthralled with life. Seeing such sights in southern Vermont is almost too much, almost too real, to be believed.

The Fantasticks plays at the Oldcastle Theatre Company stage at the Bennington Center for the Natural and Cultural Arts on Route 9 in Bennington, Vermont through September 2. For information and tickets, call the box office at 802-447-1267.

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The Autumn Garden by Lillian Hellman. Directed by David Jones.

At the Tuckerman house, a bed and breakfast establishment on the gulf coast about 100 miles from New Orleans, summer folk are winding up their season and preparing to return home to their real lives. It is September, with Autumn just around the corner. Before people can depart there is one last grand party, one more picnic fling, one more couple to come and visit and about twenty years of longings and wrongings to wring out like the B&B laundry.
Constance Tuckerman has been in love with Nicholas Denery, who left her for another woman, all this time. Their best friend Edward  (Ned) Crossman has felt the same way about her. Nina Denery, the wife, has been used and abused, abandoned for French maids, passionately restored to the bosom of her amateur husband and emotionally throttled for her devotion all this time. When this foursome come together in a weird sort of reunion you just know hurricane season can’t be far behind in the Gulf of Mexico.
On the main stage at the Williamstown Theatre Festival this is the set-up for the season’s final show, a delicious play by Lillian Hellman, possibly her finest ensemble work.

There are a dozen characters, each as important in the context of these confused lives as any other. There is a southern style that would make Tennessee Williams blush, even a bit of pre-form that one might believe he stole for a later masterpiece as Frederick Ellis and his mother depart for a six-month European trip. 
There are peripheral characters who make as much of an impact on the lives they touch as the principals do to one another. At the final fade-out Constance utters words that may be the theme, not just of this play, but of most of Hellman’s works: "Most of us lie to ourselves, darling. Most of us." It is a touching way to end a comedy of total errors, a moving tribute to a life spent illuminating those lies as Hellman did from 1934's "The Children’s Hour" onward.
Williamstown has assembled a brilliant company to play out this final week of summer on the Gulf. Allison Janney is Constance. Is Constance. There seems to be no playing in her work, but rather a living out on stage of realities that we can only hope are nothing like her own. She appears to be intricately wound up in her character’s problems. There is no way to separate her from Constance. The Allison Janney of recent television and film experiences is not this woman on stage. She disappears completely into the woman Hellman has created. This is acting at its most complete.
John Benjamin Hickey plays Nick Denery with an energy and a verve that brings flashes of bright light into the rooms of Tuckerman House. He bubbles over like the champagne he can’t drink easily. As Constance hangs on every word he utters, so do we. He has a way of making horrific flaws in character seem almost acceptable because of who he is. Nick is not likeable, after a time, and Hickey plays that aspect of him without fear or hesitation. He actually bring complexity to a fairly easy to read man. As his wife Jessica Hecht gives an enormous performance. This woman is complex and Hecht reveals Nina’s internal diversity with constant bursts of clarity. As a couple they are not your ideal houseguests. Individually they are easy to cherish.
The Ellis family is endlessly fascinating. Cynthia Mace is Carrie, a childhood friend of Nick, Ned and Constance. She is the oddest woman, the strangest mother, the most despairing daughter-in-law. In Mace’s hands Carrie becomes a frightening human being striving to control situations that she cannot grasp. As her son, Frederick, Eric Murdoch has a hard job holding his own. He does so with a smile and an inward gasp and a furtive kiss. His grandmother is played by Elizabeth Franz. Franz proves that if you want a serious line with a comic edge to resonate with both characters and audience you must cast Elizabeth Franz. She never has a false moment in this play. Her involvement with her environment and surroundings, her adept manner in calling spades "spades" are the stock-in-trade she employs. I would have this family to dinner, but never have them spend the night. A wonderful combination of actors and roles.
Brian Kerwin and Maryann Plunkett play General Benjamin Griggs and his wife Rose. This couple is the odd couple in the play. Once again they come across as totally honest and real and that is a tribute to the talent behind the roles. This is a troubled duo who play out their own tragic affairs in front of others. Plunkett takes a major plunge into sudden maturity in her role and Kerwin suffers the pangs of emotion as he forces himself to feel something genuine for his wife. Containing tears is what their third act moments is all about, containing their tears, containing ours.
Ned Crossman, the third major member of the love triangle here, is played nicely if a bit arms-length by Rufus Collins. He seemed a bit too detached to me, but as the one member of this houseful of temporary borders he also seemed to be the one that most people could depend upon to never waver, never change. There is a surprise in him that Collins brings forward with a gentleness that allows Constance to change a bit also. Her niece, Sophie, is a lovely actress named Mamie Gummer. Sophie is a swivel hook of a character, acquiescent where she needs to be, staunch and odd when she must be. She begins with an ideal life and ends as a person not to be trusted. Gummer makes it all feel right, which is an artist’s responsibility.
David Jones has made memorable people you don’t necessarily want to know well, certainly not this well. As director he has woven his cast into the deepest reaches of their characters and given them the freedom to touch, to move and to relate to one another in many different ways. His stage pictures are always right for their moments. It’s a fine job of directing a difficult play.
The set by Thomas Lynch seems just right for this play. Likewise Ilona Somogyi’s costumes reflect the people who wear them, both in style and color. David Weiner has designed subtle and effective lighting, although his early definition of space, indoor and outdoor, could use another look.
"The Autumn Garden" is not about a garden or about the change of seasons. It is a play about the final growth spurts of humans planted in an environment that cannot support much life in the wintry landscape to come in their lives. To keep growing they must all be uprooted and transplanted to other climes. Hellman’s play is an outburst, a cry against stagnation in relationships and in love, and the company in Williamstown is making all of that remarkably clear. 
At three hours in running time, it is three hours extremely well spent with a company of players who seem to understand that theater does what Hellman wants her characters to do: move on and keep moving. Don’t miss this one. You need to keep moving, too.

"The Autumn Garden" runs through August 26 at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. For information and tickets call the box office at 413-597-3400.

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Sleuth by Anthony Shaffer. Directed by Jesse Berger.

Andrew Wyke has an agenda. Before inviting his new neighbor, a weekender named Milo Tindle, over for a drink, he has prepared the room in his house where he will entertain the younger man. Wyke, a mystery writer, has cleverly concocted an evening’s entertainment for his slight acquaintance and that "entertainment" requires a bit of drinking, a bite of confession and chomp of alarming game playing that could, and seemingly does, turn into something frightening and dangerous.
That is the plot of Act One of Anthony Shaffer’s comedy thriller, "Sleuth."
This play, with its many surprising twists and turns, goes into the concept of adult gamesters with a vengeance. A note from the producers at the Dorset Theatre Festival in Vermont asks that reviewers not reveal the many plot twists and secrets. It is to be hoped that no one would be a spoiler for a play of this sort. That said, in this day of "spoilers" of the Harry Potter novels, this reviewer has no intention of telling you one more thing about the story in this show. I will make note, however, that the program notes provided by Dorset tell their story brilliantly.
If reading is fundamental, than the work done by the team of actors in this presentation is itself fundamentally revealing.

Wyke is played masterfully by Philip Goodwin. The man is never offstage and he holds the stage with an actor’s magic. Not the handsomest human being, not the cleverest as it turns out, Wyke is perfectly portrayed by this actor. Goodwin seems to know the space he temporarily inhabits in this role, every nook and cranny of the room provided him by the designer. It is as though he has dwelt here for a long time and, in part, it is that familiarity that give this play a new reality. There seemed to be, at the performance I attended, many people who were not familiar with this show in any previous form including the movie with Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. Goodwin’s performance is what they will likely take away with them for his every movement, action and gesture in Wyke’s habitation gave the impression of a reality we have been privileged to intrude upon. It’s a wonderful thing when an actor can make us believe we are, indeed, the flies on the wall.
As his principal opponent in his evening’s games a handsome younger actor, Jay Goede, takes the part of Milo Tindle. Milo is described as "smarmy" yet Goede’s easy elegance decries that description. Instead he presents us with a man who is handsome, at ease, willing to partake in certain off-the-wall party games. He is a man who may drink too much but never shows an outward sign of having done so. He is a man any woman would covet, love, give herself to in spite of another man in her life. He is dapper without being distrustful. Goede has a voice that wafts rather than intones. He uses it to great advantage in this role. Startlingly, he emerges as Wyke’s equal in the first act of the play and when he manages a distant revenge for his treatment by this drink-dispensing host, it is almost a treat.
Director Jesse Berger, obviously, has done a wonderful job here manipulating his two principal characters through the intricacies of plot and counter-plot. Whether he has imparted that sense of familiarity to Goodwin or found an actor who handles such things superbly on his own is immaterial. Likewise, Goede's work in defining his non-smarmy Milo could be the work of the director or actor, but again it matters little here because the result is one of total comfort in the actor's portrayal of the character with all his flaws and flagrant disregard for common morality. Berger takes them both in and out of spaces and relationships with an ease that seems to be happening for the first time right before our eyes. It's an artist's concept of human interaction that happens to reveal reality perfectly.

This is a five-character play, by the way, but to talk about the other roles would be to remove some of that mystery and magic that is so theatrical. I will comment on one of them, because his presence in act two is critical. Inspector Doppler is the quintessential British detective, and one who says so as soon as he can. Played by Sean McNulty in a gravelly, physically moribund manner, he brightens up a few moments early in the second act.
Wilson Chin has created two rooms in Wyke’s special home in Wiltshire. This creation is amazing and one that would tempt any second home buyer in the region, I think. High ceilings, wood paneling, secret bar, lovely fireplace and a grand staircase to kill for, or on. It’s a beautiful room. The lighting by Josh Bradford is perfection. Every moment of this play has its look and that is in no small part due to the expert work here. Costumes are handsome, amusing and apt. Each character is well-defined by his look and Theresa Squire has provided each man with his unimpeachable clothing.
Sleuth closes out the Dorset season. It has been the first season for a new artistic director, Carl Forsman, who has delivered a fine array of plays, old and new. His choice of this romantic comedy/thriller as a final offering leaves us wanting more from him. Hopefully the years to come will do the same, provide the perfect way to wile away hours in other people’s lives leaving us wanting to return again in the future. Whether you know Sleuth or not, don’t miss it. This Dorset production is the season’s best mystery.

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The Theater Barn in New Lebanon is presenting their second obscure contemporary musical in a row, Violet, a quest, or journey, show about a young woman, disfigured as a child, who pursues her dream of a cure at the
miraculous hands of a televangelist. Her cross-country trip from North Carolina to Oklahoma brings her into contact, for the first time, with strangers including an old lady and two soldiers, one of them black, who make the journeying forward into something quite different. With her miracle secure in her mind, she heads
home only to find that home is not what, or where, she remembered, and that
her miracle was not the miracle she perceived.

If any of this sounds familiar, I suggest you watch the old movie, "The Enchanted Cottage," which takes this theme to an extreme, but provides many of the same surprise turns, and visually in a much more rewarding way,
than can be achieved on the stage here. Violet‚s disfigurement is the result of an accident with an axe which has split her face from her nose to her neck. It should be required that we see, somehow, the horror that Violet sees
when she looks in her mirror. In this production, and perhaps in the play itself, we only see a cracked mirror and not one we can hold up to better understand Violet's life and its trauma.

Violet won the Kleban Award and prior to the Playwrights Horizons production in 1997, and on its behalf, Violet was given the Richard Rodgers Musical Production Award and an AT&T OnStage Award. Afterwards, besides a
Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical, Violet received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical over all the year's Broadway offerings, which included Titanic, Steel Pier, The Life and Play On. The off-Broadway production was praised by the press and plans were made to move to a more commercial venue until a bad review in the all -powerful New York Times scuttled the transfer.

The country-music flavored score by Jeanine Tesori, the woman who wrote the stage version of Thoroughly Modern Millie and the Broadway hit Caroline, or Change, presents a collection of gospel, rockabilly and straight
country songs along with a beautiful and moving song, "That's What I Could Do" for Violet's father and a hauntingly strong duet for Violet and her younger self, "Look At Me." Sadly, for all of the emotional outpourings in the score and even in the situation, the show is rather unengaging.

It isn't the cast that doesn‚t make this a better evening. They are all talented. Lara Hayhurst as Violet is lovely to look at, and her acting is fine. Her singing could be a bit more forward, louder perhaps. That could help, but not enough to make her character enthralling. When she encounters her miracle man and loses her mind for a while in the miracle itself she loses us completely. The director should have found another way to present his actresses
mental conversion. She clearly needed a bit more work on this essential moment.

As her younger self, Ashley Blasland does a fine job with her scenes and her songs. She is a bright young talent and she could use better material. Matthew Daly as Father is wonderful. He creates and maintains a viable character here and sings like a man possessed. It's a terrific performance vacillating from native charm to intense guilt.

Trey Compton is Monty and John Edwards is Flick, the two soldiers who befriend, violate and love Violet on her quest. Edwards is the better singer, Compton the better actor. Both are young and pleasant and attractive. Both make the most of the material they are given, but Edwards could goose up the acting a bit and Compton could take a voice lesson or two.

Joseph Breen has a fine old time as the Preacher who rehearses his miracles. Kristyl Dawn Tift is impressive as Lula and Jerielle Morwitz plays the Old Lady on the bus with verve and delicacy. the rest of the cast handle their
multiple roles expertly.

Igor Goldin has choreographed movement for his players that keeps the show flowing, but his work with the characters should have been given equal grace. There's a way to go, yet, that hasn't been pursued, but in summer
stock that's what you get sometimes and this piece of theater probably requires a longer rehearsal period to find the ways to play these people.

Michael McAssey and his band of four play the music very well. Abe Phelps set is a utilitarian and works to the advantage of the play. Jonathan Knipscher has executed the period costumes well and Robert Eberl's lighting
is the making of the show.

Violet, the Musical is a hard play but there are bright moments and fine work contained on the stage in New Lebanon. Something new is always worth exploring, but take along your imagination in order to realize all those things that this production hasn't been able to accomplish.

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"a number" by Caryl Churchill. Directed by Steve Stettler.

In Caryl Churchill’s one-act masterpiece, "a number," the magic number seems to be three, but in reality it is 22, or four, which is the total of 22.
None of this is relevant because this isn’t a play about numerology. This is a play about a father and a son and a relationship that is marred by trust. At the small, second stage of the Weston Playhouse Theatre Company in Vermont, "a number" is rattling audiences, motivating discussions about the moral and legal issues of cloning and doing its job of entertaining audiences to the very best of its ability.
Genetic engineering and its ramifications may not strike you as an exciting topic for a play, but in Churchill’s hands it takes on so many facets, so many meanings, that it creates a world that would strike fans of "The Twilight Zone" as realistic.

Salter, played by Munson Hicks, has asked his son Bernard, played by Christopher Donahue, to visit him. There is news to share. There are these... there is these... He cannot begin his tale, but when he does it is disjointed, difficult and hard to understand. The one thing that is clear is his anger at discovering replicas of his son, of knowing that someone has done something, stolen something of value from his son and he wants Bernard to sue someone for millions and get back a bit of what he feels his son deserves.
What he doesn’t tell Bernard is the truth. Still, Bernard trusts his dad and the ultimate result of Bernard’s trust is an unanticipated death.
Salter has confrontations with two other men, one also named Bernard and another known as Michael Black. With each meeting it becomes clearer and clearer that Salter knows more than he is willing to tell, more than he can admit to his son or to anyone. Manipulation of facts, of truths, of trust and of knowledge is Salter’s strong point and even when he has to pay the price, emotionally, of his lies and half-truths, he is a survivor and he can go on.
This play deals with so many issues, and in such a short time, that discussion about it could last for hours. Churchill writes characters and they are deep and dark and different from any other people you’ve met. She writes them in short bursts with rarely a finished sentence among them. At times, one finishes another’s thought. At other moments no one can completely express themselves. Michael Black has perhaps the most conventional things to say and say fleshed out. He alone among the youngsters can finish a sentence, although he has a tendency to the superfluous which drives Salter over the edge.
Salter himself has no luck getting to the point. Even when he does make a definitive, declarative statement it is immediately washed away by the flood of half-expressed emotions. Hicks does this with ease and a finesse that makes it seem as though he is improvising his role on the spot, creating situations with lies and inconclusive statements. He has an instant rapport with his three callers, but never is he at ease with them. Hicks seems to be in control at all times, and yet there is something in his playing that moves that control-image to one side time after time after time as indiscretions and images combine to make us believe that a newly confessed truth is the real truth. It’s a wonderful, if confusing, performance and that confusion comes within the writing. Hicks’s honesty in playing the lies makes them seem so real and right.
Donahue, on the other hand, brings three very distinct characters to the stage. Unlike Hicks’s Salter who is always the same, even when he’s changing his story or his point of view, Donahue’s three young men are volatile, different and totally identifiable. The actor provides us with visual, vocal and emotionally diverse creatures, each with a need and a reason to express that need. He maneuvers his men into and out of their situations with Salter with simplicity. Unlike Salter each of the Bernards and Michael present their cases and lay their cards on the table. All three are unforgettable.
Stettler has taken this small play into an intimate space and provided a close-up of the lives of disturbed and disturbing men. On a neatly efficient set designed by Kate Sutton-Johnson, he has brought the issues in this play forward through a restlessness that haunts his protagonist, Salter. He has given Hicks the opportunity to express, through a constant movement cycle that rarely repeats itself, all of the lies and truths at his disposal. It is lovely work. Travis McHale has enhanced the visuals of this work through lighting that keeps every illuminating moment in a dim place, just as Salter does with his confessions.
A disturbing work, one that should be seen and heard, "a number" is among the most unusual offerings anywhere in the region this summer. Hats off to the folks in Weston for attempting it and for bringing it off so well. That takes professionals.

"a number" plays at the Other Stage of the Weston Playhouse Theatre Company through August 19. Ticket prices range from $26-$29. For information

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Hairspray by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman, music by Marc Shaiman, based on the film written and directed by John Waters. Directed by Schele Williams.
  
With a large and talented company, the Weston Playhouse Theatre Company is presenting one of the funniest and finest Broadway musicals of the past decade, "Hairspray," on the mainstage of its lovely Vermont theater.
The tale of the integration of Baltimore television in the early 1960s, the show, at two hours and a half hours flies by as Tracy Turnblad, played by Marissa Perry, soars to unanticipated heights in teen romance, teen television and teen music.

Tracy is a popular, if overweight, high school girl with a crush on life. Her best friend Penny Pingleton, played by Eva Burger, is a pale white girl with a fear of losing her mother’s approval who finally makes the big break into young womanhood with a zest that gets the expected approval of the audience. As the boys these girls adore we have Seaweed Stubbs, played in an inoffensively charming manner by Eric LeJuan Summers and Link Larkin played with panache and an eerie Elvis style by Jay Armstrong Johnson. David Havasi is Corny Collins, the star of his own TV show.
Tom Aulino and Robert Jensen plays Tracy’s parents, Wilbur and Edna Turnblad and Seaweed’s mother, Motormouth Maybelle, is played by Thursday Farrar. A dynamite young woman named Kelly Porter plays Little Inez, Maybelle’s younger child and the Von Tussles, arch-villainesses both are played by Liz Kimball (daughter Amber) and Susan Haefner (mother Velma).
The story here is a simple one: whatever Tracy wants, she ultimately gets. That includes the boy of her dreams and a mother who’s both proud of her and beautiful in her own bulk. Tracy may have to struggle to get to where she wants to be, but you never doubt for a moment that she’ll make it there. That is both a strength and a weakness in this show. Tracy’s rise is clearly inevitable from the minute she rises from her bed and sings her anthem. Like Judy Garland in "A Star is Born," there is never a moment’s doubt. More than that you really don’t need to know.
As with so many actors before him in this role, Robert Jensen gives a very winning performance as Edna. Tall, stout, pudgy-faced and adorable, he pulls off every scene and number, especially his duet with Wilbur in the second act which does indeed stop the show. Havasi’s TV host is almost to cute to bear, but he handles that well and gives Corny Collins a reality that works very nicely. Johnson is another adorable actor in an extremely loveable role. It is almost as though the casting of these three parts was done with a stethoscope held to the heart. There is a curious "boing-boing" factor here. These three men are perfect fits for their roles.
Likewise Perry jumps into the shoes of heavier girls before her and makes us believe that she is too much to handle. She does it with a musical ability that is classy and refined. She belts, sings ballads, dances and acts with the best. She almost meets her match in the work of Kelly Porter and Thursday Farrar. Both women imbue their songs with soul and heart. They are instantly believable. So, sadly, is Susan Haefner. I am sure she cannot be as unlikeable as her Velma.
Howard Jones’ set, surrounded by a large TV is mobile and perfect. Karen Ann Ledger pulls out all the stops in designing the costumes and her work for Edna, Velma, Corny and Prudence Pingleton is especially notable. Michelle Habeck has done a fine job with the lighting design for "Hairspray" including the proper prison atmosphere, the dusty apartment of character Edna and the Baltimore back alleyways.
Tesha Buss keeps the company on their toes with her 1960s style dances. They are kept so active, in fact, that it is sometimes hard to tell when they aren’t dancing. Consequently the energy level on the stage is always riding high. Eric Svejcar’s musicians are a perfect match for the music and the cast.
It is Schele Williams who holds the magic wand over this confection of music, mayhem, magic (courtesy of a fine Wilbur in the hands of Tom Aulino) and motivations. She seems to have a knack for high-energy reenforcement. Whatever she’s on, we all need a dose of it in these dog days of summer and it’s almost obtainable from an orchestra seat for this show.
Hairspray is a large undertaking and, luckily, it will be around for a while. The folks up in Weston have put on a great show, one that is sure to please just about everyone, whether you remember the 60s with fondness or not, or even if you’ve only heard your parents talk about them.
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"Antony and Cleopatra" by William Shakespeare. Directed by Michael Hammond.

Cleopatra was twice queen of Egypt: for a brief period in 51-49AD and again in 48-30AD. During those years, she led a rebellion against her brother who had usurped her throne, had both Julius Caesar and Marc Antony as lovers, bore Caesar a son, sparked an outrageous schism in the triumverate that ruled the Mediterranean empire of Rome and probably had sex a few times with Pompey, who controlled the eastern world.
It was her great, legendary beauty that gave her the power to do all that she did, and clearly she was a busy lady.
Busy, also, is Shakespeare & Company's Tina Packer. Packer has created a world, controlled it and now, at last some might say, re-created herself in the person of Cleopatra in William Shakespeare’s bawdy tragedy about that queen’s relationship with Antony. For one woman who is accustomed to having her own way to play the woman who was best at that is both alarming and alluring.
For the rest of the summer you can see for yourself how Packer fares as Cleo.

Here is an older woman, not a classic beauty, playing a younger one. Packer has, reportedly, lost 60 pounds in preparation for the role. She truly looks marvelous these days and that is a help in playing this part. There must be some way for us, the passive onlookers in this three hour tragedy, to believe that the Cleopatra we see before us has the power to control the men in her life, and her beauty is one of those ways. Even though she is at the end of her powerful youth, Cleopatra manages to hold on to the imagination and sexual dynamics of her man. She has inspired great love and that sort of emotional grip can, and does in this play, unbutton a man’s strength, remove his power to reason appropriately. That is what eventually proves the undoing of Marc Antony. Love has overwhelmed reason.
Packer brings a great deal of charm and a load of experience at controlling men into her playing of the part. She is seductive when that is needed. She is bawdy, not unlike men in a pub over a tankard of ale, when it is right to be so. She is magisterial when she must be and humble when it is least appropriate. She does it all. In a strange way Cleopatra is the Shakespearean role Packer was born to play; she’s been playing it her whole life.
As the object of her affection, Nigel Gore is only slightly less effective. Not the handsome, virile man we have come to know in the role, the Richard Burton face, voice and legs, but a common sort of soldier who has achieved greatness through his personality and military strengths, Gore’s Antony is a wonder to behold. In the opening of the play, in Michael Hammond’s inspired direction, the principals do not enter with their various courtiers, they are revealed in bed in the throes of lovemaking and they depart the room in a way that lets us know that lovemaking for the day is not complete. Here are folks engulfed in the animal magnetism they feel for one another. It is the keystone of this production, that lust/love combination that provides for wrong decisions and mis-direction of efforts. Gore handles this scene beautifully. We meet him not as a great man, but as a man, period.
Gore does not fare as well in the fight scenes, but he has a command of language and emotion that allows him to show his feelings of betrayal, love, desire for power, and disdain remarkably well. He can convey the quixotic changes demanded by the script with a vocal quirk that instantly tells the tale. His face does not follow suit, however, and he seems all too often to be unable to physically express what his voice is conveying. He does move erotically, however, when the movement required by choreographer Susan Dibble demands it.
Cleopatra’s minion, Enobarbus, who becomes a devotee of Antony’s is played with great power and emotional conflict by Walton Wilson. He is so strong a presence that this play could almost be called "Antony and Enobarbus." Octavius Caesar is nicely brought to life by Craig Baldwin who makes the relationship with his sister Octavia into an almost overwhelmingly erotic one. Robert Gibbs is a touching Lepidus. Tony Molina’s Soothsayer is one more brilliant cameo part for him. Michael Solomon does very well with the role of Agrippa. A touch too modern in her playing is Christianna Nelson’s Charmian, but her final scene was touching and well played.
Bill Barclay’s Roman and Egyptian music was stunning, so very much a part of the play that it felt like real music and not something for backgrounds. Carl Sprague’s set works brilliantly from beginning to end and Arthur Oliver’s most peculiar costumes add little to the sense of period but certainly catch one’s eye. His use of color was not specific enough to delineate who was fighting whom. His Cleopatra costumes ran the gamut from delectable to detritus. Les Dickert’s lighting added the right touches of place and time.
Then there is the requisite Dibble Dance. Frankly. some plays could do well without one. In this play there are three battle scenes, one at sea, with movement by Susan Dibble. They are not required, frankly, but are added pieces where Shakespeare would just as soon talk about it as show it.
Shakespeare was right.
As bad as those three gratuitous moments are, there’s one that’s worse. Following the romantic suicide of Cleopatra (I hope I’m not spoiling this for any readers), the world around her comes to romantic life as the ghost of Marc Antony appears, she is revived by music and the Egyptian Gods and all promenade for three minutes, totally taking from Tina Packer and her ladies the most moving and emotionally satisfying finale this play could have, the one provided by the playwright. Lose the Dibble; regain the play.
Packer is moving as the most inspiring woman since Helen of Troy and, frankly, she is not the youngster we might anticipate Cleopatra being, so why force her to rise from her recumbent position in full light only to prance. If this is tradition, let it die by the bite of this aspic of a critic. Give the actress and the play their due, please. They both work hard enough to achieve the best result.

"Antony and Cleopatra" plays in rep at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox with "A Midsummer Night’s Dream," "Rough Crossing" and "Blue/Orange" through Sept. 2. Ticket prices range from $20 to $57. For schedules and tickets contact the box office at 413-637-3353.

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The Corn is Green by Emlyn Williams. Directed by Nicholas Martin.

A little education can be a dangerous thing, but a lot of education, concentrated and focused, can be more powerful than even the basic emotions that form human nature. A mind untethered from the functions of the daily grind can move mountains, create miracles.
In Emlyn Williams semi-autobiographical play, "The Corn is Green" now on the main stage at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, education is the issue at the heart of an evening’s entertainment and it is entertaining.

A middle-aged English woman with an inheritance moves to a small mining town in Wales and sets up a school for the miners. It is her intent to enlighten them and bring them out of the darkness in which they live, not just the darkness of the mine, but that peculiar range of limited light provided to the basically uneducated: the darkness born of the complacency of ignorance.
One pupil in her rough school, Morgan Evans, shows a special talent for observation and his writing inspires her to make him her model student. She almost fails at the task, but in the end she manipulates the incorrigible student into addressing his future smartly.
It is, admittedly, not much of a plot. Not a sexy plot, anyway. To make up for that, Williams gives Morgan a sexual escapade, a drunken lark and a moment of triumph swamped by a season of guilt. It’s still not much of a plot, and certainly not one with a bunch of surprising twists and turns. It is a straightforward story, and in the hands of the company of players in this Berkshire Summer venue it is an experience that educates an audience made happy to learn what the tale teaches. Much of this is due to the excellent work of director Nicholas Martin, who knows how to grab our attention and hold it fast. He provides the light bulb inside his actor's brains and hearts, letting them turn it on, off when needed and on again.
Kate Burton shines as Miss Moffat. She glows with pride every time she accomplishes something. She find humor in the oddest people and situations. Burton presides with ease, not majesty, over the little court she has assembled. Her Moffat is believable and that is an accomplishment for a character written with too much admiration and too much love by Williams. Moffat is an ideal but in Burton’s hands she is not someone on a pedestal, a turn of the 19th century Gibson Girl, but someone whose bicycle has a function, whose purpose is decisive and whose figure is better than she would let it be. A very memorable creation for Burton, whose Hedda Gabler, here, has long dominated my memory, Moffat in her hands is viable,  a living and breathing creature dominated by intent.
Morgan Evans is played by Burton’s real life son, Morgan Ritchie. In an odd way it is a linear, rather than intuitive, performance for him. His grandfather’s own story of education and growth in a small Welsh town, mirrors that of Williams and his character Morgan. Now we have Richard Burton’s grandson portraying that theatrical version of a life very close to his own heritage. The best news in all this is that he is a good actor and he pulls off all the elements of the Welshman with which we are familiar: taciturn, charismatic, drunkard, seductive, lethargic, enthusiastic and belligerent. He would seem to be the logical next step, next generation in this family legacy. His performance gives hope for a career that may never eclipse that of his forebears but one that will honor and continue the Burton traditions.
Together they spark, Moffat and Morgan, mother and son.
They are surrounded by some excellent players in this production. Becky Ann Baker as Mrs. Watty, the housekeeper and reformed pickpocket, is a delight. Williams has written her wrong, her final scene practically unplayable, but Baker almost managed to pull it off. Tom Bloom as Moffat’s oldest student, Old Tom, gives good laughs with honesty and character. Amanda Leigh Cobb has fun as the postmistress Sarah Pugh.
Rod McLachlan is an excellent John Jones, a man who works for Moffat, stands up for what he believes in and who tries to always be the best person he can be. Kathy McCafferty’s Miss Ronberry is an odd match, too young, too pretty perhaps to pull off the role with complete credibility, but she acts up a storm and within that obvious acting makes the character her own, in her own way. Dylan Baker is a hilariously bumptious Squire. Ginnifer Goodwin as Bessie Watty is a nicer "bad" girl, more petulant, lass sassy than any I’ve seen and it works. She does a pleasant and interesting job.
The sumptuous cottage set designed by James Noone is a problem for the production. Perhaps it is something in the physical relationship of the stage to the audience in the ‘62 Center Main Stage theater, but for a great many people seated on the right side of the house much of the action was lost in the upstage positions, which were completely unseen by them. Other than that, it served the play well. But Director Martin should have been aware of the alienation of his audience when he staged major moments out of sight of so many of them.
Jeff Mahshie’s costumes were a shade too elegant for Moffat and just about right for everyone else, although the period of Morgan’s dress clothes seemed a tiny bit questionable. Frances Aronson’s lighting was effective when it was correct. Opening night there were many technical difficulties with the lights, but assuredly the theater will correct these flaws.
"The Corn is Green" happens to be one of those plays where you come out at the end having learned something, and that is education but in this case it is also entertainment. The value of such a good piece is that the period doesn’t matter if the people are relevant and Moffat is particularly relevant today in a world where education takes a back seat to testing and inspiration is almost a thing of the past.

The Corn is Green plays at the Williamstown Theatre Festival through August 12 with performances Tuesdays to Fridays at 8:00, Saturdays at 8:30 with matinees Thursday at 3:00, Saturdays at 4:00 and Sundays at 2:00. Tickets are $48 to $57 depending on the performance. 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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Mercy of a Storm by Jeffrey Hatcher. Directed by Sheila Saragusa.

Sexual rendezvous is always a wonderful thing to watch.
To be a fly on the wall and witness the games being played by lovers escaping from their significant "others" for just a while, to be together in some furtive way, in some foreign place, in some dangerous setting, that is exhilaration in the extreme.
George and Zanovia have chosen a country club pool house on New Year’s Eve at 10 p.m. in 1945 for their special tryst. At the Chester Theatre Company’s new production of Jeffrey Hatcher’s play "Mercy of a Storm" (seen at the first public performance, prior to opening), that is what you think you’re getting, and you think it for about 20 minutes even when your entire nervous system is cranking up the "no-no" in your loins, your heart and mind are saying, "yes, it is."
Trust your nerves.

George’s special "other person" is his 25-year-old daughter, Tootsie, and Zanovia’s guy is her divorce lawyer. That is the best this thwarted couple can manage on this special night, until they run away together to the locked up and deserted boat house. What follows is a convoluted, romantic, silly, peculiar and overwhelmingly emotional two hours of struggle and love between two ill-suited people who are trying valiantly to save what little there is to save in their relationship.
This is the sort of play where little is what it seems to be and the answers sought by each of the characters is hard-won, difficult to come by, and definitely disturbing to each of them and to us as well.
We want romantics to win the day. We do. It’s our nature as Americans. Clark Gable must win Norma Shearer, Vivien Leigh or Joan Crawford, or anyone else he sets out to win. He must. Bette Davis has to make her men suffer if they want to be worthy of her, they must, whether they are Henry Fonda, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart or Paul Henreid. She just has to do it. So it is with George and Zanovia. In some way or other he has to win her over and she must make him suffer for it.
This is a play with many, many surprises. The first one, or perhaps it’s the first revelation, comes finally at about 20 minutes into the first act. The last one comes just before the lights dim out on the second act. To reveal more than one of them would be unfair to a theater-goer, so this reviewer will not tell you what’s going on here. I will tell you that the odd changes are characteristic of this writer, Jeffrey Hatcher, and that as in his play "A Picasso" seen locally earlier this season at Barrington Stage Company’s other space, every quixotic deviation is worth its impact in gold.
Director Sheila Saragusa has made the most of the confinements of the space that comprises this elegant pool house. She has played her couple on and around almost every inch of the stage set, avoiding the obvious bar stools and the telephone table’s side chair, providing us with playing areas that make us as aware of this couple’s sexual magnetism as they themselves are aware of it. Whether the period gestures, stances and movement are hers, or are supplied by her actors, the effect is almost a delirious one, transporting us flies on the wall into the time of this play without a single serious fault anywhere. They are living in 1945 and so we are also.
It is that finesse brought to the characters by Chandler Vinton as Zanovia and Steve Hendrickson as George that make this event so special. He does stuffy superior brilliantly, underplaying it whenever possible but leaving it visible on the table, as it were, as he diverts his eyes when making accusations, stares down his sexual opponent as he bargains his deals, wears his heart on his large lapels and allows it to be visible when he loses his senses to the sensual being he is playing for a fool.
Zanovia, however, is no fool. In Vinton’s hands she makes an occasional mistake, but that mistake is part of her charm and she is charming. She buttons gestures. She elides phrases. She could be a ballet dancer with just her head and her voice, although her graceful arms and her fluttering hands complete the picture nicely.
Vocally she is symphonic while his voice is a solo instrument playing an odd enharmonic melody. She could be a floozy, but she’s not. He could be a sucker, but he isn’t. When things turn table and turn them again, it is marvelous to watch and even more marvelous not to be one or the other of them caught in their dance of seduction and release.
All of this is done on a gloriously 1940s set designed by Charles Corcoran in excellently elegant costumes by Arthur Oliver. Subtle and suggestive lighting by Lara Dubin completes the stage picture which is enhanced, now and then, by the gossamer sound design work of Tom Shread.
Jeffrey Hatcher is one of the busiest and most successful playwrights working today and this is one of his finest pieces. I have begun to think that anything with his name on it would be worthy of a trip over a mountain and this play certainly was. If you don’t feel the same way after seeing "Mercy of a Storm" you’ve no soul in you. That’s all there is to that.

Mercy of a Storm plays at Chester Theater Company through August 12. Ticket prices range from $22.50-$27.50. Information, tickets and directions can be found at 413-354-7771 or on their website: www.chestertheatre.org.

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