Peter Bergman Theater Reviews

“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Christopher Sergel, adapted from the novel by Harper Lee. Directed by Julianne Boyd. At Barrington Stage Company.

Pulitzer Prize-winning novels should provide ample meat on the bones of their plots for dramatists properly digest while creating Pulitzer prize level plays. Harper Lee’s portrait of a family in the South during the Depression faced with a professional situation that hurts and humiliates all of its participants is just such a book. It doubles the fat content by bringing in the all-too human factor of children witnessing and digesting the situation, like they would a stew fresh from the stove. Adapted into a movie with Gregory Peck many years ago, the material of Lee’s book proved to be not only classic, but dramatically rewarding.
There was no reason, therefore, not to believe that a stage version of the piece would be equally effective, if not more so. In a new production at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, the work on stage makes its points but leaves the heartstrings a bit less tugged at then we might expect.
Perhaps the biggest difference, and the weakest link in this adaptation, is the change in perspective voice. In the book, and in the movie that almost everyone has seen and remembered, the narrative voice is that of the hero’s daughter, Scout. The story is told as she recalls it, as it affected her life. In the play, that voice is gone, and what narration exists comes from a neighbor, Miss Maudie, played beautifully and movingly by Debra Jo Rupp. Rupp, who has never looked lovelier or played a role with a stronger, more controlled emotional base, emerges from this talented company as the incidental star of the piece.
It is not her story, however. It is not her place to draw focus, but inevitably, as the one remembering the incidents of this summer of 1935, her character begins to dominate the proceedings. That is the way this cookie crumbles.

\Atticus Finch, a small-town lawyer, is defending a black man in a rape case, the rape of a young white-trash woman. A widower with two young children, Atticus is a man conflicted. He knows his client is innocent. He knows he cannot win such a case in an Alabama town. His two youngsters believe strongly in his ability to overcome these odds. He discovers that no man is ever a failure if he treats all people with honesty and with humanity and that his children can more completely appreciate his best qualities if he is true to them and open about them — a fact that he comes to late in the proceedings. Protecting the young becomes a different force with a different level of understanding by the end of this story.
Grace Sylvia plays Scout and she does it with great elan. She is rarely off-stage, and her tomboyish qualities are generally delightful. Her brother, Jem, is played by Christian Meola with a sweet sensitivity that is unusual in so young an actor. He is vulnerable and that is all to the good. Their friend, a newcomer to town named Dill, is played by Ross Kane Oparowski with just enough gumption to keep the three kids unique and different. This trio are really good together.
Atticus is portrayed by David Adkins, an exceptionally good actor, as this season has proven. Fresh from playing in “Waiting For Godot” in Stockbridge, he does a complete 180 in this role. Whether trying to control his youthful brood or protect his client or try his case, he is a master of emotional reluctance. When faced with the near death of his son and daughter, however, he becomes a volcano of distress. Adkins plays all of his emotions as sleeve-bearing; his inner thoughts and feelings become obvious and clear, and there is something unusually right about such a choice here. The tribute paid to him in court at the end of the trial by the Rev. Sykes (nicely played by Ken LaRon) was much-deserved.
Bob Ewell, the villainous father of the rape victim, was more than adequately played by John Juback. He became so real in the role that his menacing of Finch later in the play was almost too natural and believable. Bob Lohbauer as the judge delivered a perfect performance and Jerome Spratling as the black man accused of the crime was positively brilliant. His reticence to move, to speak, to show weakness in the face of the charges against him were deeply moving.
Lou Sumrall in his two roles — the prosecutor Gilmer and the recluse Boo Radley — was wonderful and so was Peggy Pharr Wilson as Miss Stephanie, a gossipy and judgmental neighbor. Venida Evans as Calpurnia brings an entire world into focus in a note-perfect interpretation of her character. In fact, the entire cast worked well in their roles, and there was not a false note sounded in the performance.
It is just the writing of this script that weakens the material. There is such a richness in the telling of the tale in the novel that filtering it out diminishes some of its impact and, as mentioned, the changing of the narrative voice alters our emotional reaction to the story as it plays out.
Director Julianne Boyd has made some very fine choices in this piece. Both in casting the play and staging it, she has done the best anyone could do with this play. The set, designed by Marion Williams, works magically setting time, place and tone for the play. Jacob Climber’s costumes, rather than alienating the audience from the era of the piece, orients us to the characters in their clothes and brings us closer to them. Scott Pinkney has given atmosphere and illumination through his lighting design. Boyd has woven all of this together, along with the actor’s participation, into a seamless fabric, a time-worn carpet of reality that allows Atticus Finch to say, “I hoped to get through live without a case of this kind,” and really show us that he doesn’t mean that.
The play is not a tragedy, though there are truly tragic elements here. It is not a comedy in the classic sense because a beloved character dies a tragic death. What Boyd and company are giving their audiences this October is a play that helps to define relationships, clarify situations and open the minds of audiences to realities that should have left us 70 years ago but still do exist.
It was a worthwhile offering and one that we should appreciate for all of its finest attributes.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” plays at Barrington Stage Company on Union Street in Pittsfield through Oct. 26. Tickets may be purchased by calling the box office at 413-236-8888 or visiting barringtonstageco.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 1:02 PM | Permalink

“Clue: The Musical,” book by Peter de Pietro, lyrics by Tom Chiodo, music by Galen Blum, Wayne Barker & Vinnie Martucci. Directed by Michael C. Mensching. At Ghent Playhouse.

What does it tell you when the book writer for a musical is also the original choreographer? (Miss Scarlett in the ballroom with the lead pipe.)
What do we know about a show that only runs 29 performances off-Broadway and then lasts for more than 11 years in stock, regional, community and college productions? (Colonel Mustard in the study with the wrench.)
What can we glean from discovering that audience members didn’t actually do it, but decided who did what with which? (Mr. Green in the lounge with the rope.)
It’s “Clue: The Musical,” running for three weeks at the Ghent Playhouse that brings up all these questions and answers — and you have your own opportunity to guess the triple answers that have kept board-game players happy for decades. Chances are good that the show will not have the same ending again during the run of this production (see below for that simple clue).
Along the way, you’ll meet some darn fine actors doing their very best to instill life into cardboard and plastic. Those are the base elements of a board game: the board and the player pieces. On stage, however, it takes more than just the theory of the game and those elements you play with, to make your evening fun. This show, constructed by two wordsmiths and four tunesmiths, leaves you gasping for air by its long and overdrawn conclusion.

For one thing, there is too much overly spoken exposition. Mr. Boddy, the intended victim, talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks. It is no wonder the musical’s other characters would like to do away with him; they claim other reasons, but really it is all that chatter. Each act gives you three clues as to the identity of the murderer, the room in which Mr. Boddy died and the weapon used to do it. There are six options for each of those things, by the way, or 208 possible solutions (don’t ask me how I got to that number; I’m quoting someone else here). This means that the actor playing the talkative Mr. Boddy has to memorize all those endings and the clues leading to them. For either 29 performances (the first production) or a three-weekend run (Ghent), that’s quite a feat, so let’s applaud the actor in this role, Rod Ferrone, for just tackling such an ordeal.
In fact, let’s pause here for some refreshments and applaud the entire company. They do make this show what it is, which is somewhat entertaining even when the show is at its most frenetic or most confusing. Tracy Trimm is just plain wonderful as Colonel Mustard. His physical and mental gyrations are hilarious, and the weird plot-twists given his character’s history are divine. Johnna Murray takes Mrs. Peacock to glamorous heights, especially when she’s recounting her romantic history in the song “Once a Widow.” Here is a merry widow with a method all her own of keeping “her love alive.”
Ed Martin does well with Professor Plum. He has some strange and haunting things to do, particularly in his seduction duet in Act Two with the Detective, played neatly and acutely by Cathy Lee-Vischer. Stephanie Tanaka is sultry and amusing as Miss Scarlett, whose southern accent comes and goes as easily her virtue. Ferrone is very very good as Mr. Boddy, and John Louis Mayerson does very interesting and occasionally disquieting things in the role of Mr. Green.
The alternately unsettling and alluring Mrs. White is played with witty charm by Mark Schane-Lydon in a hilarious send-up of the typical Agatha Christie character. Catherine Schane-Lydon and Joe Rose do whatever they can with the music at their two keyboards.
It is the music, as much as anything else, that doesn’t do justice to the concept here. Nothing is very memorable (kudos to the cast for singing it anyway). The lyrics do not sparkle with wit or even provide many clues. The book is a tangle and a mess. The show clearly tried to be too many things in order to remain fresh and feel spontaneous — just like a board game might do under the perfect conditions. And, oh yes, you get to play along in the audience. (Mrs. Peacock in the kitchen with candlestick.)
Once again it is a case of too many talents stuck in a show that crawls where it should run and dies where it should soar. Director Michael C. Mensching does what he can, but what he can do is stand back and let the people do their very own best. Perhaps if he had taken the bit in his teeth and really let the piece roar like a lion, soar like an eagle and stretch its massive arms out across the county — in other words play it as broadly as possible — it might have made a difference. But I’m not really sure, because I think it all comes back to the writing, which is just not first-rate. Mike McDermott’s set is worth a peek and the costumes designed by Joanne Maurer are hilariously right for the characters. Matt Sikora has done a very good job lighting the show. All the elements are there, in place, waiting for a Clue. One thing to watch for when you go is the dead stranger who is never identified, but who later on, during the hectic intermission show, gets the best fine-feathered frisking of anybody (hint, hint, clue, clue). One might venture a guess that isn’t offered: the sailor in the bedroom with the mizzen mast. (or Mrs. White in the Billiard Room with the revolver.)
Confused? Just you wait.

“Clue: The Musical plays” weekends at the Ghent Playhouse in Ghent, N.Y., through Oct. 26. For tickets and information ,call the box office at 518-392-6264 or visit ghentplayhouse.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 12:56 PM | Permalink

“Tour de force” — what does it mean? “A feat requiring great virtuosity or strength, often deliberately undertaken for its difficulty,” says my dictionary. Such is the result of the process undertaken at Shakespeare & Company for their autumn production, a new version of the early Oscar Wilde story “The Canterville Ghost.”
While it takes a sense of virtuosic playing to create a work with at least 15 characters played by five people, it also takes the talents and skills of those actors to make such playing worthwhile. The company here is partially successful, with three of the company doing wonderfully and two not quite up to the task.
But first, a sense of the story.

“The Canterville Ghost” by Anne Brownsted (and the ensemble) based on the novella by Oscar Wilde. Directed by Irina Brook. At Shakespeare & Company.

Wilde’s 1887 short fiction work pitted a family of Americans, with four children, including twins, living in an old English manor house against the house-ghost, a 16th-century nobleman who finds in the culture-clash more than enough reason to haunt and frighten the occupants of his ancestral estate. It is a comic piece, intentionally. The ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville is a rather inept figure, at least in the late 19th century.
The battle is eventually won (I won’t say by whom), and the prize is the son of the young, current Lord Canterville, who resolves all problems by wooing and marrying the young daughter of the American minister working in London and living in his family’s manse. She, Virginia Otis, wins his heart and the long-hidden family jewels that are much prized and much sought by the Cantervilles. Essentially, everybody wins — even the ghost who is finally granted an eternal peace.
Wilde did his best to capture the qualities of the Americans he had met during his tour of this country. The Americans he drew are nowhere near as grotesque nor the over-the-top jingoists that Brownsted, Brook and the bunch are presenting on stage in Lenox. Caricature abounds in this production — abounds and almost out-of-bounds, although now that a real frontier woman is running for a national leadership position, I may be the one out of bounds in this literal judgment.
Over the last century, the story has been fiddled with many times. In this new version, directed by Irina Brook, the show is considerably updated, and the American family is presented as a rather startling family of Texans who have purchased their way into the house and plan to turn it into a haunted house theme park. When a hypnotist, who seems to already haunt the place, turns them into the 1940s versions of themselves, the story takes up the traditional mold of the Wilde original transplanted almost into the period of the Hollywood film version that starred Charles Laughton, Margaret O’Brien and Robert Young. Country music gives way to “Dancing at the Savoy”; western duds are replaced with dresses and hats. A softness comes back into the play that would otherwise be missing. So does a bizarre sense of confusion, unfortunately, for the ending of the play is somewhat hard to discern. We don’t really know which family, which Virginia, is responsible for the ultimate turn of events, for the crown of jewels reward.
Apparently, a great deal of experimentation and improvisation went into the procedure. The script was developed during the rehearsal period. Sometimes things created on the spot were made permanent, and sometimes they should not have been made so definitive. A lot of what happens on stage is funny and should definitely be saved and used. But now we’re at the “tour de force” consideration, so let us go directly to it.
Dana Harrison plays the eldest contemporary Otis girl and also Lucretia Otis, the wife of the 1946-48 Hiram Otis. Her two principal characters are wonderfully different, and her Lucretia is particularly endearing. As her sister Chastity, and also her son Washington in that earlier era, Alexandra Lincoln does an excellent job of keeping the two different. There is a nice setup for this sex change in characters during the hypnotist’s show that opens the evening, but even so, Lincoln does a surprisingly good job of being the teenage boy. She also plays the “twins” from the original story, but this time they are Washington’s hand-puppet playmates.
Michael F. Toomey is the two Hirams. They are not the same person, and not played as the same person, but Toomey is harder to alter. His physical characteristics make him much more difficult to multicast, for so little is really changeable. He is good in both roles, but they are so much more interchangeable that only the costumes and the company he keeps make any visible difference.
The two Virginias are played by Alyssa Hughlett, and, once again, her two characters emerge as the same one, so it really doesn’t matter which one she is playing. Luckily, both Virginias dance, and Hughlett dances wonderfully well, with a gusto, joy and gymnastic flare that truly sets her apart from so many other actresses. She is pretty and has a sweet voice, but her dancing is really what rivets your attention and admiration and respect.
This foursome also plays a quartet of inept, dead magicians who come at the Ghost’s request to find a way to shake up the 1940s Otis family. Here, with deeply different costumes changes, they are all marvelously new and newly invented.
The big “T-de-F” is the challenge handed to Michael Hammond. As the hypnotist, the two Cantervilles and the housekeeper, Mrs. Umney, he is forever changing costumes, demeanors, voices, accents, tempos and even facial expressions. I say “even” because Hammond has a charming smile that he uses so often on stage it is almost a cliché. This summer, his evil Iago smiled more than the Cheshire Cat grins in “Alice in Wonderland.” Here that smile is often perceivably a grimace, a sneer, a smile, a lurid lip-line, a tremble and an egress for accents that define his principal characters perfectly. There are times in this play when his exits and entrances are so snappy that it amazes me that he can even begin to remember who he is, where he is and why.
Hammond never makes this constant set of quick transitions look easy. It is very obvious at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theater, where no seat is more than five rows from the playing area, that the man’s perspiration is absolutely real and clearly deserved. He is working very hard, perhaps too hard in this instance, to make something viably understandable out of this semi-improvised mish-mash: today vs. yesterday vs. the day before yesterday.
There is really no reason to have a modern-day Otis family when the one in the actual story would do. Doing so, especially with the surprise ending in the wardrobe (so to speak) only serves to confuse the ending, creating an instability for the audience. There is also no viable payoff for the modern Virginia who may, or may not, have been the person responsible for the seemingly happy ending. The lack of a really concrete script seems to have also given the audience and actors nowhere to go in the final moments. Virginia gets the jewels, but who really knew there were any to get? No one gets married at the end, but that may be all right, because sisters can’t wed anyway, and who else is there?
Shelby Rodger has done a nice job with the costumes, and Katy Monthei has used the large expanse of playing space to arrange her set design capabilities. The lighting by Tina Louise Jones is very handsomely designed, giving the minor special effects their due and the players their necessary lights.
This is an enjoyable romp for families in need of a different, unique, experience. It is not perfect theater, not a perfect play by any means. However, if a few thrills, some magical effects, a silly set of performances and/or an evening about life-force “tour de force” ghosts is your thing, then this is for you. Personally I am glad I saw it. It’s given me a new perspective on a few people and a new idea on dealing with the ghosts that haunt my own life. May the “force” be with you.

“The Canterville Ghost” plays at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox through Nov. 9. Tickets are $48, but there are some special rates available. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. with 2 p.m. matinees and a series of 11 a.m. special performances as well. Info: 413-637-3353.

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

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 2:11 PM | Permalink