Peter Bergman Theater Reviews

"Hello, Dolly!" Book by Michael Stewart, songs by Jerry Herman, based on "The Matchmaker" by Thornton Wilder. Directed by Doug Hodge. At the MacHaydn Theatre.

In my time, I have seen the following women play Dolly Gallagher Levi: Carol Channing, Mary Martin, Ginger Rogers, Betty Grable, Martha Raye, Betty Hutton, Pearl Bailey, Shirley Booth, Ethel Merman, Bibi Osterwald, Barbra Streisand and Fang's wife Phyllis Diller (the less said of this the better). I always thought that Mae West would have been ideal in the role, but, alas, she never played it. Now, in Chatham, N.Y., we have Monica Wemitt in the part at the MacHaydn Theatre. It has been said of Wemitt that she not only stood by for Miss Channing in the role during the 1995-96 revival (she was playing Ernestina, the blind date for Horace Vandergelder), but actually took it on when Carol C. was indisposed.
Wemitt is very much up to the role with her acting as Dolly Levi. She is less well-suited to it vocally. Wemitt has an odd "break" in her voice where she goes from chest voice to head voice, and this score rocks her back and forth across that line once too often. She recovers quickly from the change, but there is no smooth transition and she goes out of tune a bit. However, this only happens in her first number, and "Motherhood." The break adds years to her age, false ones I'm sure, but they are noticeable.

Where she shines is in her acting. She comes the closest to that Mae West ideal I carry in my head. She winks, saunters, engages the audience with a sly look. She puts people in their place and makes them cherish the moment. She brings a vibrant reality to the part that is so very lace-curtain Irish crossed with lower east side Jewish that she makes her Dolly irresistible. You want to reach out as she passes and giver her all your money, your umbrella and your ticket stub so she can claim a refund at the box office. This is everything a Dolly needs to be; she must make you want to behave her way, do what she wishes. In this, Wemitt succeeds more completely than anyone on my list above. Especially Diller (who really wasn't bad, just strange).
Jim Kidd, about whom I know very little, plays the man she sets her sights on, Horace the misanthrope. He is loud and blustery, rather than gruff and solemn. Playing opposite Wemitt's gregarious Dolly, this version of Horace is an excellent quarry for the huntress.
Karla Shook does an admirable job with Irene Malloy, Horace's intended who actually prefers his clerk over the boss. She sings especially sweetly in the second act song "It Only Takes a Moment."
Mary Elizabeth Milton does nicely as Minnie Fay and Wesley Urish is more than her match as Barnaby Tucker, the underclerk in Horace's store in Yonkers. Tara Tagliaferro is not ugly enough to make me believe her Ernestina Money and Andrea Doto is non-stop unnerving as the crying Ermengarde. Her boyfriend, Ambrose, is nicely played by Ryan Michael Owens. Quinto Ott is excellent as Reisenweber.
A standout performance is given by Jason Whitfield as Cornelius Hackle, the clerk Irene Malloy falls for. His sincerity and warmth are special and his very stylish manner in "Elegance" was most welcome. The lively tempo of this second act opener was much appreciated and Whitfield's posture and movement seemed to inspire the others in the quartet with only Shook seeming stiff and over-rehearsed.
Had the tempo of that number been applied to some of the first act songs, the show would have had the much needed sparkle and drive it lacked in the act one, in particular to "I Put My Hand In" and "Before the Parade Passes By," both of which were slow-drag in their performance.
Under the keen eye of director Doug Hodge, this company performs very well, and though Wemitt rarely ever faced section two, where I was seated, the overall sense of directionality was aptly applied.
Jimm Halliday's costumes were superb, some of the best I've seen anywhere this season. Dane Kenn's overly childlike set decoration and design threatened to ruin the effects wrought everywhere else.
The music is ... what the MacHaydn produces: twin kurzweil keyboards electronically registering sound in pitch, but not much else. This is another key where too little is exactly that. TOO. LITTLE.
People around me enjoyed every minute of the show. I had a good time and my rafter-rocking laughter distracted a young girl in the row ahead of mine. Take that as a recommendation, but don't blame me if not everything suits you here. After all this is "Hello, Dolly!" and not "Gotterdamerung."

"Hello, Dolly!" plays at the Mac-Haydn Theatre at 1925 Route 203 just north of Route 66 in Chatham, N.Y., through July 5. Ticket prices range from $12 to $28. For information or reservations, call 518-392-9292.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 3:27 PM | Permalink

"One Two Three" by Ferenc Molnar, adapted by Morwyn Brebner. Directed by Eric Peterson. At Oldcastle Theatre Company in Bennington, Vt.

It is Molnar month in the Berkshire region. His play "Liliom" has been running at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield under its more musical title "Carousel." Now add to that his one-act farce "One Two Three," which has taken the stage at the Oldcastle Theatre Company in Bennington, Vt. No two plays could be more different from one another.
"Carousel" unfolds its magical-realism story slowly and carefully, covering 16 years in an ill-fated relationship. "One Two Three" performs is entire hysterical yarn in real-time, one hour and 10 minutes. As directed by Eric Peterson, this is a delight not to be missed.

We are in an executive suite in Manhattan in the early 1960s. Norrison, the head of a large and powerful company, has been baby-sitting the daughter of a potential investor whose capital will make a major difference in how Norrison operates in the future. Just before he is to take a trip to the country to be with his wife and children, the visiting girl, Lydia, announces she is married and pregnant and that her husband is a very lowly, communist-card-carrying taxi driver named Harry Foote. She also tells Norrison that her very concerned parents are due to arrive by train in an hour to meet Harry. Norrison has just that amount of time to convert the slob into an aristocratic snob, against the poor boy's wishes, who will satisfy the snooty requirements of Lydia's father.
It is just that amount of time that encompasses the play and director Peterson keeps the proceedings completely on schedule.
Paul Falzone is all business in this hilarious comedy as Norrison. He pulls no punches while pulling every string and pushing every button at his disposal. His powerful performance at the eye of the hurricane he summons is marvelous and funny. By the time Norrison leaves the office to catch his train, we sit amazed that he has not lost one pound from the effort he makes. Falzone is just pure magic in this part.
As Lydia, Jenny Strassberg is both silly and delightful. While she might have gone further into the farce-style of this play, her peculiar sense of calm is a distaff noise in the crowd that accumulates in the office. It is as though her pregnancy has taken hold of an otherwise silly child-woman.
Harry, soon to be Heinrich, is well-played by Moti Margolin. His lanky body moves in and out of focus as he unwillingly, then all-too-willingly adapts to the changes being thrust onto him. The actor makes his love for Lydia quite apparent and that touching quality provides the believability that this play requires in order to work so well.
Bill Tatum is fine in three different roles and so is Richard Howe in both of his. However, it is Chris Restino in his three very different parts who almost steals away the comic honors. His lightning changes of costumes, parts and genders is hilarious. Every laugh he gets is hard-earned. Every gesture and nuance in his playing reveals a wonderful talent.
Production values are brilliant in this production. Kenneth Mooney (with Richard Howe assisting on sets) has done the triple honors of set/costumes/lighting and he has provided a gorgeous visual for this show.
The rest of the large acting company (16 in all) are equal to the leads in the quality of their characterizations and performances. As the frenzied attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear accelerates, there are no slip-ups, no errors. This show is just fun from start to finish and fine way to begin a new season at Oldcastle.

"One Two Three" plays at Oldcastle Theatre Company through July 12. Oldcastle is located in the Bennington Center for the Arts on Gypsy Lane and Vermont Route 9, west of Bennington. For ticket and schedule information, call 802-447-1267 or visit oldcastletheatre.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 3:21 PM | Permalink

"Carousel." Music by Richard Rodgers, book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, based on the play "Liliom" by Ferenc Molnar. Directed by Julianne Boyd.

Early in the musical "Carousel," the romantic leading man -- Billy Bigelow -- explains his theory of handling a woman. "I'll give her a slap on the jaw," he says. It's said as a somewhat charming antidote to the curious sweetness of Julie Jordan, the young woman he is talking to about his affairs. It is meant to surprise her and any other person listening including the hundreds in the unseen audience. It is also meant to be forgotten.
In this new production at Barrington Stage in Pittsfield, it's a statement that never quite goes away. We are reminded of it midway through the first act when he actually does slap Julie, a gesture that is instantly blown out of proportion by friends and neighbors, gossips who elevate the angry gesture into wife-beating. Later it has a different resonance when their daughter is slapped in the same way out of the same level of frustration. It is an act that defines Billy more than any other.

If the Billy is drop-dead gorgeous, the gesture becomes one of self-sacrifice for the girls. In this production, the actor playing this man is not a stunningly handsome man, and his hard-to-control anger takes on a different sort of significance. It becomes a symbol of inner rage at his own shortcomings, which are only exposed when he allows himself to love someone; that feeling requires a slap on the jaw and this Billy is more human for it.
Director Julianne Boyd has taken on a challenge in opening her main stage season with this show. It is operatic in its lengthy musical sequences, each of which leads through a series of melodic recitative to a hit song. It is also operatic in its emotional scope that can easily be played over the top. It also is a revelatory piece about the dynamics of a small but populated fishing village in New England and so it requires a multitude of actors who can also sing and dance. Boyd has had the luck to cast the most interesting people who now temporarily inhabit the Berkshires.
It is also a curious time for this show to be on our local boards. A carousel project in Pittsfield is under way with new hand-carved horses being created by teams of local citizen. This carousel is expected to aid in the restoration of the city of Pittsfield to its former place as the true center of the region. In her staging of the opening pantomime sequence of the show, Boyd celebrates that new creation in her own particular way and it is most effective for both the show and its host city.
Billy is played by the rugged and interesting Aaron Ramey. His baritone voice is perfect for Billy. He handles the Soliloquy, in which Billy fantasizes about his pregnant wife's child, with strength, charm and drama. Billy only has three moments of music in this production, as his second act song "The Highest Judge of All" is not being used in this production. Ramey makes the most of his opportunities and comes out a winner.
Julie is portrayed by Patricia Noonan, a young woman whose smile could melt asphalt. Her performance is especially keyed to her portrait of love. This character comes with a disclaimer: She has no desire to marry. No one ever speaks of her wedding and until late in the show no one every speaks of her emotions, her love for Billy. It is not clear that she has ever married him, but she lives with him, carries his child and uses his name, so we must assume that a wedding took place somehow. Written in 1945, the play had to mention marriage, but in today's world, that isn't necessary. Noonan's Julie seems very much the free-spirited, unwed partner of the difficult man she admits to loving in their final scene together, at his death. She plays all of this beautifully.
Her best friend, Carrie Pipperidge, is perfectly performed by Sara Jean Ford. Her romance with Mr. Snow steals away so much of the concentration of the audience that it almost transforms the show into her story with Julie and Billy's love affair becoming a backdrop tale for contrast. This young lady sings and dances and act up a storm and her vis-a-vis, the Enoch Snow of Todd Buonopane, is her match in every way. Together they are a delicious couple. Even when he upbraids her with "Geraniums in the Winder," we know he loves her and her despair, which triggers another Rodgers and Hammerstein hit "What's the Use of Wond'rin?" is laughingly right.
Christopher Innvar's villainous Jigger Craigin is an excellent characterization and Teri Ralston's Nettie, who sings three more R&H hit songs, including the anthem "You'll Never Walk Alone," is magical. Mrs. Mullin, Billy's protector, is played well by Leslie Becker.
The magical-realism of the play happens in the second act when Billy dies and goes to heaven. The rest of the show is surreal as he returns to earth to finish his business there and make right what he left wrong. There is a curious morality in this section. His suicide after a bungled theft is corrected in his mind by his actual act of stealing something precious from heaven. How he makes that stupid act right is one of the beauties of this production. The starkeeper, played by Daniel Marcus and his 1st Heavenly Friend, played by Christy Morton, are cameos that will not be easily forgotten.
Louise, his daughter, is sweetly performed by dancer/actor Kristen Paulicelli. Her ballet of anger, wishes and despair - closely, based on the Agnes DeMille original with choreography by Joshua Bergasse, is lovely indeed.
The orchestra here is simply two pianos, not a sound that I find especially appealing. The difference made by a single additional instrument, a violin, in the "Blow High, Blow Low Hornpipe," was so spectacular that it only made me wish for more instruments. Boyd has answered that prayer in "A Real Nice Clambake." I wish there was more of that.
Set in the 1890s (instead of the 1870's original), the show is beautifully costumed by Holly Cain on a perfectly marvelous set designed by Robert Mark Morgan. Scott Pinkney's lighting was effective and glowing although in the final scene I would have preferred some subtle highlighting of Julie and Louise.
When people think of the tragic musical, "West Side Story" comes to mind. However, 12 years earlier there was Carousel, and the imagistic parallels are spectacularly notable. One dead man, one grieving wife kneeling over him, one soprano singing an inspirational theme from a position of observing the romantic scene being played out center stage. As wonderful as "Somewhere" is from the later show, the simple honesty of "You'll Never Walk Alone" in this musical is even more electric.
Director Julianne Boyd has made a new vision of a classic picture with this production. She has given the summer a kickoff that should spark discussions all over the region. This is a crowning achievement.

"Carousel" plays through July 11 at Barrington Stage Company's theater located at 30 Union St. in Pittsfield. Tickets range in price from $15 to $58. For schedules, availability and tickets, call the box office at 413-236-8888 or check on line at barringtonstageco.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 10:14 PM | Permalink

"St. Nicholas" by Conor McPherson. Directed by Carl Forsman. At Dorset Theatre Festival.

When a theater critic comes to grips with his inner monster and discovers the world around him is inhabited with other monsters -- in this case vampires -- he apprentices himself to them. He enters service, as they say in the British Isles, and finds a new way to interface the public with his own personal demons.
That's the story told by the narrator of this Irish fairy tale. He is a critic who claims to have no critical facility, no means of interpreting what he sees, no basis for his opinions; he only has his opinions. In reality, he has means, basis and the critical where-with-all to do his job brilliantly.
Embodied on the stage of the Dorset Playhouse by actor Jack Gilpin, this nameless critic has a voice that intones his memories of the in-and-out-of-this-world experience with all the dolor of a self-critical man out of touch with his own reality in the world. Gilpin's long, square-jawed face works to his advantage in this piece. Its serious demeanor gives a peculiar status to the tale he tells. He never creates any other characters but only talks of them, in the way a critic would. Not an imitator but a reteller of the story he witnessed and participated in, he just gives us the facts without drawing us into a world of dialogues.

Playwright Conor McPherson has made some difficult choices in creating his nameless fellow. He has decided to prevent confusions by never truly creating other people on his stage. He has allowed no moralizing, no pretense, no sidetracks into other stories. We never learn much about the coven of vampires. We know there are many of them, including some devastatingly attractive females. We don't know how long they have been there, and we never learn their fate after our critic finds his way back from their very inviting lair. McPherson leaves the blanks for us to fill in with our own imaginations if we choose to do so, and principally, I suspect, we choose not to follow that line. The vampires are not as interesting as the critic when all is said and done.
The play has laughs and the play has tears, but in this production, directed by Carl Forsman, artistic director of the Dorset Theatre Festival, neither of those attitudes take pride of place. That is given to the straight-laced narrative of the personal story. Forsman has placed the audience on stage with the auditorium as a natural backdrop. We can see a hundred faces in our imagination, a population surrounding our critic, unseen by him and not seeing him either. That space becomes a surreal party garden, a vista into a personal hell, with the aid of wonderful lighting by Josh Bradford. We see in these few moments when the "other world" takes its place in our view why the narrator has assembled us on the stage of a theater: It is his true world, whether he believes that or not, and the only place where he can tell his story.
Other productions have emphasized the humor of the play, but Forsman and Gilpin have played it straight, pulling no punches and emphasizing no particular element. The critic's lies to a producer and his company, his lust for a young performer, his diffident treatment of his family, his willingness to assist the vampires, his enjoyment of literature and his sudden "gift of charm" are given equal emphasis in this production.
"Every once in a while I'd smell the rot," he tells us, eager to share this minimal emotion. The rot is his own reliance on his critical powers to understand his situations. This St. Nicholas cannot be confused with Santa Claus. The tradition of tall tales for the holidays is superceded in this summer amble through the self-realization process this critic is dragged through by his own lack of self-assurance.
In the end, he emerges from his self-imposed alienation from the world he has inhabited and from the other world he has attempted to grasp, one that has fascinated him since childhood. Does he end up a better man, or even a better critic? We never know. We only know that his time among the denizens of an underworld we don't understand has given him a different sense of himself. That may be all he needs. And perhaps his personal demon has been the patron saint of the world's favorite holiday, that vision of giving that this critic seems incapable of handling except to his monsters. Another question unanswered.

"St. Nicholas" plays through June 27 at the Dorset Playhouse, 104 Cheney Road, Dorset, Vt. For full schedules, prices and to purchase tickets, contact the box office at 802-867-5777.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 10:35 PM | Permalink

"Golda's Balcony" by William Gibson. Directed by Daniel Gidron. At Shakespeare & Company.

Annette Miller frightens me. Seven years ago, she took on the role of Golda Meir and I thought her performance perfect. Now, as part of the Diva Series at Shakespeare & Company, here is Annette Miller once again, reprising Golda Meir and making her 10 times more human, 50 times more intimidating and altogether far too real. There is something superhuman in that ability to re-create something and do it even better. Here is no Carol Channing act with exactly the same gestures, inflections and rhythms. Here is life breathing on an enlarged soapbox.

Golda Meir is prime minister of Israel at the start of the play and is still holding on to that role at the end of it, although she admits she is ready to step aside. It is 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, so-called because of the attack on Israel by her Arab neighbors on that holiest of Jewish High Holy days. It is the day of atonement and Golda, for real, is forced to atone for her own sins: sins of omission, commission and permission.
As she lives out her memories of youth, marriage, migration and social involvement, she brings to the forefront of her mind and our consciousness the various vigorous stages of her life. Born in pogrom-filled Russia, raised in Milwaukee and living on the International circuit, Golda is charged with the responsibility of shepherding her adopted nation, one she helped to create, through a national disaster, the seeming betrayal of faith toward her country by the Nixon administration and a global disinterest in becoming involved with Israel's oppression. How Golda handles it, alone in her office, sitting at cabinet meetings with an unseen contingent of military and militant men, offending her family through her seeming disaffection, is the substance of the play, the meat. The gravy is in the performance.
Miller transforms herself without much help from makeup or wig or artifice into the dowdy woman in a hairnet whose face is emblazoned on so many people's memories. Here is the woman who charmed $50 million out of Jewish-Americans in the late 1940s, a time when money was scarce, the past was too recent to even haunt people and Israel still a vision of the future. Here is the statesman who did television interviews and appeals for support. Here is the woman we don't expect, the chicken-soup cooker who weeps over the children who died in Cyprus even as she pleads with adults who have waited in internment camps for their release to give up their rightful places so that children can emigrate. Miller gives such a sense of immediacy and reality to all of this that it is almost as though we live within her; we feel her pain and we experience her joy; we know her thoughts and we are gripped by her emotions.
She has been guided through William Gibson's script, which she helped to develop, by director Daniel Gidron, a man who lived in Israel through the war during which this play is set. Perhaps he has brought something special into play, sharing his own experiences with the actress, giving her a deeper insight than any script could do. Perhaps he has just used his knowledge of the events to impart something sure and simple to her. It is impossible to know. Still, the combination of movement and internal direction has purchased a resultant performance that will, itself, haunt even the most casual observer.
A set by Kiki Smith brings an essence of Jerusalem's Wailing Wall into the picture. Govane Lohbauer's simple costume and perfect shoes do most of the creating of the character's physical presence. Greg Solomon's lighting keeps the present and the past under strict control and when the play gets into the revelatory moment about the play's title, there is an unusual chilly heat about the setting.
"The view into Hell," Golda says about her balcony and what it provides and the truth is so much stranger than fiction that we know it is absolutely, 100 percent reality.
That is the keystone of this production. Golda is "a bit contradictory" as she says, and her life story shows the power of power and how impossible it is for someone who is innately powerful to ever escape her fate. Annette Miller is also powerful and I tremble as I write this, hoping that not one word is out of place, for her strength is such -- I cannot imagine how she does eight shows a week of this play -- that she would seek me out and reprimand me for any untoward remark. Seeing this performance twice in seven years makes the experience so much more worthwhile.
See it at least once.

"Golda's Balcony" plays at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theater on the Shakespeare & Company campus at 70 Kemble St., Lenox, through July 3 and returns for a single performance on Sept. 13. For schedules and tickets call the box office at 413-637-3353 or visit shakespeare.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 10:45 PM | Permalink

"Freud's Last Session" by Mark St. Germain. Directed by Tyler Marchant. At Barrington Stage Company.

If playwright Mark St. Germain's play is on target; if C.S. Lewis did spend an hour with Sigmund Freud and they did clash over basic ideologies; if one fine mind met another fine mind in the days when a new world war was disrupting everything for everyone in Europe, then it is probable that the play "Freud's Last Session," now on stage at Barrington Stage Company's second space, is an accurate realization of the outcome of that meeting.
I, for one, believe it highly possible. The concept of such a meeting comes from a scholarly tome by Dr. Armand Nicholi Jr. titled "The Question of God." Surely no two men in the mid-20th century had more specific and sane concepts of the existence of God.

The play, set in Freud's study in his home in London, deals with the world's first great psychoanalyst at a time when suicide was becoming an ideal solution to his own physical and emotional problems. Living with his wife Martha and his youngest daughter Anna -- the model for many of Freud's dream analysis notations -- Freud is suffering from the final stages of mouth cancer. He is in a dark humor, listening to the radio reports of Hitler's advancing armies and of England's entry into the fray. He has planned his suicide but has made room for a visit from an Oxford Don whose own writings have taken Freud and his theories over the coals of humor. This man is C.S. Lewis, the convert to Catholicism and the author of the "Tales of Narnia."
The two men argue, confer, sympathize and commiserate over the course of an hour-long visit. There is an excitement in their dialogue, a trigger mechanism that is greater than the conflicts they argue. Each is determined to win an argument that cannot be won. The structure of belief is at the core of their chatter. Neither will be swayed and no one can emerge more right than the other. Frustration drives Freud into a frenzy and Lewis into a shell-like, self-sacrificing mechanism that is both protective and its opposite.
Ultimately, it is cancer that has the final say in this play. Freud will go forward with his desire to beat the disease by destroying himself before the cancer can do it. In fact, two weeks after the date of this play, Freud, assisted by his doctor who gave him three courses of heavy morphine, did end his own life. In the play, he tells Lewis that if Lewis is right he can tell Freud about it in heaven, but if Freud is right, then neither of them will ever know the truth. If the play has a weak point to make, that is it. Ideology is its own religion and its celebrants can only find satisfaction in it to the extent to which their personal beliefs are borne out.
Barrington Stage has a marvelous world premiere production in their hands. On a very realistic set designed by Brian Prather, two actors play out this struggle in perfect costumes by Mark Mariana. Beth Lake, sound designer, brings the early stages of World War II to life in the outside world and in the room itself with a radio. Clifton Taylor uses light sparingly to give the play the reality it deserves.
C.S. Lewis is played by Mark H. Dold. Dold has proven before that British accents are not his thing, so he wisely does not attempt one here. He plays the youth of Lewis perfectly and his line readings are square on and quite sincere. There is an earnestness to his line readings that makes them honest and truthful, and yet there is something not quite right in his Lewis. There is certainty but no conviction. There is humanness, but not much humanity. When he goes to assist an ailing Freud, it feels honest and right, but when he taunts Freud with the doctor's own techniques, it feels false somehow. It is conceivable that Dold is just playing the 41-year-old author, teacher and convert in the best way he knows how and that this actor's concept of the man is not yet complete. His arguments, in St. Germain's script, are valid and strong and he states the points well. It is hard to buy his convictions, however, as anything other than line readings.
On the other side of the coin is the Freud created by Martin Rayner. This actor, a new face at Barrington Stage, is seemingly born to play Freud. Not one false note ever creeps into his voice, face, manner, bearing, his convictions or his intense interest in the goings on in the world around him. It is as though Freud is actually on the stage. His vocal Freud is convincing and his physically wrecked old man is just the other side of perfection. Everything he does or says is sound and right and unbearably transformed. "There is no moral law," he says, "only our feeble attempts to control chaos." As Rayner says those words in Freud's voice, our minds tell us that we are seeing the Viennese head doctor himself.
Rayner, Marchant and Dold make a curious trio. If Dold made me believe in his Lewis's God (rather than in his ability to act) to the extent that Rayner made me believe in his lack of existence then this struggle between two great minds would have been everything that St. Germain intended. But as fine a director as Marchant is, he is restricted in his influence by the capabilities of two unequal talents.
"Freud's Last Session" is a brilliant piece of writing brought to uneasy life in its world premiere performance. It's a mind-bending play and in this production your mind will most probably be bent in only one direction, which is not fair to the characters the playwright has presented. What is needed here is equality in strength and influence. What we have is not what this excellent play demands.

"Freud's Last Session" plays at Barrington Stage Company's second stage located at 36 Linden St. in Pittsfield. Performances continue Tuesdays through Sundays through June 28. For schedules and tickets, call 413-236-8888 or visit barringtonstageco.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 9:30 PM | Permalink

"Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Lyrics by Tim Rice. Directed and choreographed by Kelly Shook. At the Mac-Haydn Theatre.

I read the book and I know that happy endings aren't always so happy. In the case of this classic Biblical tale, a family is happily reunited and take up their place near the favorite son who has become a powerful force in ancient Egypt. Four hundred years later the family, now grown to more than a million souls, is still in Egypt, enslaved and abused, their first-born sons slain, their lives a hell-on-earth as they struggle to survive the cruel tyrannies of the descendants of the Pharaoh who graciously took them in and gave them grain and dwellings.
But that's history and the Mac-Haydn Theatre is presenting a joyful musical about a young boy sold into slavery by his jealous older brothers. The boy survives his own slavery and imprisonment to become a seer and a prophet and wealthy man in a foreign land where, during a famine, he is able to bring his family under his own protective wing. In this show all of this and more is accomplished to a tuneful, pastiche score embracing styles from hully-gully disco to calypso to French apache and 1960's rock.

Entirely theatrical, and through-composed with only four discernible lines of spoken dialogue, the show provides more laughter than tears and more dance steps than the Rockettes at Christmas at Radio City Music Hall. Director/choreographer Kelly Shook provides her large company (25 adults and eight children) with much to do much of the time. On stage, costume changes highlight the often frenetic pace of this show and Andrew Gmoser's very effective lighting helps guide the audience through the story, focusing on individuals and providing much needed mood and a sense of time and place.
On ppening night Jennifer Bishop, as the Narrator, had serious microphone trouble that threatened to bring down the first act, but the situation was rectified during the lengthy country-western song "One More Angel." Her voice, small but true and rather beautiful, lent warmth and specificity, once she could be heard over the well-orchestrated synthesizer accompaniment.
Likewise during the Pharaoh's number "Song of the King," a dancer seemed to have accidentally fallen down, but that may have just been a joke -- although it didn't appear to be. Whether a part of the show or an incident that hopefully won't reoccur, it was well handled by the company as one of the male chorus members carried the woman up the aisle and out of the theater. The Pharaoh, played by Jason Whitfield, was a popular addition to the company. His Elvis Impersonation was a high-point of the show.
Kellyn Uhl as Mrs. Potiphar danced up a sexual storm and Andrea Doto as the dancer in the French Apache number in the second act song "Those Canaan Days" was marvelous. The children's chorus added immensely to this production, singing and moving in and out of the complex scenes and situations.
The star of any production of "Joseph" needs to be Joseph, and at the Mac-Haydn the star of this show is genuinely the young man himself as portrayed by Rich Krakowski. Krakowski has a lovely voice and a very specific stage presence. His renditions of "Any Dream Will Do" and "Close Every Door" were moving, emotional experiences for him and for his audience.
Chris Cooke sang an effective "Those Canaan Days," and Ryan Owens was sufficiently cowboy-like in "One More Angel." Jared Jacobs and David Melendez duetted well in the "Benjamin Calypso."
The costumes were superb, designed by Jimm Halliday, and the functional set was designed by Kevin Gleason.
On a wet night in Chatham, the Mac-Haydn was definitely the place to be. I'd be willing to say that it would still have been good place to spend an hour and forty minutes had the weather been dry. There is an eleven minute curtain call in this show during which the entire company gets to reprise almost every song you think you're going to remember when it first occurs. That was a bit excessive, but OK, it made the show into a two-hour event, something to remember when you go.

"Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" plays at the Mac-Haydn Theatre at 1925 Route 203 just north of Route 66 in Chatham, N.Y., through June 21. For information or reservations, call the box office at 518-392-9292.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 9:11 PM | Permalink

"Pinter's Mirror," three plays by Harold Pinter. Directed by Eric Tucker. At Shakespeare & Company.

Harold Pinter taught us to wait for it. An old English theatrical line, once even used by Noel Coward in a one-act play from the "Tonight at 8:30" group, the concept of "wait for it" is the driving force behind the relationships of all three sets of characters in this intriguing, thoughtful and humorous evening of plays at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox.
Written over a 23 year time period, interspersed with his better-known full-length plays, "A Slight Ache" written in 1957, "Family Voices" from 1980 and "Victoria Station" composed in 1981, make an intriguing evening of theater for three well-cast actors. Two of them are old acquaintances to Shakespeare audiences in this region: the husband and wife actors Elizabeth and Malcolm Ingram. The third is in his first season with this company, Stephen Pilkington. Similarly new to the company is the director Eric Tucker.
Conceived to be produced for little money, the set for these three plays consists of five chairs, a table and an ottoman. Each play requires a single costume for each actor. Much is achieved with lighting effects by Greg Solomon ,who makes a great deal out of window gobos and area lighting. The first half of the evening, in 56 minutes, is "A Slight Ache," and the other two plays comprise the second half at 42 minutes.

In the first play, Flora and Edward sit in their garden having morning tea. Their chatter is typically Pinter-esque, with lengthy pauses as each one either stares at the other or completely ignores the other one's presence. Then a third character, a matchseller outside their garden gate, attracts their attention and the true inner essence of Pinter begins to be seen. These are not just two quirky, funny older folks; these are deeply troubled, extremely human figures who cannot figure out how to continue in their ritualistic paths without some major change in their relationships to each other and to the world outside their gate. They invite the stranger in and the fun begins, or alters at any rate, into something frighteningly funny.
Not unlike "The Caretaker" or "The Homecoming" or 1958's "The Dumbwaiter," this play takes in more than a stranger. Originally written as a radio play, the text with its myriad pauses for effect or for effectiveness provides an inestimable number of clues to the identity and purpose of the matchseller standing constantly at the couple's outer door. With all its descriptive language, the physical presence of the matchseller makes the play into something startling and too real.
Elizabeth Ingram is perfection as the verbally abused wife who knows her place but who emerges suddenly as a minx and a flirt, then a mother, then a stepmother and finally into the effervescent bride. Most brides are unaccustomed to the reality of their mates and Flora, in Ingram's hands, has two men she must regard in this manner. She handles it without a flaw. Her beauty becomes a hard asset to ignore as she delights in her new mate, hardly the mature intellectual who is her legal husband, but certainly the receptive blank page of a mind she needs.
Malcolm Ingram could not have chosen more perfectly the quick changes of moods Edward suffers. Argumentative, then charming, impulsive and reclusive simultaneously, yet instantly repulsive and inquisitive when necessary, he moves in and out of near-psychotic states with ease and alacrity. It is his coming to grips with the realities he creates out of whole cloth about his strange visitor that drives this particular dramatic bus. He is the center of the play, and there is nothing calm or centering about his rationale for actions.
Stephen Pilkington, new to these Lenox stages, is the Matchseller, a character who acts with his hands, body and head, occasionally with his eyes, but never with a verbal voice; his voice is in his movement and he speaks loudly after the longest Pinter silences imaginable.
Pilkington comes into his own in the second half of the show, as the "lost" son of a nasty and possessive mother in "Family Voices" and as the lost cabdriver in "Victoria Station." He is paired with Elizabeth Ingram in the first and with Malcolm in the second.
In "Family Voices" she plays the distancing mother whose letters to her missing son are taut and empiric. Her face often expresses more than Pinter's words would do if heard without the eyes and mouth expressing themselves. Even her gestures speak through the silences that surround her. Similarly Pilkington's restless soul of a son, finding himself a new and quirky family, uses gestures and facial expressions to prove the lies he spouts in his letters home. What happens to those letters and to the people to whom they are addressed is Pinter's joyous realm. He takes them, and us, to unusual places in this play.
It is followed by a play that must surely have been written as a curtain-raiser, a piece to open an evening usually followed by a longer, though not necessarily full evening, play. Here Mr. Ingram takes on the role of a taxicab company dispatcher who cannot get his fleet under control and who must deal with a driver who seems to have gone mad. The driver claims to be parked under a London structure that was demolished long ago. But hold on, this isn't a science fiction play. Or is it? In its curious psychology, it could pass as a "Twilight Zone" episode, one of the zany ones where everyone seems to act alone without anyone else being a part of his particular world.
Both men are hilarious in their roles. Eric Tucker has directed this in two dimmed areas of light, joined only by blackness. Isolated from one another as the situation demands, they are also separated by the worlds they each inhabit, a realistic and caustic world and one where romantic fantasy abounds. As with his other two plays, director Tucker makes the most of the moments where no one speaks. He escorts his actors' characters on three unseen leashes and they each know instinctively where he would like them to squat.
"Pinter's Mirror" makes an evening of theater into a time warp experience where the audience gets to jump into a conversation filling the gaps with Mr. Coward's witty repartee, but silently, just the way we know Pinter's men and woman are doing it. It doesn't matter if we find the same lines as Pinter's people; we all fill in the gaps as we see fit. What matters is they constantly surprise us and lead us down those garden paths that are right for them, even if they aren't appropriate for us.

"Pinter's Mirror" plays at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theater on the campus of Shakespeare and Company, 70 Kemble Street, Lenox, MA through Aug. 2. For complete schedules and to order tickets, call 413-637-3353 or shakespeare.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 9:06 PM | Permalink

"The Actors Rehearse the Story of Charlotte Salomon" by David Bridel, Penny Kreitzer and Jonathan Rest. Directed by Jonathan Rest. At Shakespeare & Company.

One-woman shows are running rampant these days. So are one-man shows, but at Shakespeare & Company, we are dealing with the Diva Series, and that means the women have the spotlight.
The second offering at the Lenox campus of the company is a play within a play about a play, performed by one woman who lived two-thirds of this triad. Her name is Penny Kreitzer, and she was directed in a play by and about Charlotte Salomon, a young woman, an artist, who died during World War II.
Kreitzer, who also co-authored the framework play and its internal elements, lived the role that she plays of Penny Kreitzer at two different theaters in 1973 and 1984. She and her friends have created a theater experience that must feel like constant therapy to the actress, who not only relives a major moment in her own life, but who also lived the lives of the two women central to the inner play, Salomon and her stepmother, classical singer Paula Lindberg-Salomon.

Charlotte lived in Berlin. Her mother committed suicide when the girl was 9; her grandmother, who took her in to help protect her from the Nazis, committed suicide as soon as the war broke out for real. As a refugee in France, Charlotte painted more than 1,000 pictures, including the 769 that comprised her "play." Leben? Oder theater? Ein Singspiel (Life? Or theater? A play with songs.). The play and pictures survived in the home of a friend and are in a permanent display at the Joods Historiche Museum in Amsterdam.
Charlotte's stepmother was a famous contralto, Paula Lindberg-Salomon. Their relationship was a tricky one, involving a man named Alfred Wolfsohn who coached Paula in voice and, according to the play within the play, was also the lover of Charlotte. The principal plot point for the framework play, other than the quality of Penny's singing voice, was the inclusion of Wolfsohn in Charlotte's play and whether it would be appropriate to exercise the right of exclusion -- or, call it by its other name if you prefer: censorship -- in keeping him out of it, something desired by Paula.
Kreitzer plays all of these characters, and more; I counted 10, but I may have missed one or two. Charlotte's story covers just about 25 years in her life. Paula's story concerning the rehearsals of her stepdaughter's play and its aftermath also covers about 25 years in her life (she was 103 when she died). Kreitzer's tale has taken her 25 years through time from 1984 to the present. There is no mystery to the outer connection, but what is a wonder is the inner connection these three women have.
Part of that connection is the dramatic glue that holds things together throughout the one hour and 10 minute play: the character of director Joyce Miller, who is trying to rehearse the character Penny in the role of Charlotte. Joyce, for me, is the real central character here. She understands Penny's difficulties with the role, especially under the circumstance of rehearsing in front of the girl's stepmother, who has come to Jerusalem to watch the production process. Joyce is kept hopping as Penny falters, fearful of offending Paula. Joyce is caught in a dilemma as Paula insists on critiquing every gesture and vocal inflection Penny brings to the part of Charlotte. Joyce is also caught in the vice-like grip of Paula's insistence that Wolfsohn's character be deleted, thereby leaving the play they are rehearsing with a major element lost and realizations unreachable.
Joyce's growing frustration helps Penny create believable characters, so real that even Paula is subdued by her work. Paula's anger and sense of humiliation over her teacher's betrayal of her hard-won trust forces Joyce's emotional hand, and it is Penny, the character, who helps everyone, including us, understand that Joyce cannot abandon her children, her family within the walls of their workshop, which, by the way, is a bomb shelter in Jerusalem.
What we don't see, I think, is the play created by Charlotte, but only the accidental elements of it that are necessary for Kreitzer's own play. Paula asks for more pictures from Charlotte's oeuvre, and we ask the same thing. What we know of the girl is reflected in her words and about 12 or 13 projections. In one of the best scenes in the play, the 9-year-old girl tries on her new stepmother's shoes, makeup and demeanor in an effort to get to know her. Here Kreitzer plays the child Charlotte, and that child's conception of her new mother, along with her actual stepmother, and herself in commentary. It is the sort of magical instant transformation that Kreitzer handles brilliantly.
In a single, simple costume without fashion elements, using body language and subtle vocal changes, she manages to differentiate not just characters but periods of time. We know when she is in the immediate now and when she is in her own past. We know when she is male and when she is female, young and old. She makes those changes work the way a magician makes an elephant disappear right before your eyes.
The lighting by Greg Solomon and the open space set by Kiki Smith add to the theatrical magic of a solo performance embodying many folks. Jonathan Rest, who has helped to create the script, directs Kreitzer and Solomon (lighting guy) perfectly in order to keep our interest focused on what is important here -- the text and the actress that text is linked to like a chain-link fence when each diamond shaped hole contains a different image.
Is this worth your time? That is more difficult a question than "was Charlotte Salomon a brilliant artist and playwright?" The hour and 10 minutes does not fly by. So much is crammed into it that it feels like you've been in the theater a lot longer. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is that a thing at all? There are more questions brought into the forefront with this play than are answered or even answerable. This is an experience. That's all that can be said of it.

"The Actors Rehearse the Story of Charlotte Salomon" plays at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theater on the Shakespeare & Company campus at 70 Kemble St. in Lenox through June 14 and returns for a single performance on Sept. 12. For schedules and tickets, call the box office at 413-637-3353 or visit shakespeare.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:32 PM | Permalink