Peter Bergman Theater Reviews

"Meet Me in St. Louis," music and lyrics by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, book by Hugh Wheeler, based on "The Kensington Stories" by Sally Benson and the MGM Motion Picture. Directed by John Saunders. At the Mac-Haydn Theatre in Chatham, N.Y.

If your heart breaks when a little child buries her dead doll or when she smashes her snowman because she has to leave him behind when she moves away, this would be the show for you. Except. This is a case of "except" and there is good reason for that -- except there shouldn't be.
Too many people think of the movie starring Judy Garland and Mary Astor and Margaret O'Brien when they even hear the title of this show, which is a popular song from the turn of the previous century. In 1943, the 22-year-old Garland played the 16-year-old Esther, a high school junior, and broke everyone's heart except for those already broken by O'Brien as her baby sister Tootie. Holding that sobbing, hysterical child in her arms, Garland crooned "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and a nation at war released its tears and cried for its losses, mostly the loss of its united innocence. It would be great if we could do that now. Except.
This isn't 1944. The beautiful production at the Mac-Haydn Theatre in Chatham, N.Y., isn't the big screen at a Loewe's or even the small screen in the dark in our living rooms. There are real live people breathing new life into this piece and they make us feel differently about their silly goings-on in St. Louis in 1903. Except, they really don't, but they don't have the same intensity in their impact.

The wonderful cast is doing a wonderful job in this wonderful show. Except. They cannot banish our memories of the equally delicious company that introduced this work and made it so much a part of our lives.
Quinto Ott as Alonso Smith, father of the clan, is perfectly cast, except he is too young for the role. Nevertheless, he pulls it off beautifully and even regales us with his lush bass-baritones in the duet "Wasn't It Fun?" which he shares with Lisa Franklin playing his wife. Ott has been one of the bright joys of the Mac-Haydn season in other roles and "Father" is another bright spot. This man should have a career ahead of him if he chooses to pursue it and this could be one of those roles that follow him around, popping up every few years. Franklin is his equal in this show and her solo song about love, "You'll Hear a Bell," works so well in her rendition that it almost seems as though Mary Astor must have sung it before, except she didn't.
Jamie Young as daughter number three -- Agnes -- was delightful. So was Rich Krakowski as brother Lon. Here is another performer who has delivered the goods all summer long, especially as Joseph in the Andrew Lloyd Webber show. In this performance, he shows the warmth in his soul and he, more than any other Smith sibling, almost gets the sobs going and not for anything more than extending a hand, softening a blow. It's a rich offering.
Mary Elizabeth Milton and Jennifer Bishop are the older Smith sisters, Rose and Esther. Their emotional trials with boyfriends form the core plots of the piece. Milton handles hers with humor and a certain aloofness that makes her performance enjoyable, a quality that is missing in the film's Rose. Bishop in the Garland part is pert, perky and petite, three qualities that Esther requires. Another "Joseph...Dreamcoat" holdover (she was the Narrator) she sings well, although sweet singing comes with more difficulty than boisterous singing for her. She is at her very best in the "Christmas," number but really handles the "Trolley Song" like a tropper. When she roughs up her boyfriend, she is at the top of her acting chops.
As Tootie, the tot who tips the scales of this work into the maudlin, there is a delightful little girl (one of two alternating in this part) named Shelby Kline. She has the charm, the innocence and the talent to pull off this trap role, but not the instincts for getting her audience to tear up. They will come in time, I am certain, but right now she only has the all of other elements working for her.
In smaller roles, but showy ones, Nancy Evans delivers nicely as Katie, the housekeeper, and MJJ Cashman is just fine as Grandpa. Joe Bettles is a funny Warren Sheffield, Rose's beau, and Ben Jacoby delivers another solid portrayal as John Truitt, the boy next door. Sorry, boys, but this show belongs to the Smiths. Even Jacoby's fine singing in "You are for Loving" wasn't enough to take this show away from Ott, Krakowski and the ladies.
The best performance of the evening was actually delivered by a set. Kevin Gleason's realization of the trolley for the first act finale was wonderfully delivered in the hands of Motorman Wes Urish and the company as choreographed by Karla Shook and directed by John Saunders. It's a rare moment when a set piece brings on the tears, but this one actually did it.
Jimm Halliday's costumes were nicely in period, reminiscent of the movie but not replicas, thank goodness, and the all white finale was a nice touch with feathers replacing lace.
Set changes took a while, because of the size of some of the pieces, but they were all well done and worth the wait.
Except (there it is again). The music to cover those changes was thinner than usual. This theater needs something better. Please, won't someone buy them a machine that will allow them to make music instead of quasi-music? The quality of onstage performers has gotten very good here and they deserve something more to bolster them when they sing and dance so well. The physical quality of productions here is excellent and they get high ratings for trying something different in their scheduling. It's this one element that just holds them back, prevents them from being a really first-class summer venue. A trio of musicians added to their piano and drums would be better than the synthesizer, which sounds terrible in a show like this one, which requires some real sound. Even a cruise-ship show click-track would be preferable.
Don't expect to cry at this show. Don't expect anything except good work from a talented cast and crew. That's what you'll get in this final show of the main company's season.

"Meet Me in St. Louis" plays at the Mac-Haydn Theatre on Route 203 in Chatham, N.Y., through Sept. 6. For information and tickets call the box office at 518-392-9292.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:45 AM | Permalink

"White People" by J.T. Rogers. Directed by Anna Brownsted. At Shakespeare & Company.

It was 1975. I went to see Robert Patrick's new play, "Kennedy's Children," with Shirley Knight, Michael Sacks and Kaiulani Lee at the John Golden Theatre. I absolutely hated it. It was a bunch of people in a room saying monologues, never addressing one another. This was 34 years ago.
Flash forward to Shakespeare & Company, August 2009. I am there to see J.T. Rogers' new play, "White People," with Dana Harrison, Michael Hammond and Jason Asprey. It is three people sitting and saying monologues, never addressing one another. This time I tolerated it, but I still wasn't a happy camper. I like plays where people say things to one another, not to me. I don't mind a good monodrama, like "Shirley Valentine." That can be fun. But when there are two or more people on stage, I want to see how their stories interweave, how they interact and react. I don't want to be part of their show. I don't mind reactions from the audience -- laughter, tears, pangs of jealousy, remorse or any other human reaction. That's what a play does, after all.
I just don't want to be the stand-in for the character the author neglected to write into his nonplay and not be allowed to speak, to talk back on the spot, to elicit a response of my own from the characters who address me directly.

Not that there aren't wonderful speeches in this play. Or that there aren't talented actors. It's just that they have to work so much harder to keep my attention because I can only see them, alone, talking to ... no one. As I listened in the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre to their individual tales of dealing with incidents that involved other races than the "white," I wished for a fourth character, maybe a grief therapist, who is listening to their tales of woe, as they are listening to one another perhaps, and giving us a guide to the meaning of these tales, these diatribes. These expository speeches do not give us the characters they are playing, only their stories; it is the actors who bring the characters to life, even though it is a one-sided life.
Oh, well. To the performances:
Dana Harrison plays Mara Lynn Doddson, a dissatisfied housewife in Fayetteville, N.C., whose son suffers from Rasmussen's encephalitis, a rare form of epilepsy. She has a difficult husband and a hard time associating with the Indian (that is, a man from India) medical specialist assigned to her child's case. Harrison plays the sweetness of the character to a fare-thee-well, a distance that includes revelations about her husband and her own attitudes toward men with darker skin. When her particular racial dam bursts, it floods the Southland like nothing has since the Ku Klux Klan first rode on a small cabin in the woods and lynched its first unfortunate victim. At one point, so caught up in her emotions, Harrison let her Southern accent slip away, but she recovered it nicely. It's a very nice performance. The only thing missing is someone on stage to react to, participate in, flare back at that heat she exudes.
Jason Asprey plays Alan Harris, a history professor whose obsession with a black female student named Felicia always skirts its true objective. Aware of racial sensitivities, he pursues political correctness to a tee. When he and his wife are attacked by a crew of minorities, he comes face to face with his own deep fears and withheld prejudices alongside those of his very pregnant wife. The performance is passionate on many levels, but once again with no one to respond to what he says, feels or hides away in his mind. He does anger well, and again, there is no one to come back at him with anything, which would have worked well in the case of his particular double story. We really want someone to tell him off, set him straight, get him onto a reality road.
He might have done well in a room with Michael Hammond's character, Martin Bahmueller. There is an overlap in their tales, although with a reversal of major proportions. As the perfectionist father of a teenager who participates in the rape and mutilation of a black couple in St. Louis, he has to deal with his own unstated feelings about race, and throughout his series of monologues he does just that. As a counterpoint to Asprey's character, their conversations would have been something to revel in from an audience point of view. Instead we have monologues. Hammond's Martin is strong, compulsive, determined and infallible, for the most part, and his deterioration from primate-executive into a confused father was fascinating to watch and hear. Hammond is very good in this role, very good indeed.
Each of the three actors has his or her particular space. They never leave their own environment in designer Kiki Smith's concept. It becomes just a bit too much like watching a three-ring circus, especially when the lights, designed by Greg Solomon, stop highlighting the speaker of the moment and leave all three locations in equal or similar light. That mistake is a costly one, for it encourages us, the audience, to watch someone other than the person speaking to see if there is a reaction. It also taxes the actors much more than necessary, for they know they are in full view.
In a busy season at Shakespeare & Company, highlighted by three one-woman shows, this collection of monologue dramas broken up into smaller bits and pieces does not completely satisfy. It is to the credit of the three actors, and the work done by the director Anna Brownsted, that the play never lags. This, however, is not a play, but a collection of stories told almost simultaneously. Had all three been just played through without an intermission, the evening would have been a true circus. Heaven be praised!

"White People" plays at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre on the campus of Shakespeare & Company on Kemble Street in Lenox through Sept. 4. For tickets, call 413-637-3353 or visit shakespeare.org.

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 1:45 PM | Permalink

"Sick" by Zayd Dohrn. Directed by David Auburn. At Berkshire Theatre Festival.

Sometimes you just know a play too well. Then you meet a new play, and it makes you think of that old play, the one you know so well. After a while, you find you miss the old play and you notice that it keeps coming to mind. You try to block it out so you can come fresh and unprejudiced to the new one, but it just won't let go of your imagination.
That was one half of the experience that I had at the Unicorn Theatre's production of a relatively new play, "Sick," by Zayd Dohrn. The other half was the actual appreciation of the new work, "Sick," in spite of the commonalities and coincidences with "The Glass Menagerie," last seen in this same theater, and even with some of the same cast.
Sidney, or Dad, brings home a gentleman caller, Jim (the same name as the Gentleman Caller, by the way, in the Tennessee Williams play), a young poet, to meet his family. Maxine, Sidney's wife, is clad in white, moves mysteriously through the apartment and only speaks in mini-monologues (sometimes only a line, but they make their point). She is the principal caregiver and home-school teacher (like Amanda Wingfield -- oh, my) to her sickly daughter Sarah (shades of Laura) and her even sicklier son (Tom in the Williams play, too sick to do much but go to movies, smoke and ignore the realities of life) Davey. The presence of the unexpected visitor causes havoc, or allows it anyway, and what is fragile (like a glass unicorn) breaks. Jim cannot put right what has gone wrong, even though he tries to help, and the girl, daughter, Laura figure is unable to break out of her mother's tightly wrapped shell.

Two years ago I wrote the following: "The Gentleman Caller, an obsession for Amanda, is played by Greg Keller, whose pleasant face, body and voice make him an easy obsession for Laura and for Tom as well. He is charm personified. He is utterly likeable. The entire Wingfield family seems to be in love with this man, at least for an hour or so. Keller is an affable, likeable dinner guest, well-cast in this role and nicely played, right down to his awkward exit from their lives." Nothing much has changed about Greg Keller's performance in this new, seminal role right down to the forced, awkward exit.
Keller's Jim is still pretty much a sudden obsession for Sarah and Davey. He is still charming and likeable. His character stays to help clean up a mess created by Sidney when there is no reason for him to stay at all. Everyone in this trap of a rent-controlled apartment seems to be enchanted by Jim, including suspicious and wary Maxine. Keller still plays a dinner guest -- although he never gets any dinner in this play and, once again, he is perfectly well-cast in this role. Keller does extremely well with the soft moments, but there is even a cheery ring in his performance when there is a bit of bluster and embarrassment in what he has to portray.
Rebecca Brooksher shines in the role of Sarah. She has a disposition that lends itself to the quirkiness here. Her version of Laura is a sickly girl with a shot at breaking through the family obsession with health and protection (Mom is all for it; Dad is against it). Brooksher understands verve and its difference from vim or vigor. She gets the character just right all of the time, and her attempt to break out of the ugly protective coating that surrounds her is beautifully handled, no tears, no high dudgeon, but just sincerity and honesty holding the moment.
Her brother is played with a curious internal cruelty by Ryan Spahn. As the one member of the family who might well be ill rather than a tool for Maxine to afford an overprotective strong-arm hold, Spahn gives out with the appropriate coughs, sputters, gestures and looks. There is something, though, that keeps the sympathy levels low in his case. He has two fits, and the one that ends Act 1 is superb. However, Spahn knows when to soft peddle the illness factor and when to play the idiot. He does it appropriately, and there is never too much of one thing and too little of the other in his work here. He has a final gesture that tells us everything we need to know, if we see it. Director David Auburn has, unfortunately, focused most of our attention on another actor on another part of the stage. Still, catching the change in Spahn's Davey is the key to all the facts and fictions contained in this play.
Lisa Emery plays Maxine. Hers is one of the hardest characters to like. She is obsessive and focuses entirely on one thing at a time. When she becomes distracted, Emery moves her into the realm of the near-psychotic: There are head turns, twitches, muscle retractions in neck and arms, her feet seem to change shape. She is like a manic, younger Marian Seldes at moments, and then she becomes Joan Allen. Her chameleon portrayal of Maxine is a fascinator. It is inescapable.
Michel Gill is Sidney. His utter exuberance and high-end enthusiasm is a thrilling contrast to the rest of the family. Where they crawl, he strides; where they cringe and cower, he lopes and grapples with life. Gill is terrific here. He brings the bricks to life on this set. He takes the staircase three treads at a time and makes it look graceful. He plays a poet and college professor who possesses a cynical air about his family. He is so believable in the role he could be this man rather than an actor playing Sidney.
Together this ensemble really does justice to this play. Director Auburn has had the luck of the casting and has shepherded this flock of actors into the right stalls. The play sets and then holds its pace, but nothing is lost. The director has given ample room for the playwright's voice to call the roadside mileage counters.
The scenic designer R. Michael Miller has provided a perfect set. This one element speaks volumes. Wade Laboissonniere understands the need for direct image and simplicity in the costumes. Dan Kotlowitz has lighted the production well with an unreal realism. Nothing can be hidden under his bright lights and therefore nothing is hidden.
This modern take on the family unit that Williams wrote so beautifully so long ago is a triumph in the hands of Zayd Dohrn. I have a few quibbles about moments in the script that seemed unnecessary, even superfluous. This mother needs no tragic city disaster to focus her tragic sensibilities. This son needs no excuses for his behavior. And Father may know best, but in this play, he doesn't really know he knows it. If there's a tragedy buried in the comedy, that would be it.
I thought a play named "Sick," and a comedy at that, was the wrong way to end a season of fascinating marvels at this theater, but I was wrong. This is a good way to go out: in glory.

"Sick" plays at the Unicorn Theatre at the Berkshire Theatre Festival on Route 7 in Stockbridge through Sept. 6. For tickets and information, call the box office at 413-298-5576.

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 1:44 PM | Permalink

"Marry Me a Little," songs by Stephen Sondheim, conceived and developed by Craig Lucas and Norman Rene. Directed by Jonathan Silverstein. At the Dorset Theatre Festival in Dorset, Vt.

When you are working with second-rate Stephen Sondheim, you are still working with some of the best material to be had in the theater. But you still don't necessarily have the best show of your own. This is the dilemma of "Marry Me a Little," which contains material cut from "A Little Night Music," "Follies," "Company," "Anyone Can Whistle" and the scores of "Saturday Night" and "The Girls of Summer."
On stage at the Dorset Playhouse, the summer draws to a close with a production of this plotted review in which two people, a man and a woman, who live in two separate apartments in the same building (2C and 3C) that so closely resemble one another it is hard to tell them apart, spend a Saturday evening alone at home dreaming about love, past lovers and their hapless lives. In 18 songs, they move from their arrival home to an early bedtime (the show takes an hour) and the semisweet stain they leave on their environment will be clearly washed away by the morning sunrise.

Leah Horowitz and Paul Anthony Stewart are the non-couple. Their stories are so similar that if they happened to get on the elevator at the same time, this all might change into a story with a happy, if temporary, ending. But this night, at least, that is not in the cards.
As directed by Jonathan Silverstein, with movement work overseen by Barry McNabb, the unspoken story is less than bitter, more than disastrous and less than pleasant. Silverstein moves his people around, practically comatose at time, with a languid, nearly turgid and defeatist attitude. On the night I saw the show it began raining outside, and the rain was so hard and incessant that it leant an even darker, more miserable, sensibility to the proceedings.
The final tune in the show, "It Wasn't Meant to Happen," leaves its audience despairing, I'm afraid, rather than even reluctantly hopeful about the future for these two nice, attractive people. Following the brighter, though difficult psychologically, song "There Won't Be Trumpets," this ending is a sudden trip into the nightmarish world of Sondheim whose own history of relationships has not been so healthy either, as far as I can tell.
In fact, the title song for this show, cut from "Company," was replaced with a song that has the same lyrics but a totally different feeling. In that show, there is hope when Bobby sings "Someone to hold me too close," and so on. In "Marry me a Little" the original song veers off from the spoken aspirations into the disclosed disgust of loss and emotional deprivation.
The show is so dark, in fact, that even the comic high points are somehow unrelieved. The Sondheim independent hit "Can That Boy Foxtrot," sung very sweetly and with perhaps a too naive interpretation at time, glows in the darkness of this bizarre show. The duet "Your Eyes are Blue" from "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" gave both performers a chance to shine in some positive light for a while before things went into the bluer, and grayer world once again. "Pour le Sport" from the musical "The Last Resorts" takes its sports metaphors into the comic stratosphere but it helps neither the Man and Woman nor the audience to feel better about the world being shown on this stage. Rather it helps to solidify the concept that this particular Saturday night is not very different from the one before it or the one before that. In fact these folks are too bored and tired to break this pattern.
Horowitz has a sweet voice and personality and although not distracting, she is certainly diverting. One can almost imagine this life on stage as her own somehow. It is a world bordered by her locking her door before bedtime, all five locks. Horowitz brings out our sympathy, at least, and we listen to her intently as she sings, hoping against hope that a phone will ring, or a doorbell will sound. In her portrayal she gives us hope for her, something she seems to have dropped along the way.
Stewart seems the sort of handsome devil who would never spend an evening alone, and so it becomes an even more pitiable situation to find him in mourning for his own social life. When he sings "Uptown, Downtown," the lyric about a schizophrenic personality, it is obvious from the lyric that he is not singing about his own character. This is about a woman, and yet it is so foreign in his voice and his physicality that we get, and can live with, the impression that he just might be expressing something latent and hidden about himself.
Bill Clarke's sets are wonderful. The large pattern on the high, dark wall conceals, then reveals, the accompanist, musical director John Bell, who plays beautifully, lending this show the musical sheen it needs if the director wants us to leave the theater not slitting our own wrists.
Bell is a major asset to this show and Josh Bradford's lighting gives us a lot when Bell is on the scene, which is most of the time.
Silverstein helps us along, also, through the sincerity of each player's occupancy of their own space - even though for the purpose of the play they occupy the exact same space at the exact same time. The one apartment is meant to be each person's dwelling and the actors and director have made that very apparent.
If there is a fun side to this show, it is the double occupancy of the stage space and the musical talents of Bell. The more serious aspects come from the two performers and the man who wrote the material they sing. It is a nice balance that has been struck here in Dorset, but the show will never be a total crowd-pleaser, not even when the two are in bed. They are not together. Neither is the show itself, for all the good elements on the stage.

"Marry Me a Little" plays at the Dorset Playhouse through Aug. 29. The Dorset Theatre Festival's performance space is located at 104 Cheney Road in Dorset, Vt. For information and tickets, call the box office at 802-867-5777.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:20 PM | Permalink

"Romance, Romance," music by Keith Herrmann, book and lyrics by Barry Harman. Directed by Igor Goldin. At the Theatre Barn.

By J. PETER BERGMAN
Two one-act musical plays comprise the show "Romance, Romance." Each one is based on a 19th-century European source: "The Little Comedy" by Arthur Schnitzler and "Summer Share" based on "Pain de Menage" by Jules Renard. Both tales are bittersweet and deal with romantic notions that lead to unanticipated results. In the musical by Barry Harman and Keith Herrmann, all the roles are played by just four people. There is a leading couple and a support couple. However, on the stage at the Theatre Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y., there is a leading lady and three support players, sadly.
In the first act, set in Vienna and environs, a demimonde and a dapper society toff who do not know one another, bored with romances that lead to bad endings, decide to masquerade for a night as lower class, un-moneyed folk and see what they can find for a romance. They happen to find one another and buy into each other's made-up stories about their lives. Inevitably, they fall in love and have an affair that causes each of them to realize they must end everything by confessing their true identities. Truth, as always, makes a difference, and it is harder to handle than the romantic fantasies they have created for one another.
The second half of the show is set in the Hamptons, on the south shore of Long Island in the present day. Two married couples, best friends, spend a typical weekend together in the house they co-rent on the beach. Two of them, male and female, old friends -- best friends -- fall in love with one another late one night and try to resist the urges that shove them into a sexual encounter that goes bad before it can go good. Everything changes for the quartet.

Those are the stories. These are the people.
Megan Rozak plays Josefine Weninger, the demimonde, in the first play. She is vivacious and buxom and altogether too magnificent for words. She outdoes the Gabor sisters, frankly, and makes the most of the assets God gave her, bosom and voice. She sings, dances the polka, acts her mini-monologues and preens to the very best of her vast abilities. She is altogether charming and fun to watch and listen to in all of her numbers. The sweet exuberance of "Yes, It's Love" and her wonderful duetting on "I'll Always Remember the Song" allow her to exude more charm than there is on a charm bracelet. "Goodbye Emil" is also a wonderful number for her.
As Monica in the second show, she is simple, straightforward, a bit dowdy for a pretty woman but still a charmer. Her show-stopper, "Now," coming almost at the end of the play, is a strong piece for her, eliciting a silent response from the audience rather than an instant applause that was just perfectly in keeping with the theme of the piece. Rozak knows how to play emotions in her music, and her strong voice, underscored delicately by the inadequate accompaniment (not badly played, just under-instrumented) does well on all of her songs. She can also act, which helps a great deal in the second play. She is definitely the solo star in this show.
Her husband in Act 2 is played with humor, sadness, a touch of class that was also unexpected by Daniel Moser. He emerges an early winner in the romantic sweepstakes of this piece in the song "Think of the Odds," which brackets small scenes during which the principals discuss their friendship and its romance-free sanctity. In the more comic duet, "My Love For You," in which he plays opposite Chelsea Witiak's Barb, he is a rare delight. As "Him" in the first half, he plays with grace and aplomb.
Witiak, the second woman, has a wonderful singing voice and she can also deliver a line, a gesture or a facial expression with punch and panache. Her blandly faithful Barb is almost funny, yet smacks of a reality that is so rare it becomes compelling. Her voice in the clarion call "Small Craft Warnings" -- one of my favorite songs from this show -- was delicate and emotionally unwavering, yet her expressive face and her way with words made it the most completely rewarding moment in the entire show.
The leading man in both halves of the show is Ari Frenkel. His work was the most uneven of the night with his portrayal of Sam in Act 2 a nicely played role as opposed to his completely unbelievable Alfred Von Wilmers in the first playlet. I don't know how so many wrong choices could have been made for this character. Voice, gestures, posture, costume, hat -- oh that hat; name it and it was unavoidably wrong. Frenkel came across as the gayest man in Vienna with the worst taste in clothing. He maintained an accent that was more Israeli than Austrian and smacked of bad Yiddish Theatre acting style than of anything else. It was certainly the most unromantic venture of the evening. Even his face, twisted into knots while singing, was unattractive and hard to bear.
Then, in "Summer Share," he became Sam, a regular guy, nice, easy to listen to, easy to like. His take on this married man who doesn't want to fool around, but does it anyway, was gentle and straightforward and right on. In both acts it was clear that he could sing and has a decent voice. That wasn't the problem. The deep shameful problem was that he couldn't make the first half of the evening into something we could understand and believe.
Director Igor Goldin may be the responsible party when it came to such uneven work by Frenkel, but that is a hard call to make. He certainly didn't take drastic steps to correct or alter this bizarre performance, so it must be inferred that these were his choices, although I find it hard to swallow that easy excuse for such mismanagement of a role. Goldin directed an excellent "The Full Monty" at this theater and his other work has been fine as well. Somehow in this piece a barn door was left open and a jackass walked in and brayed at all the wrong moments. In every other way, Goldin's work was wonderful, so once again we are left with conjecture and no real answers. We shall never know why this one character is so badly presented in an otherwise lovely piece of stage-work.
Allen Phelps' lighting is so much a part of the musical theater tradition that I wanted to cheer some of the light cues. Abe Phelps set is fun and whimsical and works well for the show. Kate R. Mincer has a real knack for costumes, with the exception of Mr. Frenkel's Act One ensemble and hat. Jessica Roach added some sweet choreography, particularly in the first half.
You won't kick yourself for missing this show, but if you see it you will find some wonderful memories on stage at the Theatre Barn. Though completely unfamiliar to most people, this 1987 show was nominated for five Tony Awards and it starred a young Scott Bakula and a young Alison Fraser. Those are pretty good credentials for a little show that showed it could. Here in New Lebanon, Megan Rozak is making that kind of statement now. She can! And she is worth the price of admission.

"Romance, Romance" is playing at the Theatre Barn through Aug. 23 at 654 Route 20 in New Lebanon, N.Y. For information and tickets, call 518-794-9898.

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 7:22 PM | Permalink

"Ghosts" by Henrik Ibsen in a new translation by Anders Cato and James Leverett. Directed by Anders Cato. At Berkshire Theatre Festival.
By J. PETER BERGMAN
All of the players who are deeply involved in the dark story line of Henrik Ibsen's play "Ghosts," now on stage at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, are people marked by an intense involvement in the rightness of their choices. They don't wear scarlet letters, or brandish swords with a specific family tree emblazoned on the overdress that's worn. No, that group we could spot a mile off. These people live a subtle and disguised life that rarely allows them to express more than disgust. These are people who have solid foundations and tiny scraps of whimsy in their makeup. They live their lives for themselves in more ways than one. They share only under extreme circumstances.
With her son home from Paris for an extended visit, Helene Alving seems ready to expose some family secrets to Pastor Manders, an old friend. He, meanwhile, is acting as the lawyer on her behalf for a major project to create a memorial for her late husband, an orphanage. His advice on contract matters turns out to be instantly bad, but in reality the discussion comes too late to do any good. Osvald, Helene's son, is an artist who has lost his ability or will to work. He has come home for the first time in a long while, and he is a man with a mission, although he isn't aware of it until he is already established as the son and heir. A young woman he knows, raised by his own mother, Regine, sets her sights on the son and reneges on the almost done deal when she discovers he is ill. At the same time, her manipulative father is working around leftover fortunes in order to open a business of his own.

Those are the elements that move the play from point A to point B, the total distance traveled in this play. The theater's program indicates a six-person ensemble as well, but what they do is a mystery to me. Even the off-stage noises wouldn't take six players. Perhaps they are all ghosts; after all, that is the show's title. But they aren't the ghosts referred to. Mrs. Alving notices similarities in activities in her home to those that happened long ago, and she believes these to be the ghosts that have haunted her for too many years. She is a portrait of symbolism as it turns out, and her memories haunt her far more than the ghosts of people she could only imagine.
Mia Dillon plays Helene Alving. The role was first played in America in 1899 by Mary Shaw, who brought it back to Broadway in 1903. The famous actress Duse brought it into New York in 1923, Lucille Watson followed in 1926 and the famous Mrs. Fiske revived it again in 1927. Silent screen star Alla Nazimova tried it in 1933, Leueen MacGrath in 1961, and Beatrice Straight made the most of it in 1973 with a young Victor Garber as her son. This play seems to haunt the stage in much the way Mrs. Alving feels the presence of ghosts in her life. Now it is Mia Dillon's turn to make the role her own, and this she does effectively in the current production. She doesn't seem to be channeling any of her predecessors but rather is bringing her own unique style to the character.
Her work in this role is nothing short of brilliant. She is the central character, and she holds center stage even from the far reaches of stage left. Others in the company may shine in their moments, but our attention is pretty much riveted on Mrs. Alving, awaiting her reactions to everything and anything. Dillon handles that challenge admirably. She is never out of character, never unaware of the demands of the role she must play, be it loving mother, determined wife, embittered lover. Her lengthy scenes with Pastor Manders are tightly played and never lag.
Manders, her not-quite lover, her almost-husband choice, her never savior, is played at full tilt by David Adkins, who seems incapable of anything less than a fully rounded character. He is totally believable, even in Manders' most stuffy, huffy moments. When he softens for a second, calling Mrs. Alving by her first name, exposing his own inner emotions, he touches your heart. If there was no greater performance than his in the play, it would be a worthwhile experience, but he has Dillon to contend with for top honors in this one, and not just her.
Randy Harrison as Osvald, a tough character to enliven, is good enough to make even Osvald's diffidence feel like love. He plays things close and dark most of the time, and when his tightly withheld emotions burst through in the final scene (formerly known as Act 3) that spurt erupts into a torrent and sweeps in front of it everything Dillon can offer up. These two play well together, a believable family unit without family ties. Harrison plays the demanding Osvald in this scene in just the same way that Dillon plays the resistant parent. They practically make this scene into a musical duet, the playing is just that good.
The Engstrand family, father Jacob and daughter Regine, are played by the equally marvelous Jonathan Epstein and Tara Franklin. Their previous pairing in "Educating Rita" has paid off in their now accustomed rhythmic senses, it seems, for they make the sharp dialogue between Jacob and his daughter into something wonderfully balletic, with words replacing feet in this case. They dance off each other with Ibsen's verbal barbs, and even though Regine becomes an unsympathetic role, we cannot help liking her for her independence and spirit.
Epstein has this conniving sort of role down pat by now, and he makes his earlier roles pay off here. We know there's a con going on somehow, but he addresses Engstrand's needs and/or demands with such an honesty that it is hard to tell if this dream of a Sailor's Home is real or unreal. It doesn't even matter, he is just so good to watch in this part.
The ensemble does nothing.
The drama is played out in a room that isn't a room, doesn't resemble a room and has no connection with the 1880s date of the play. Designed by Lee Savage, its sparseness, modernism and abused Victorian furniture, all in shades of gray and black, are nothing less than a basement entry room in a contemporary museum. It is hardly the gracious and elegant home normally allowed the family Alving. It is enough wrong to justify the rare visits by Osvald, an artist whose paintings should at least be hung in this gallery room where no art is manifest at all.
The lighting is equally strange and demanding, turning night into a light show that throws human shadows onto walls without an honest light source to do such a thing and turns morning into a blinding glare. Tyler Micoleau is responsible for one of the ugliest designs in light that I have ever seen. One of Ibsen's few stage directions in the play call for us to finally see the vista of fjord and hillside that surrounds the Alving home. It is meant to be a sharp contrast to the anguish and human despair that plays out in the gracious room occupied by the Alvings. Set and lights make that contrast impossible in this production.
Olivera Gajic's costumes are perfect for the characters, however, and also help us understand the era of the play and the Norwegian style and spirit. Scott Killian's music/sound effects and sound design are unusually odd. Sometimes they seemed to cue oddness in the script and at other times they felt like something called in to the play at the wrong time. This show does not contain his finest work.
The new script by director Anders Cato and dramaturg James Leverett gives the play a contemporary sound without destroying the time and place of the play itself. Cato's direction often seemed static as characters stood in one place for far too long for my taste. The sparse set doesn't provide many places for people to sit, so standing becomes an open option and one Cato took far too often.
"Ghosts" is a play that will drive you into a frenzy as information is finally spilled in the last act that makes information related in Act 1 finally feel important. This production uses that same construction to keep the audience on the edge of their seats trying to comprehend the truth behind the lies that Ibsen craftily used in creating these people and their situation. This production is a fine one for its actors, but not for its production values. It is worth a shot, but consider listening and not looking. You may find it to be a much better play.

"Ghosts" plays on the Main Stage of the Berkshire Theatre Festival through Aug. 29. The theater is on Route 102 in Stockbridge, but is approachable from Route 7 as well. For tickets and information, call the box office at 413-298-5576.

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 7:14 PM | Permalink

"Crazy For You," music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, book by Ken Ludwig, inspired by material by Guy Bolton and John McGowan. Directed and choreographed by Tralen Doler. At Mac-Haydn Theatre.

By J. PETER BERGMAN
Okay, I can be easy. Give me even 20 tapping feet and I'm happy. When the cast of "Crazy For You" gets down to work and there are at least 42 tapping feet on the circular stage at the Mac-Haydn Theatre in Chatham, N.Y., I am happy as a pig in you-know-what. Of course when the dancing is exceptional and the number is choreographed with glee then I am transported -- and that was what happened with this show at this viewing.
"Crazy For You' is really the Gershwin Brothers 1930 musical hit "Girl Crazy" -- filmed twice and almost three times if you count the version with Liberace and Connie Francis -- with a revamped book and a bunch of Gershwin songs not written to be heard in this particular story. This version opened in 1992, starring Harry Groener and Jodi Benson, and was a huge hit. The songs range from "The Real American Folksong" written in 1918 through songs from the film hit "A Damsel in Distress," which was made in 1937. The visual inspiration for the show was clearly the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers; Rogers also played the lead female role in "Girl Crazy" and Astaire secretly choreographed a number for that show.

At the Mac-Haydn, the youthful cast members exhaust themselves, and the audience, too, in 23 songs during the two hours and 43 minutes of playing time. I don't usually like pastiche shows like this one, but it has always been a favorite, and it was wonderful to see it again and to see it so very well performed. The production, unfortunately, points up some difficult things about current performance practice. I have been seated now, in every section of the theater, and there are always difficulties hearing the actors. Whether they have been instructed not to project because they are wearing body mikes, or whether they are simply not trained to project their voices, it was increasingly more difficult to hear lyrics being sung during this show. The band was excessively loud (that synthesizer and drums combo they use here), and the singers were not producing sounds. I was in the second row and could not hear the soloists most of the time. For $26 a ticket, you should be able to hear a pin drop off their beautiful costumes let alone hear boisterous singing. But when I could hear them, it was almost as good as watching them dance.
Colin Pritchard plays Bobby Child, a New York banker who wants to be a hoofer on Broadway. Pritchard is nice looking, has charm and can sing, act and dance. His Bobby has a sweet sensibility that comes to the fore, and when he impersonates an impresario he does it so well that at first even I was fooled, and I know the story. He and Ben Jacoby indulge in a hilarious second act scene of mimicry and mockery that practically stops the show cold it is so funny. Jacoby is a wonderful Bela Zangler, making more of a secondary role than he has this summer in some of his leading parts. Their duet "What Causes That" is a gem that belongs on this theater's press role, if they have one.
As Polly, a woman of the West, Emily Thompson is a joy. Her refreshing good looks and her unrestrained enthusiasm for performance give an energy to her role that is very appropriate here. She dances wonderfully, too and sings her ballads in a fine, plaintive voice. Quinto Ott is very funny as Eugene Fodor, and Kendall Chaffee-Standish does well as his wife, Patricia. Joe Bettles is marvelous as Lank, a cowpoke-entrepreneur. Karla Shook does well as Irene, the vamp, and her performance is matched in enthusiasm by Carol Charniga's version of Lottie Child, Bobby's mother.
But this isn't a show that showcases just the talents of the leading players. The chorus here is what makes this musical the spectacle that it is, start to finish. Doler's dances have so much energy that it is surprising the lights don't dim while they are on. The first act finale, "I Got Rhythm," went on for 11 minutes and 21 seconds and at the end of it, I hoped for a full encore. This is all so very well done that time doesn't seem of the essence, although it really is, I suppose.
This year's crop of talent is amazing at the Mac-Haydn. It extends to the designers, who have delivered exquisite productions, including Jimm Halliday, whose costumes here for this show are so wonderful and quirky and delicious, from cowboy outfits with chaps to showgirl spectaculars with headdresses that would make Ziegfeld jealous. The most amazing thing about Halliday's output here is how well the clothes dance. They move with their occupants in such a way that you would swear the clothing was merely the outer layer of skin. They are that good and that appropriate to the large company of players.
Joshua Zecher-Ross, the musical director, keeps the tempos bright and lets the songs dictate the performance pace. He is proving himself once again to be the right choice for this material. Matt Ward's sets are fun and do everything they need to do, which is sometimes amazing stuff. Andrew Gmoser's lighting design plays with mood, place and time of day in just the right way.
I cannot say enough good things about "Crazy For You" so I will stop soon and let you just go and see it for yourself. But I must congratulate Tralen Doler for his work with this amazing cast. It is rare that so many people can do so much so well for so long for so little (I am sure they are all underpaid for this one). "Crazy For You" is something you'd be crazy to miss, so get your tickets, polish up your tap shoes and get a move on, partner.

"Crazy For You" runs through Aug. 23 at the Mac-Haydn Theatre on Route 203, just north of the center of Chatham, N.Y. For information and tickets call 518-392-9292.

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 7:05 PM | Permalink

"Quartermaine's Terms" by Simon Gray. Directed by Maria Aitken. At the Williamstown Theatre Festival.
By J. PETER BERGMAN
Simon Gray's play "Quartermaine's Terms" deals with life in a school in Cambridge, England, devoted to the English language skills taught as a second language. It deals with a teacher named St. John Quartermaine, a longterm member of the faculty, and covers the period of two and a half years, which is at least seven terms.
It also deals with Quartermaine's life and the terms under which he lives that life. An uninspiring man, a less than perfect teacher, he is a bachelor with no visible history, no friends outside the small group of associates at the school and no interests or life beyond the walls of his limited imagination: He'll go to the theater but won't know the name of the play he is about to see, or care to know it, actually. This is a man who exists within the tiny framework he has allowed himself, mostly encompassed by the walls of the staff room at the Cull-Loomis School of English for Foreigners.

Quartermaine himself is a foreigner of a different sort. While every other member of the faculty has a relationship, he has none. He may be invited to the home of one or another of his colleagues, but he never has them to his home. Like visiting royalty he stands aloof, yet enthusiastic, about whatever happens to his associates. He basks in the reflected glory of their accomplishments; he observes their needs and accommodates to them as he can. He is not a part of their lives, and yet he lives only because of them. When he is cast adrift, as happens, he is unable to depart the sanctity of the room.
Quartermaine is difficult to like. Even so, we sympathize with him, find ourselves on his side, whatever that side may be. His take on human existence is impossible to grasp and so we build him an identity and a value that are not really his own. He is, literally, the blank canvas upon which we write his character for him. In a curious way he is Everyman by being no man.
Gray is brilliant at characters. He writes each one so specifically that we cannot possibly muddle them in our minds. We know the voice, heart and soul, mind and body of everyone on the stage at the Williamstown Theatre Festival production of this play. Gray leaves us no room to debate about the character of Anita, Mark, Eddie, Derek, Henry and Melanie. He has given to each of them a speech pattern, a rhythm, a look, a history and a feeling that are unique. We know them. It is only Quartermaine who is barren of identity.
In the hands of actor Jefferson Mays, Quartermaine is tall, slender, dapper, well-groomed, soft-spoken and charming. He says "terrific" much too often. Mays is wonderful as this teacher who cannot teach himself to be human. There is a quality to this combination of actor and character that brings out the idleness of spirit that is Quartermaine's. As we watch him, we want to know him, but that is not possible. All we can do is assume things. Mays moves in a lethargic manner that is suitable to someone in a Fibromyalgia fog, and in doing so, he gives us a clue that Gray hasn't neatly supplied. Quartermaine, loosely interpreted or translated as one fourth of the disputed portion of land in France once deeded to Britain, is a reflection of such division, and Mays plays the minute parcels of manhood as best he can.
In the final scene, Quartermaine is dressed in tuxedo and bow tie, giving the impression that he was dragged out of a potential date of some importance. In reality he is not even one fourth a part of that fantasy. He has merely tried on the suit to see if it still fits, a concept that instantly transports him, in our minds, to a different way of life, one that befits his manner and his bearing. But this is only supposition, and Mays plays that by not playing it at all. Whatever fantasies about him we could spin based on his look and movement are squashed by his plain-spoken refusal to be appreciated. Actor and role are "terrific," much as Remak Ramsay was in the 1983 off-Broadway production of the play and Edward Fox was in the 1987 film.
Stephen Kunken is excellent as Mark Sackling, a would-be author whose life is going down the toilet. His energy and his anguish were superb. Jeremy Beck as the new man at the school, Derek Meadle, is quirky and fun and altogether the spirit of personal anguish.
Ann Dowd is superb in the role of Melanie Garth, who hates her mother and is called on the carpet by the local police after Mum's death for infractions that are hilariously imagined. John Horten makes the most of his traditionally British gay schoolmaster and Morgan Hallett is just fine as Anita.
Simon Jones plays Henry Windscape, another teacher whose job it becomes to alter the future for Quartermaine. A prattler, Windscape uses Quartermaine as a surrogate to replace him when social activity is required of him. Jones knows how to handle such a role, and he makes Henry an obvious abuser of friendship offered. Jones also knows how to handle the glib aspects of his character without making the man boring. Instead, Jones takes Henry to unexpected middle ground when he manipulates, or tries to manipulate, the others. In a secondary role it is a first class portrayal of a man who could be considered a louse.
Scenic Designer Derek McLane has created a school room that is a delectable creation, tall slender walls supporting a ceiling that provides a sense of old world charm and sophistication. The room and the outside world beyond are perfectly lit by Kevin Adams, whose combination of practical lights and stage effects are beautiful to behold. The costumes by Martin Pakledinaz are just right for these people. Dialect coach Stephen Gibbs has worked hard with his actors to create the perfect regional accents which, though sometimes difficult to cut through, help define the people in the play.
It is a tribute to the director, Maria Aitken, and her work that we do feel like flies on the wall in this school room. There is a wonderfully natural flow to everyone and to every action. There is great humor in this play and she brings it out of her actors, sometimes I suspect with a heavy fishing line and a sinker, but it works well. She allows us to laugh at Simon Gray's lines while empathizing with his characters.
This is not the sort of play to satisfy easy theatergoers who want to be entertained. While we laugh, and we sometimes hold back a sigh or a gasp, we are not laughing at great comedy or even superb humanity. We are involved here with an enigma personality and that won't settle comfortably for most people. This play is one that won't come around often, and its greatest gift is an understanding of the tolerance some people have for folks who cannot be met even halfway into a friendship, a forced friendship at that. See the play if you want to think about the levels of human existence; see it if you want to know what it is like to talk with a half a person. Or see it if you want to see Jefferson Mays give a remarkable performance, interpreting a character who isn't really there. But don't go expecting to be entertained. For that you would need a really dynamic teacher, or personality, and not Quartermaine. Not on his terms, at any rate.
Quartermaine's Terms plays through Aug. 23 at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance at 1000 Main St., Williamstown. For schedules, information and tickets, call the box office at 413-597-3400.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 9:14 AM | Permalink

"Twelfth Night," or "What You Will," by William Shakespeare. Directed by Jonathan Croy. At Shakespeare & Company.

By J. Peter Bergman
As famous quote provider, William Shakespeare's comedy "Twelfth Night" is up near the top of the list and should provide enjoyment enough for several productions. That is a good thing this summer as there have been several from which to choose: Main Street Stage in North Adams, Walking the Dog Theater in Hudson, NY, New York Shakespeare Festival in Central Park, New York City, Shakespeare and Company in Lenox and even a rush job production of about 12 minutes contained in the second act of "Leading Ladies" at the Theatre Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y.
This review concerns only the Lenox production at Shakespeare and Company.
"If music be the food of love, play on," the show begins, and so it is on the Founders' Theatre stage. With guitar, violin, banjo and flute, the players dance their romantic dances while lust rears its hysterical head, emotions blossom and bloom, jealousy rants and raves, and lost souls are found in strangely familiar garb. Twins cavort with single charm. Malcontents are brought to smiling, yellowed pleasures and idiots lay claim to knowledge. Servants rule their masters for a while, and the passion of one man takes a detour on the road to true love.

The twists and turns of plot are many in this work, one of those "pants" plays that Shakespeare delighted in in which a female character masquerades as a male for her safety and then finds herself wedded to the role instead of to the man she loves. "Present mirth hath present laughter," the saying here goes, and it is the laughter that this play and its players engender which gets us quickly through the three hours of the play.
Merritt Janson is a precious Viola, who uses the name Caesario to disguise her gender. As wooer of Olivia for the Duke Orsino, Janson makes the most of every moment with facial expressions that are as delicious to watch as Shakespeare's dialogue is to hear. Her duel with Sir Andrew Aguecheek is a comic highlight of choreography, and her scenes of lust with Olivia are marvels of comic timing.
Aguecheek is played by Ryan Winkles, who plays these fop wonderfully. He has comic poses that would hurt a strutting chicken to endure and he has a knack for pulling faces that should take his acting down a peg; as he performs the role, though, they seem to be only right for their situations. He is abetted in his playing by Nigel Gore's marvelous Sir Toby Belch. Gore replaces the usual girth of the man with the breadth of his drinking. Instead of a visual joke, we have a more class-disoriented performance where the knight has been granted a commoner's voice and accent and his manners follow suit: privileged class possibilities with a working class attitude.
Olivia, the object of the Duke's adoration, Sir Andrew's passionate need and Sir Toby's relative scorn, is played by Elizabeth Raetz, whose acrobatic performance as the young maiden in mourning for her brother while desiring a young man to play with, is nothing short of circus. She starts with scorn and ends with the dance of one besotted with physical anxieties. She is simply hilarious.
Orsino is played by Duane Allen Robinson with a combination of high dudgeon and low desires. "Come away, come away, Death," sings Feste the clown and in Robinson's playing there is always that sense of something else, something darker and stronger impelling him to find love before it is too late. He is the straight man off whom the comedy bounces. The same could be said for Malvolio, as written, but not necessarily as played by Ken Cheeseman who makes even his costume seem funny. Cheeseman is certainly a welcome addition to the company this year, apparently his first in Lenox since 1989.
Jake Waid is a wonderful Sebastian and Alexander Sovronsky is fine as Fabian. Robert Lohbauer plays Curio to a tee and Corinna May is a perfectly darling Maria, whose off-stage laughter is the perfect counterpoint to onstage sobriety, a rare moment of it at least.
Jonathan Croy, who has directed this production, adds a distinctive verve to the proceedings, much as he did the touring company of "Romeo and Juliet," which played here earlier in the season. His own special comic timing has been willed into the players and the second half of the show is almost non-stop farce in its pacing and its unanticipated activities. He gives the comedy back to Shakespeare and together they deliver it to the audience through their designated instruments, the actors in character.
While three hours may seem long for a comedy, time rushes by in the second act and feels only as long as any favorite laugher-ridden piece. As starter Shakespeare, it couldn't be better, and for those who are jaded about the Bard and his oeuvre it's a wonderful new beginning. As Feste says, "There is no darkness but ignorance." Step into the light, folks.

"Twelfth Night" plays at Shakespeare and Company's Founders Theatre in 40 Kemble St. in Lenox through Sept. 5 in repertory. Consult their schedule for actual playing dates and times. Tickets may be purchased by contacting their box office at 413-637-3353 or e-mail them at boxoffice@shakespeare.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 9:50 PM | Permalink

"The Dreamer Examines His Pillow" by John Patrick Shanley. Directed by Tod Randolph. At Shakespeare & Company.

John Patrick Shanley has written a lot of plays, and screenplays it seems, about the Italian-American experience. "Moonstruck" for example, is among his finest creations. Also, "Italian-American Reconciliation," which Barrington Stage Company presented a few years back. Going into the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre at Shakespeare and Company for the opening night performance of "The Dreamer Examines His Pillow," I overheard part of a conversation in which the question was asked: "What would a white, Irish writer know about the black experience in love and art?" I thought it an interesting question about a non-Italian who has made such a name for himself creating their particular world so well.
Coming out of the theater at the end of the 91-minute one-act play, I overheard the same person remark, "Well, I guess I was wrong. He knows exactly what black people experience." At home I looked up the play. It has generally been played by an all-white cast, mainly Italian, since its premiere in 1985. This may well be the first time it has been played by an all-black company and, under Tod Randolph's directorial guidance, that proves to be the right choice. The obvious answer to both question and comment would seem to be "Shanley, who also wrote 'Doubt,' knows the human experience and writes it so well that it extends to all people, no matter their race, religion or political choices."

Donna loves Tommy, hates Tommy, regrets Tommy. Tommy loves Donna, loves her sister Mona, finds God, hates himself. Daddy hates everybody, loves everybody, regrets everybody. Each one of them is wide awake and dreaming at the same time. They live in a halfway state, not truly connecting, the way you do sometimes in a dream. Tommy is infatuated with his refrigerator, an inanimate God he has decided to worship when he's not filling his world with Donna or Mona. Donna rails and raves and rants and ruts. She cannot decide how to treat Tommy because she hasn't figured out how to treat herself. She goes to Daddy for help. He has no interest in helping his daughter, from whom he has been estranged since before his wife, her mother, died. He resists her as best he can, but he is a father and, dreamlike, he goes to her aid, donning a tuxedo and intimidating Tommy. Throw in a happy ending and that's the play.
Or is it? Is any of this real? Are any of them awake or are they all dreaming some sort of composite dream that affects the lives of all three when they awaken? It is hard to know exactly what is real here and what is imagined by one or more of the threesome. It is this dream quality that makes this a difficult play. It is the intensity of the comedy, the heat of the passions and the depth of imagination that bring the drama out of the strangeness. It turns an ordinary relationship play into a dramedy that leaves you laughing too hard and wanting to sob at the same time.
Miriam Hyman is Donna. The overwrought Donna and the sweetly tender Donna are a fine admixture as she works the constantly altering emotions of this character. Hyman can be sweet one moment and violent the next without transitions and it works like a charm in her delivery. She is adept at the quixotic and that is much needed for Donna to be attractive and loveable. Hyman takes the long journey with quick jumps as her Donna searches for answers and assistance at the same time. She plays the perfect daddy's girl who prefers her mother. Somehow in the confusions of this role, Hyman has located clarity and she presents it in a straightforward way that seems next to impossible to pull off. It's a fabulous performance.
Bowman Wright plays her lover and tormentor. His Tommy is the exact opposite of Hyman's Donna. He is never anything less than completely confused by his own life. When asked direct questions, Wright's Tommy stammers, stutters, glances away like a golf ball hit too far to one side. When he worships it is full out. When he justifies his bizarre behavior it is with an understanding that nobody gets him, so he never tries too hard. Wright plays these moments with a soft-shoe shuffle made even softer in his bare feet. He is an everyman character in this role and he makes the most of it where and whenever he can. This is a character with no disguises. Wright lays him out for all to see, walk on or walk through.
John Douglas Thompson, the company's Othello, plays a most modern man in this play. He is a character too reticent, too controlled, to be anything other than a winner and he manages, by the end of scene three, to emerge just that. His scene with his daughter is heart-wrenching and Thompson proves himself to be the perfect actor for the role. It is this character who is the title possessor, but it is never clear if this experience with Donna is just another dream or is something real.
In fact, when all three of them finally appear together in a room, the reality of the situation suddenly takes on the most dreamlike visage of all. On the face of it, this is just a dream, but whose dream is unclear. My vote goes to Donna, but I'd second any other nomination as well.
Director Tod Randolph has forged a fascinating world out of Shanley's vision of the contemporary family dynamic. She has managed, I imagine without making changes to the lines, to create a world that is absolutely right for these three characters. The voyage each one takes to a personal truth is the weirdly universal track she has placed them on. The engine of the play takes them the distance and in her exploration of these relationships she has given her actors a chance, in our sight, to move in too close to one another while remaining aloof, in our ears, even when raging against the heavens that have brought them together.
On the very open stage of the Bernstein Theatre, set designer Christian Schmitt and lighting designer Greg Solomon have created a new version of a simplicity that defines complexity. Michael Pfeiffer's sound design covers some lengthy, if fascinating, set changes and Lena Sands has worked with simple, if sometimes surprising, costumes.
"The Dreamer Examines His Pillow" delivers a wallop of a message: "You gotta make the big mistakes." At the same time it forces a moral onto itself: "Why live? 'Cause it's not neat."
The journey of a lifetime begins with a single step and this play covers the middle portion with a strange sort of universality. It's as though everyone I ever knew in the arts was actually black and yet somehow not black.
Maybe I'm the one who's dreaming. Maybe it's you.

"The Dreamer Examines His Pillow" plays at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre on Kemble Street in Lenox through September 6, but in repertory. For tickets, or information, call the box office at 413-637-3353 or visit shakespeare.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 9:24 PM | Permalink

"A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams. Directed by Julianne Boyd. At Barrington Stage Company.

Blanche DuBois yearns for that elusive element in life that makes romance possible, love feasible and respect mandatory. Sadly her life in the years leading up to the events in Tennessee Williams' play "A Streetcar Named Desire" take her down a path not fated to land her safely in any of those spots she so badly wants and needs. Blanche has had it with realism; she prefers lies to reality; she demands soft lighting, background music, poetry when all that is offered to her is the glare of the world around her, a blues singer whose words are often bitter and a prosaic existence where even her own poetry fails to impress.
Her tragedy is on stage for the moment at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. She has turned her back on Laurel, Miss., and headed for New Orleans where her sister Stella, and Stella's husband Stanley, live in a two room apartment in the Latin Quarter. Surrounded by factory workers, jazz musicians, immigrants and the usual street people, Blanche is immediately uncomfortable and that lack of familiarity along with the complications that travel with Blanche provide a sure road to madness.

The Kowalskis, Stanley and Stella, live in a district called Elysian Fields and it is there, on a cot in the kitchen, that Blanche takes up temporary residence. In Greek Mythology Elysian Fields is defined as the abode of the blessed after death. In Williams' version of the place, reached by taking a streetcar named Desire and transferring to one named Cemetery, no one is dead as yet, but the living aren't doing too good a job of it and they don't seem to be all that blessed. Stella is pregnant and doesn't want to tell her sister; she has also kept Blanche's arrival a secret from Stanley. This is one insecure woman. Stanley is incapable of living without his woman, insecure in her love and a threat to Blanche. Blanche is on anything but level footing in the world having lost her home, her job, and even her self-respect. No, I don't think any of them are particularly blessed.
As characters, however, they are somewhat blessed in the casting for this production. Stella, presumed to be about 28, is played by Kim Stauffer who looks the part. Her sister, Blanche, presumed to be a few years older is played by Marin Mazzie. Her age is never revealed but in this casting there may well have been two or three DuBois siblings born between these two women. Stanley, a strongly brutish fellow is recently out of the army (world war II having ended just two years earlier) and is played by Christopher Innvar. All three have qualities that work well for their roles.
Nevertheless they did not convince me always of their relationships. The two women, in particular, didn't quite jell into sisters. There is a modest similarity in their appearance which helps, but somehow their rhythms together never felt quite right to me. Mazzie's Blanche is stronger than the script would have us believe she is in actuality. Her long stride and her too solid form of flirtation felt at odds with her sister's bravura expressions of love and lust. It is almost as though they were directed to be one person rather than two individuals. In those few moments when the two bond and protect one another, there was less cohesion than there was posed embraces. I did not feel that sense of family so necessary in those moments in the play and this altered the ending for me as well. In that scene, Stella's anxiety and remorse didn't mix well, there being less of the former and more of the latter than seemed right.
Innvar's Stanley had all of the violence and anger, as well as most of the jealousy he should feel when his wife seems to take her sister's side He had some of the pleasantry required, but the charm that makes Stella so loyal and attracts Blanche initially wasn't really there. Innvar's performance was fine, there just wasn't the touch of charisma there needs to be for this part to be really understood by an audience. Stanley should attract us all at times, but Innvar's Stan was resolutely mean, confused by his emotions, and as insecure as Blanche is at times. She calls him an animal and he does seem more animal-like than human in his actions. However, his instincts don't pose the obvious threat to Stella that they should, nor to Blanche who cowers on cue, but often makes us wonder just why.
Stauffer plays well with the others, but doesn't really seem to be inside of Stella. She uses her physical capabilities to replace the emotional intensity we need to see and experience for ourselves. It is a loss to the role and the play for her not to be able to respond to the attractiveness in her Stanley, but as he isn't presenting it to her to play off that would be hard. Innvar rarely smiles at her. He holds her close but there is no body language between them that sets off sparks.
Mazzie also seems a bit too cut off from the others around her. She focuses away from them far too much. She is at her best in her scenes with Mitch, Stanley's army buddy and friend who begins to fall under Blanche's spell. As played by Kevin Carolan, Mitch is a warm soul, a charming fellow who can tolerate Stanley's coarseness as long as it doesn't offend anyone else in the room. Carolan looks at Mazzie with a dozen different expressions on his face from amusement to admiration to concern. Of the principal quartet of players he was the only one who seemed to be completely at home in his role.
Blanche, in Mazzie's hands, is more neurotic than insecure. She seems destined for madness from the beginning and never seemed to find Stanley even understandably attractive, which is a missed cue that needs to be in place for the action in Scene Ten (or Act III, Scene Four) to make any sense. Though she wants to resist Stanley, hates him for trying to fool with her, she gives in and as played by Mazzie and Innvar, it is too easy a job for both of them. That alters our understanding of the final scene in which her madness is securely taking hold of her.
Whatever may be wrong with this production, and it is all small things that make the difference in a play as subtle and sublime as this one, the final scene has a powerful punch that left not a dry eye in the theater, including mine. It is tempting to wonder if this scene was given more rehearsal time than any other, for it is the trickiest one even if it is the most honest and believable scene.
If there are 12 rings in Hell, that absolute opposite of Elysian Fields, than the 11 scenes of this play take us from the border town periphery to very near the center. That trip needs to be experienced through Blanche's descent into a netherworld she has held the key to for some time. Those transitions aren't always in place, and I'm not sure that there is much to be done even by a director as talented as Julianne Boyd has proven herself to be over the years. Williams has left holes in his script where believability becomes difficult: Blanche's story is revealed, layer by layer, scene by scene, but we learn very little about Stella's life in the ten years the sisters have been apart and we never learn much about Stanley's background, foreground or any ground. Again, we know more about Mitch than we do about Stan.
I loved Brian Prather's set and Elizabeth Flauto's costumes. Scott Pinkney has provided lighting effects that generally worked and Michael Burnet has done a decent job with the fight and violence scenes. Chavez Ravine is lovely as the blues singer and oddly overly loud as the Mexican Woman whose cry of flowers for the dead overwhelms Mazzie's reaction rather than keying it. Thom Rivera plays musical instruments effectively getting the jazz into its Capitol. Jeff Kent is fine as the Doctor and Miles Hutton Jacoby is very sweet as the young collector who is almost seduced by Blanche. Jennifer Regan is excellent as Eunice.
It is a fascinating 2 hours and 52 minutes of theater, even with unfortunate scene changes in too much stage light. There are many things wrong with the production and yet so many things right that on balance I would say this is something not to be missed. However, don't refresh your memory with a read-through of the play before you see it, as I did. The frustrations could get out of hand and you might end up more like Blanche than you'd like. Better to come fresh and without expectations based on knowledge.
Like Blanche DuBois, enter a strange world and find what solace you can in knowing that your world isn't hers. You'll leave the theater so much better for the tears you shed that she wills from you. They belong to her, after all, and she knows it.

"A Streetcar Named Desire" plays at Barrington Stage Company's Main Stage theater at 30 Union St. in Pittsfield through Aug. 29. For schedules and tickets call the box office at 413-236-8888 or visit barringtonstageco.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 9:10 PM | Permalink

"Caroline in Jersey" by Melinda Lopez. Directed by Amanda Charlton. At Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Lea Thompson is Caroline. Again. Remember her four-year stint on television as "Caroline in the City"? This Caroline is different, though. This one has moved out of the city for reasons too numerous to count, but here's three of them: need for change, need for revival of spirit and need to escape the ugliness her husband's affair is causing her. Using a 10-year-old ad, she finds an apartment in a private house and moves in. Her best friend, David, is gay and the composer/lyricist/bookwriter of a new musical titled "Petz" in which Caroline is to appear. Matt McGrath plays David. There is a batty old landlady played by Brenda Wehle and a ghost named Will assayed by Will LeBow. Everyone's at home in New Jersey.
This tragic comedy has stories to tell about perception. How each character perceives and understands his or her own story as well as the stories of the others is what this play is all about. The third "world premiere" at the Nikos Theatre at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, this play is, perhaps, the most engaging of the three. There is something dark, mysterious and forbidden about this play. There is also something silly and frivolous here as well.
I

n "Petz," for example, Caroline plays the Russian dog who died inside Sputnik Two. Her performance in this role takes up a lot of dialogue actually. Similarly, there is the allusion to her refrigerator as the gateway to the afterlife, a conceit borrowed directly from "Ghostbusters." Finally, there is the piano in the apartment and its music, mostly engendered by Will the Ghost. These three concepts, themes, pervade the play.
What involves the inner darkness of the soul is Caroline's separation anxiety from the husband who cheated and basically threw her out while continuing to direct her in "Petz." This drives her to drink and worse. There is the hidden secret of the deaths of the former occupants of the place, the landlady Mimi's parents.
There are answers available by the end of the play to many of these odd things, and I don't want to get there before you do. That wouldn't be fair to the fine work being done by the actors in this show.
Will LeBow is the shining star with the comedy timing. He spouts quotes from Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" while playing old favorites on the upright piano and arguing with Caroline, who can see him -- ghost that he is -- even when she can't see herself. LeBow is brilliant in the role and that's not just the inside light in the refrigerator I'm talking about. He seems to have captured the essence of the man Will once was perfectly. His conversations with Caroline are delicious snappy bits. He is the man that Will had been and he works that to a tee. I heard someone at intermission call him a "blithe" spirit, and as I understand that word to mean lacking in due concern, I would concede that this is the spirit LeBow plays in Act One. All that changes in the script and in the tenor of his playing in Act Two. LeBow has the self-confidence to play Will in all his aspects. He does it well.
Thompson is a whimsical and charming and overly nervous Caroline. She makes her character into a woman on the verge almost from the beginning. In doing so, she hasn't got very far to go in the later transitions, but there is a consistency about her playing that makes this choice a very good one. Her Caroline has a center and it is a decaying core. Over the course of the two-hour play, we watch the rot grow inside her and can only envision one ending. Thompson blends bathos and pathos remarkably well here. And her singing is just a pleasure and a surprise.
Matt McGrath is just fine in his role, the gay best friend. He actually seems much younger than his role would claim to be, a 40-something up-and-coming theatrical. That youthfulness is part of his charm and he manages to use this to good effect in this role. David, the character, profits a good deal from the sweetness of McGrath's performance choices.
Oddly enough, the story shifts late in the piece to focus on Mimi, the landlady, and as played by the superb Brenda Wehle it does so rightly. She is the one lost in New Jersey, lost in this old house, lost in the midst of the bustle of the world around her. Wehle is terrific complaining and crabbing about Caroline. She is even better when she learns to appreciate her tenant's charms and talents. When those two prime characteristic of Mimi converge and Will enters her life, she becomes a miraculous confessor and the story turns to her life and her needs and her losses. Wehle does more than her fair share in creating this smooth transition. She holds center stage, Caroline's preferred position, with ease and correctness. If there were no other good performances here, hers would still make this a worthwhile effort. As it stands she is among very good actors and she still holds her own, more than holds it, she creates her own.
On a perfectly dilapidated set, designed by Andrew Boyce with no little tongue in cheek (check out the peeling wallpaper) director Amanda Charlton has driven this four-passenger vehicle straight down the Jersey Turnpike. She never moves to an exit; she never jumps the barrier or even shoves her vehicle into a passing lane. The director here has painted a single yellow line, for caution, right down the middle, and she safely maintains speed and direction in her work.
Emily Rebholz has created and/or chosen the right clothes for these four characters. A special nod to her for Mimi's final dress. Absolutely wrong and perfectly right at the same, it is a marvel to watch the dark red-haired Wehle navigate a room wearing the gown. Jake DeGroot's lighting seemed to create problems for the technical crew, so it is hard to comment on it beyond saying that there was little daylight, if any, and the room's odd glow at one point was hard to understand.
This is a new play with an uncertain future, but surely a future of some sort. The characters fascinate easily, and there is a payoff for each of them. It is certainly a well-constructed play and one I was glad to see. Knowing before you go that this Caroline is no other Caroline helps because the title and actress combination is a definite red herring here. Coming out knowing that this Caroline is the real Caroline is the reward.

"Caroline in Jersey" plays at the Nikos Theatre at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, located in the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance, at 1000 Main Street, Williamstown, through Aug. 16. For schedules and tickets, call the box office at 413-597-3400.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:00 PM | Permalink

"Rent." Book, lyrics and music by Jonathan Larson, original concept and additional lyrics by Billy Aronson, musical arrangements by Steve Skinner, additional arrangements by Tim Weil. Directed and choreographed by Bill Castellino. At Weston Playhouse.

In Puccini's opera, "La Boheme," a group of friends, all artists of one kind or another, drink a toast to friendship on Christmas Eve while making a fool of their landlord. Later in the evening, two women come into their lives, Mimi and Musetta. It's nice. It's romantic. It's a picture, actually, of life as we believe in our romantic hearts it once used to be for the young in a big city that imposes its corrupt values on the optimism of youth.
Jonathan Larson's rock opera "Rent" takes that same team of friends and lovers, that same youthful optimism and romantic sensibilities, and crushes it all under the heel of modern realism. No matter how hard the heel grinds those ingredients in the rotten cement and plasterboard of the East Village and no matter how many layers of grime, grit and nickle bags of coke are tossed on top of the mixture, romance still wins the day, this time on the stage of the Weston Playhouse in Vermont.
Not that I approve of this transition, but this "La Boheme" for our times has some interesting values.

Mimi is still a prostitute and she still has a deadly illness, AIDS instead of consumption. HIV and AIDS are prevalent in the piece with Roger Davis, the Rudolpho, Angel Schunard (Schaunard), Tom Collins (Colline) all suffering from some stage of the illness in this 1992 setting. Roger's girlfriend April has already killed herself rather than submit to the long terminal stages of her illness. Most of the company are squatters in an East 11th street industrial loft building owned by Benny Coffin (Benoit), although Mark Cohen (Marcello) has an ex-girlfriend Maureen (Musetta) who has moved uptown and become a lesbian. Oh, Angel and Tom are gay and lovers, so just about every prototype of the modern-day Bohemian is represented in the show. No one need feel left out.
My slightly cynical tone here mirrors the cynicism of the work. "Rent," for all its awards and its 12-year Broadway run, is a cynical and dark play with mostly non-memorable music here played extremely well by a very good rock band, including Greg Brown on keyboards, Jacob W. Partori on keyboard, Brad Carbone on percussion and Tim Minoudis on guitar. The singing was mostly fine, although through an unreasonable set of miking mistakes the principals often could barely be heard when their mikes were not turned on to pick up their solo lines. Technical accidents happen and hopefully that won't be repeated; I hope the stage manager took lots of notes.
While the cast is attractive, the types selected by Alan Filderman, who cast the show in New York, match the original stage company as closely as possible, thereby preventing anything new and interesting from happening in that quarter. For the most part, the choices pay off in a replicating way and the talents seem to be justifying the choices.
Leo Ash Evens plays Mark. He is a good actor, but not one who moves you with Mark's sentimental nature in telling the story. His singing voice is OK and when he gets down into the song, as he does with "What You Own" in the second act he is very, very good. The Weston Roger is Kristoffer Cusick, a lump of a man whose spikey hair tells you as much about the character as the script. Cusick plays despair and anger well but misses a few rungs of the ladder on the way to sentimental and loving. There is always a bit too much of the former pair in his playing the latter. Even so, he has some superb moments although Roger's need to write something beautiful and perfect before he dies of AIDS always leads him to strains of Puccini's "Musetta's Waltz," a running gag that finally gets blown when Mark accuses him of doing just that. A joke, I assume, but one that fails the author's intention to inject humor into another dark moment.
Maureen is played with gusto and a strong sense of personality by Christina Bianco. She is the mean half of either team she plays on, and she bounces back and forth a lot in this show. When she finally gives herself up to the girlfriend, who can do the most for her, it is with a beautiful confluence of condescension and relief. Her vis-a-vis, Joanne, is wonderfully portrayed by Stacey Sergeant. When she and Evens duet on the song 'Tango: Maureen" it is one of the highlights of the first act.
Mimi is played as well as I've ever seen the role played by Rona Figueroa. It is a crime that Larson and partners wrote her death scene in such a way as to make it unsympathetic no matter how good the actress, and Figueroa is pretty darn good. "Light My Candle" in her hands, voice and body, is about as sensual a song as it ever could be.
Jordan Barbour and Jeremy Leiner are the gay lovers Tom and Angel. Having combined the forces of these two secondary characters in the Puccini opera, they now almost take the story away from the other two and a half (if you count Mark) couples. In fact, Angel's death gets the sympathy vote hands down, and in Leiner and Barbour's playing of it and its aftermath, there is true pathos on the stage for a while. Angel isn't just gay, by the way; he is a cross-dresser. Leiner, with height heightened by incredible shoes, makes this aspect of the show work, not as comic relief but as cosmic belief. His Angel is who he is and we grasp this immediately. It's a beautifully played part.
Paul Rawlings, of the ensemble, sings wonderfully in the solo sections of the chorus number "Will I?" as do Charlie Parker and C. Mingo Long later in the show. The company, in fact, is so good, I wish them a better show in which to perform. Their passionate singing and acting deserves better writing -- even if this show did win the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award the book is mis-wrought, the lyrics are banal and the music is only partially credible.
On a wonderfully wrought but now highly traditional styled set by Timothy R. Mackabee, who has brought nothing original to his design, director Bill Castellino has choreographed his company into, out of and around scenes with finesse. Kirche Leigh Zelle has provided excellent costumes. Jack Mehler's lighting design works for every moment of the long show (it runs two and a half hours).
I like to think that people can make up their own minds, and the performance I saw did get a standing ovation from 99 percent of the audience, although they didn't exactly leap to their feet cheering. I thought the accolade was more for endurance and talent than for the show itself. You have to make up your own minds, as Roger's girlfriend April did, he tells us, "before slitting her wrists in the bathtub."

"Rent" plays at the Weston Playhouse, located on the Village Green on Route 100 in Weston, Vt, through Aug. 22. Ticket prices start at $36. For complete scheduled and tickets, contact the box office at 802-824-5288 or visit westonplayhouse.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 7:51 PM | Permalink

"Sweet Charity." Music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields, book by Neil Simon, based on a concept by Bob Fosse and a film, "Nights of Cabiria" by Federico Fellini.

Begin by changing Rome to New York City. Then soften the leading lady's profession, downgrading it from streetwalker to dance hall hostess. Take out the offensive language so prevalent in the movie and add an offensively comic character, a hard-nosed man-of-business who softens around the topic of weddings. What do you end up with? A sweet musical based on Fellini's "Nights of Cabiria" in the making, Cabiria now called Charity, "Sweet Charity," now playing at the Mac-Haydn Theatre in Chatham, N.Y.
Suffice it to say that this is a favorite, a gem, probably the best musical written by Cy Coleman with its hit tunes "Where Am I Going?" "Big Spender," "Baby Dream Your Dream," "There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This" and "The Rhythm of Life."

Conceived and created by choreographer/director Bob Fosse for his then-wife Gwen Verdon, this show brought the Palace Theatre back into being back in 1966. Oddly, much of it is still relevant today as young women with ambition but not much experience find themselves working in joints like the dance hall in the show in cities around the globe.
Charity, at the Mac-Haydn, is played by a young woman with enormous talent. She dances very well, sings very well, acts very well. Her name is Chelsea Gidden, and she takes and holds the stage throughout the piece. Even when other talented performers are singing to her, our attention is riveted to Gidden and no one else. Andrea Doto as Helene and Kelly Uhl as Nickie beautifully sing and dance their hearts out around Gidden, but when she joins her pals, they simply turn into temporary scenery.
Even Ben Jacoby, whose performances get better and better, fades a bit when he sings with Gidden. He holds his own in the speaking scenes and even devastates the audience a bit in the final scene in Central Park. As Oscar Lindquist, he is at the top of his form as an actor and his place in the play assures him attention. It is partially the eternal optimism of Charity, as played with full, unbelieving, self-deceiving stamina by Gidden, that takes his bad news moment away from him and gives it to her.
Jason Whitfield manages to hold his own with Gidden. He is the perfect Italian movie star, an anomaly remaining from the movie, self-possessed, vengeful, lusty and overly eager to please a fan. Ryan Michael Owens plays Herman with a meanness I am not used to seeing, but his meltdown at the end of the show is perhaps even finer for that harshness at the beginning. Jennifer Bishop does well as Carmen and Kendall Chaffee-Standish makes a delightful Ursula.
Fosse's choreography has been revitalized by Jessica Lee Goldyn with more than just imitation in evidence. Corinne Walsh's costumes are perfect for the characters and Andrew Bevacqua has made the set pieces fluid and firm enough to handle the sometimes hard physical actions.
Doug Hodge has directed this piece with precision and accuracy, which is good on the circular stage at this theater in the round. He has also given, and presumably pulled from his actors, the characters a reality that made their performances so sure and right.
This is a show that could profit from a trumpet and a clarinet or even just two pianos. Even so, this is one of the best shows this season at this theater and should not be missed.

"Sweet Charity" plays through Aug/ 9 at the Mac-Haydn Theatre, located on Route 203 just north of the town center of Chatham, N.Y. For tickets and information, call the box office at 518-392-9292 or go online at machaydntheatre.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:40 PM | Permalink

"Zanna, Don't!" Book, Music and Lyrics by Tim Acito with additional book and lyrics by Alexander Dinelaris. Directed by Bert Bernardi. At the Theatre Barn.

"What kind of a world would this be if the captain of the football team wasn't in the school musical?"
It's that kind of a show. It's a fairy tale -- self-proclaimed, not my label. In Heartsville, USA, once upon a time, all the boys have boyfriends and all the girls have girlfriends and high school is a place for mating for life with someone of your own gender. The kids all seem to have two dads or two moms. It's rumored that in San Francisco you can find some straight people. It's also true that the school has its very own Tracy Turnblad, except that instead of a chunky girl with little taste in clothing we have a fairy named Zanna whose face glows with sprinkles that glimmer and glow. He awakens to a new day in his town as he and the cast answer the musical question "Who's Got Extra Love?" This sequence is one of several that more than incidentally remind you of other successful musicals about high school students.

There are parody/quotes -- lines and situations -- from "Grease," "Hairspray" and other shows too, although those are the two most blatantly identifiable ones. There is enthusiasm and after an initial groan by someone in the audience you seldom even sense any displeasure at this topsy-turvy, contemporary Gilbert-and-Sullivan world you find yourself in at the Theatre Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y.m where this transformational world exists just now.
This may be the gayest musical since "Boy Meets Boy," a 1975 musical by Bill Solly and Donald Ward. The utter acceptance of gayness as normalcy is refreshing in this new show (dating from 2003, actually) and the freakiness of heterosexuality is delightfully presented. If the score was less repetitious and the plot had a more sincerely stated ending, it would be a better show, but as things stand, with a very talented company of young players, it makes a fun evening that even inspired a standing ovation on opening night from about half the audience (house left, actually, and not a political or gender-biased group).
In its initial off-Broadway run, the play starred Jai Rodriguez as Zanna; he was fresh from his appearances on the television series "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and was thought to be hot. The show's modest run was supposed to lead to a Broadway transfer but that never happened, even though a move to a London production did take place. Nominated for quite a few awards, the show made a name for itself, and now it is our turn, in this region, to decide if it is good enough to survive.
If it was the responsibility of the cast to make that happen, this group of young, fervent, attractive and energetic players would see to it that "Zanna, Don't!" was the hit it was cracked up to be. Not all the voices are great and not all the faces are cute, but there's enough talent and good looks to satisfy just about any taste. Matt Densky, for example, seems to never stop moving as Zanna. He plays a magical matchmaker, quite a career choice for a high school student. With his magic wand he makes flowers and gifts appear when needed. He knows just what music to play to inspire dancing and love. Densky seems to be a marathon dancer. His feet and his shoulders and head are constantly in motion. Not the best singer in the cast, he gets eight musical numbers to vocalize on and that's just about 45 percent of the songs.
Mike and Steve, young lovers -- a chess champion and a football star -- fall in love early in the play. As portrayed by Jeffery James Dinan and Kyle Metzger, respectively, they are a handsome pair. Both men sing well, dance nicely and act accordingly. Their romance, from its edgy beginning to its unanticipated conclusion, is handled very sweetly. Both men are appealing and seem destined to continue in musicals in the future. Their style brings a reality to this fairy tale that was very illuminating, necessary and welcome.
Kate and Roberta, the lesbian counterparts of Mike and Steve, are played by Nisa Ari and Megan Rozak. Rozak is back for her fourth season at the Barn and, as always here, plays an aggressive and wonderful character with emotive style and an attractive personality. Ari is a gentler soul and just a charmer clutching things to her chest whenever possible. Both women sing well and add a gusto to the show that it needs.
A third couple feature in the tale, Candi and her minion, Buck. Played by Nicole DeMattei and Geoff Lutz, they offer a comic counterpart to the other two couples. Steven Cardona plays the DJ named Tank whose secret love for Zanna may save the day by the ending of the play.
It's a weak ending, however, and that is a principal problem with the play. The other weakness is the music, which tends toward difficult-to-hear lyrics and a rhythmic beat that pushes defiantly onward whether you need it or not. I did like "I Ain't Got Time," sung by Roberta (Rozak) and "Don't Ask" sung by Kate and Steve (Ari and Metzger) a great deal. Zanna's eleven o'clock number "Someday You Might Love Me" was also a song to appreciate.
Most of the cast double and even triple roles, and the play, in a single hour and three quarters act, moves slowly. Bert Bernardi's direction keeps everyone moving almost all of the time, so no blame accrues to him here. His work is exemplary as is the lighting design by Allen E. Phelps which seems to almost illuminate these performers from within rather than from without; light seems to move with them and it is never intrusive, just highly theatrical reality. Bernardi is responsible for the constant movement that, frankly, exhausted me. It is necessary to the show, however, and he has done a remarkable job instilling life into the characters, but this, like beauty, is really only skin-deep here.
Abe Phelps' set is more practical than anything else, but Kate R. Mincer's costumes are perfection for the characters. Over all the show was entertaining and pretty to look at, but there wasn't much to carry away from it. I came out literally humming the lighting in this one. A curiosity rather than a fulfilling experience, it is still worthwhile seeing just to learn what not to do when you're writing a musical.

"Zanna, Don't!" plays at the Theatre Barn, located at 654 Route 20 in New Lebanon, NY through August 9. For information or tickets call the box office at 518-794-8989.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 2:53 PM | Permalink

"The Torch-Bearers" by George Kelly. Directed and adapted by Dylan Baker. At the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Place: Philadelphia. Time: October, 1922. A woman of Cohoes, Mrs. J. Duro Pampinelli, is producing a play titled "One of Those Things," a "Little Theatre" production of which she is also the director. Mrs. Clara Sheppard, due to play the lead, has suffered the sudden loss of her husband and so, in the spirit of good-fellowship and mandatory social mourning, has stepped down and been replaced by society matron Mrs. Paula Ritter. When Paula's husband returns home, unexpectedly, from a business trip, developments occur quickly and before the new first act is over, he appears to have suffered a massive coronary upon seeing his wife act.
Act Two: the play is on and we are backstage watching the technical aspects unfold in front of us while an unseen audience witness from the front the play itself.
So, what do we have: Act One, the play is rehearsed with interruptions of all kinds. Act Two, the play is onstage and we are witnessing the chaos and madness of a backstage experience. Wait. Doesn't this sound familiar? Say, isn't there a comedy called "Noises Off"? There is, but this play precedes it by more than 50 years. What the two shows have in common is the premise, and the action and not a whole lot else.

This performance play starred Mary Boland as the wife and Alison Skipworth as the director back in 1922. It was considered clever, but it was not a hit. Flash forward to our time: With the history of physical farces like "Noises Off," why not dust off this forebear and having a nice long at it decide whether or not its worth a second chance? Right now at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the play is getting that second shot, that second look. Well, I can add my two cents plain here. Though still not a hit, a worthy company of players are making a miraculous fondue out of merely decent cheese.
To begin with, you laugh. There are funny lines, funny situations, funny action. That's a nice thing to know when you go. Next, there is the sly, period-styled direction that allows women to flounce and men to bounce jauntily along. Gestures are controlled but they're awkward for a modern viewer to understand. Costumes, postures, lights and all the technical material in use are needed to give the play a unique look. For these items we can thank David Korins (sets), Ilona Somogyi (costumes) and Rui Rita (lights). Michael Garin's original score has the feel of the early 1920s and it works nicely with this play.
Secondly you cry. The cut -- nay, say it like it is, the strangled edition of the play with the second act awkwardly split in two between act one and the remainder of act two -- doesn't serve the intention of the author. This fear of two intermissions is ridiculous. This play needs an intermission between Act Two and Act Three. The actors need to come up for air now and then. So does the audience. Kelly knew what he was doing when he wrote the play that way. Much as did Agatha Christie in her play "The Hollow" currently at the Dorset Theatre Festival, where a three-act structure is presented intact and no one disappeared after Act Two for an early arrival at home. Please sit up and take notice, folks. The audience can handle whatever is thrown at them, and the second act of "The Torch-Bearers" needs to take its time, to unfold its story one pratfall at a time. There is no sense in starting Act Two in the Act One costumes just because there's no time to change them. It is confusing and artificial.
That said, there are some delightful, over-the-top performances in this play that spoofs the amateur theater experience in the 1920s. Edward Herrmann gives particular delights as Mr. Huxley Hossefrosse, who plays Dr. Clyde Arlington in the show the cast is supposedly giving. While it takes no talent to be a bad actor, it takes a monumental talent to play a bad actor and that is where Herrmann shines. His Hossefrosse is a polite, sweet, charming man who can only act in the "grand manner" and that style is Hossefrosse's own, and not Herrmann's. As he rehearses his role, or plays it, he is all broad gestures and arched back, but offstage he is merely insecure and working to cover that up. He is always fun and it is good to have Hermann back on the local boards again. He delivers a first-rate performance in this role within a role.
Clearly his equal, in the smallest role of her local career, is Jessica Hecht as the recently widowed Mrs. Clara Sheppard. Clara cannot stay away from the performance being given at the "Hoochee Coochee," or Horticultural Hall. She arrives in time for bows and takes one for a performance not delivered. It is in her stance, her postures, her self-deprecating humility that Hecht's Clara shines. Here is the great star denied her opportunity claiming the credit anyway. It is a very delicious moment and Hecht makes the most of it.
Katie Finneran and James Waterston are the youngest members of the company, and two more different performances would not be possible, I think. She is all movement and delivery, both as Florence and as "Mrs. Arlington," while Waterston is her equal as Teddy but her opposite in his "role" as David, the office boy.
Andrea Martin shines brilliantly as Mrs. Nelly Fell, the acting company's humble prompter. Martin makes something outrageously new of "humble." Her comedy is a bit broader than most, and her character's flirtatious side is sweeter than anticipated, particularly when she flirts with John Rubinstein's Mr. Frederick Ritter. Ritter is the outsider, husband of the woman replacing Clara in the play. Rubinstein is so much the sobersides that his offstage maneuverings in this versions's Act Two come as a surprise and as a charmingly persuasive action.
Becky Ann Baker is his wife, Paula. She is almost too subtle and modern in this role. Her playing is fine, but her character seems to have stepped backward out of the 1930s. She is more subdued and contained and practical and manipulative. It is a nice performance, but not in keeping with the rest of the company. A bit too earthy, if you will.
Lizbeth McKay as the maid Jenny, not an actress, seemed to be unsure of her country of origin as her accent altered with every line. Loyalty to her employer aside, she is the maid you fire for her inability to be herself. Philip Goodwin was good but his constant loss of his cane seemed to be forced rather than the result of nerves, or some other malady.
Katherine McGrath as Mrs. Pampinelli, the heart and soul of the acting company, their mentor, their director, was almost but not quite the force she pretends to be. McGrath came into the show as a replacement for Marian Seldes whose style of playing, so graceful and so arch, would have been perfection in this key role. McGrath has a broader, more entangled playing style and while she may be excellent in the part by closing, she was not yet there on opening night. It seemed clear that she can make it work, but the wide berth that houses her Pampinelli isn't being expanded and it merely gives her room in which to flounder at times, particularly in the final scene where her dramatic sensibilities should be at their peak, McGrath only gives them half their plausible strengths.
One of the most delightful surprises was the performance by Yusef Bulos as Mr. Spindler. Quirky, odd, humorous in subtle and fine ways, this man's performance may be the very heart of this play's reality. If there is anything that can go wrong here, Bulos' Mr. Spindler will be found to be the cause of it. His earnest intervention cripples everything, and he is the one who best defines the amateur. Bulos is highly enjoyable in this role.
A two-and-a-half-hour exploration of something most of us have encountered in our own lives in some way, this is a fascinating play peopled with fascinating actors playing fascinating people acting. Not an easy task for any director and Dylan Baker does his very best to keep this material fresh and vibrant. Worth the money? I'd say yes.

"The Torch-Bearers" plays through Aug. 9 at Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown. Information and tickets may be found at 413-597-3400 or online at wtfestival.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 2:18 PM | Permalink

"The Hollow" by Agatha Christie. Directed by Cal Forsman. At Dorset Theatre Festival.

Painting pictures, portraits in words, was Agatha Christie's finest accomplishment. Her mysteries are good ones, sound and sturdy, interestingly odd and loaded with twists, mis-direction, and often the excitement engendered by more than one death. But it is her people we remember long after the book is laid aside or the play has closed. We cannot forget Jane Marple, Tommy and Tuppence, Hercule Poirot or, indeed, any of her detectives. Some of her villains and victims are equally memorable, and her plays have given us constant delights.
"The Hollow," which was originally published as "Murder After Hours," an Hercule Poirot mystery novel in 1946, was re-created by the author as a play in 1951 without her most famous detective. In his place, she offered Inspector Colquhoon and his able, maid-enticing associate Detective Sergeant Penny. It is that play that is now on the stage at the Dorset Theatre Festival in Dorset, Vt.

In this work, Christie presents us with cousins among the uppercrust, the Angkatell family: Sir Henry, his wife and cousin, Lady Lucy, their cousin Henrietta, a sculptor and another cousin who has inherited the family Manse, Edward and a half-cousin Midge Harvey, who works in a dress shop. Though not made entirely clear, it would seem a distant relative John Cristow is also among the guests for the weekend at the "Hollow," the home of Henry and Lucy. With him is his wife Gerda and, in short order, his former lover Veronica Craye, now a successful Hollywood actress. As is inevitable in these situations, there are the servants, Doris and the butler Gudgeon. Enough characters, with enough relationships, to keep the audience guessing right up to the last scene as to just who is the murderer being sought by Scotland Yard for the death of one of the above.
I am not one to give away too much information in reviewing a mystery play, so don't expect spoilers in the copy to follow. I will say, however, that in this production the mystery crackles, the relationships tickle and the evening, three acts with two intermissions, comes in at about two and a half hours of bright and brittle conversation.
Director Carl Forsman has just the right touch for this material. He keeps things well paced and understandable and as tensions mount and suspicions are tossed from one set of hands to another he lets us see without pointing a finger how it is both easy and possible to misunderstand motives, to make decisions without facts, to come to conclusions that do not end at the stopping point. He has done a beautiful job with Christie's play, and in doing so, has created a few new bright stars among his current resident company.
The actors, for the most part, are people who appeared earlier this season in "Merton of the Movies." With the truth of a repertory, company people who were featured in lead roles in the earlier play move into the support arena and those who had smaller roles in the first now take over the stage in this piece.
Chief among them was a scene-stealing actress from the "Merton," Ann McDonough, who plays the quick-witted, though daft, Lady Lucy Angkatell. McDonough takes the delicious monologues and movements of her character to subtle extremes, as she did in her landlady role last time. She can enter carrying a basket of eggs, leave them hither and yon, forget them, find them, see them without comprehension, ask about them and finally relinquish them with the softness of the confused mind while still remaining focused on the issues under discussion. Her bright smile alters her face completely as she goes from the fear of being in a room with a murderer to discussing her own vague plans to commit the same murder; then she takes utter delight in the inconclusive inquest rating it highly for its commitment to discovery. All in all, if there was no one else in this play it would be recommended for her work alone.
Gardner Reed is a wonderful Henrietta, dynamic, filled with secrets, romantic and yet resolutely honest. Her classic features are just right for Henrietta; her voice is sharp enough to cut a thick-crusted baguette. In the third act she manages to pull of the nearly impossible -- she becomes transparent. Her equal in the subtleties of interpretation is Mark Alhadeff as the Inspector. Clearly an individual from the upper set himself, his poise and his profile are almost classic British while his presentation of his character is quietly aggressive and controlling.
Kirk Jackson is a wonderful, almost stuffy, Sir Henry. It's wonderful to watch him, pole-up-spine, reserved and proper, melt when his young half-cousin comes into the room. She is played beautifully by Kim Hausler. Her rage at being considered too young is thrilling in one so young.
The Cristows are excellently portrayed by Clark Carmichael and Crystal Finn. Her mixed heritage is perfectly played out in Finn's use of a different accent from the others. His superiority is a visible one; attitude is everything with him. Ted Caine is just fine as Gudgeon and Larissa Goldberg is a marvelous Doris. Curran Connor is almost too lascivious as Penny, but it works for him, especially when Doris makes a confession.
Helen Farmer is odd as Veronica. I don't know why, except that perhaps her character seems odd in the context of this place and among these people. Still, there was just something I couldn't quite believe about her character. One hundred eighty degrees opposed to that is Mark Emerson's exquisite Edward Angkatell. There was not one moment over-played, under-played or out-of-keeping in his interpretation of this complex, yet simple, man. If Ann McDonough should be out of the show when you see it, the play will still have this opposite pole to support the fragile tenting of mystery that makes this play work so well. Emerson was "Merton" in the last piece and in combination with that character, it would seem that this actor has a major career in his future.
The gorgeous set by Bill Clarke is effectively lit by Josh Bradford and the costumes designed by Theresa Squire are 100 percent correct for the characters. Physically, and from the directorial point of view, the production is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
You may not be a fan of mysteries, but if you are a fan of live theater that keeps you awake and on your toes, this is the play to see.

"The Hollow" plays through Aug. 8 at the Dorset Playhouse in Dorset, Vt. Located at 104 Cheney Road just off the town square, tickets and information are available through the box office at 802-867-5777.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 2:08 PM | Permalink