Peter Bergman Theater Reviews

"The Hound of the Baskervilles" by Steven Canny and John Nicholson. Directed by Tony Simotes. At Shakespeare & Company.

I have argued with everyone for much too long, far too many years. In spite of almost every movie or play I've seen about Sherlock Holmes -- and this is true of all of them -- Dr. Watson is practically never given his due. He is neither stupid, foolish or inane. He is a smart man. He is an honest chronicler of Holmes exploits and adventures. He is a true companion. He is a brilliant doctor with a long history of medical triumphs under difficult circumstances and, through his association with the detective, he is an observant aide to Holmes' criminal investigations. He is not the "foil."
In "The Hound of the Baskervilles" Watson has always been placed at the center of the action. It is Holmes intention that the villains of the piece believe that Watson is the mastermind. Watson is actually the one who uncovers plot points and identifies probabilities -- the role usually associated with Holmes.
Now, for the first time, Watson is the star of his own show.

A three-man script requiring lightning fast costume and character changes for two of its players, this new version of the Baskerville story gives center stage to Watson. It's about time, too. And, in keeping with the situation -- and the previous situations -- the horrors of the tale are among the funniest moments of the 2009 season at Shakespeare and Company.
Under Tony Simotes' inspired direction, the farcical elements easily overtake the emotional moments. The characterizations stimulate the laughter and the performances cloud the memory with so many brilliant and hysterical realizations.
Jonathan Croy, Josh Aaron McCabe and Ryan Winkles are a perfect ensemble. I lost count on how many different roles are taken by McCabe and Winkles, but the official number seems to be 15. McCabe is Holmes, first and foremost, and also the beautiful Brazilian vamp, Cecile. Winkles plays Sir Henry Baskerville, a Canadian and also his own lawyer, a Scotsman with a bagged lamb and his distant cousin who may not be what he seems. Croy plays Watson, so integral to every scene that he can only take on the role of a gypsy guitar-fiddler in the extraordinarily sensual La Cumparsita dance sequence.
I know, Holmes purists; there is no La Cumparsita dance sequence. Well, there is, actually and it is one of the funniest bits in a hilarious two-hour evening.
Winkles has fast become one of the company's finest physical comedians. As Sir Andrew Aguecheek in "Twelfth Night" and Flute in "A Midsummer's Night Dream," he nearly stole the shows away from long-term players. In the current show, he brings a fluidity and variation to his many characters that seems born out of a natural lack of humility. He is equally comfortable with his pants off or on. He contorts his face and body into character requirements without flinching. He is believably straight, gay, young, old, you name it. He cannot play an adonis, but that may be the only role for which he is not yet ready. And I'm not sure of that, actually.
McCabe's strong jawed, full-chinned Holmes is superb. He is not the classic Michael Hammond Holmes, but he brings a confidence to the role that allows even the silliest lines to seem exactly right. His household servants -- husband and wife -- are delicious, and the funniest jokes about costume changes are his as he struggles back and forth between the two. As Cecile he manages to make obvious drag into serious romance and he handles fans better than Sally Rand (the stripper/fan dancer) would have done.
Croy is a master of farce comedy and he plays his relatively straight role in this show with all of that finesse and experience behind him. The man is a laugh-riot all by himself as he shoots his pistol (sort of) to protect the beleaguered Sir Henry. He handles the verbal sparring in this rapid-fire comedy with aplomb. His almost magically common face lights up with handsome enthusiasm whenever his character feels pride in getting things right. He is the Zeppo that the Groucho and Harpo of Winkles and McCabe use to exploit their absurdities: the Marx Brothers of Shakespeare and Company.
In this American premiere of the play, director Simotes and his production team have provided the threesome with everything they need to pull off the wilder aspects of the play. Nothing deters this trio, not missing costume pieces, nor falling props, from completing each moment perfectly. Jim Youngerman's set pieces provide enough of an indication to keep the viewer on track as to place. Steve Ball's lighting lets us see everything, including minor mistakes that really don't matter. Govane Lohbauer's costumes are sometimes just as funny as their occupants, sometimes simply grand indicators of class and station. Alexander Sovronsky has created a musical ambience that truly enhances the play.
A major departure for this company in its autumn mystery/horror series, this fast-paced farce might confuse young children, but in its sell-out opening night, even an audience participation moment had its pride of place and made the fun that much funnier.
As a proponent of the correctness of Dr. Watson's place in the realm of superior people, I am proud of the authors, the company and Jonathan Croy for finally rescuing the character from the ridiculous and raising him to the sublime through the ridiculous. This is a delicious delicacy, an evening of theater that would give even a cynical, critical show-hater an appetite for more live performances.

"The Hound of the Baskervilles" plays through Nov. 8 at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre at Shakespeare and Company, located at 70 Kemble St. in Lenox. Tickets range from $16-$48. For schedule and information, or to book tickets, contact the box office at 413-637-3353 or visit shakespeare.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 9:05 PM | Permalink

"Red Remembers" by Andrew Guerdat. Directed by John Rando. At Berkshire Theatre Festival.

Broadway actress Ethel Barrymore, a star from the turn of the last century until her death in 1959, was a huge baseball fan, principally of the New York Giants. Though best remembered for her film roles, including the Empress of Russia in "Rasputin and the Empress," the art gallery owner in "Portrait of Jennie," and Doris Day's grandmother in "Young at Heart, she was an acknowledged attendee of the game. She also had the scores of the Giants' games whispered to her during performances on stage so she could keep abreast of the game. She knew Red Barber who had been the radio voice of the Brooklyn Dodgers (1939-1953) and then, in an unexpected switch, for their rivals the New York Yankees (1954-1966). Both were fans of Jackie Robinson who, in his last season of professional baseball was traded by Barber's former team, the Dodgers, to Barrymore's favorite team, the Giants.
This, however, has little to do with the story being told on stage at the Unicorn Theatre at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, where a new one-man play about Barber is currently being played by the actor David Garrison.

In Andrew Guerdat's play we meet the old Southerner at home in Florida in his declining years. His wife, Lylah, an early Alzheimer's victim, is being packed off to a home; their daughter Sarah is on her way to pick her mother up. Red, who has tales to tell, is talking to a couple who may adopt the Barber's cat. He reminisces about his life and career, his protection against his own illness and senility. His fifty-nine year marriage, having undergone the usual trials and tribulations, now gives him his reason for being and he suffers the pangs of insecurity at this new challenge of living alone while his wife slips further and further away from him.
An alcoholic who has sworn off drinking but still can't resist a slug or two now and then, Barber comes to us full-blown and still a redhead, a man near death who doesn't want to realize that his possibilities are limited by his age and his circumstances. He is a man who has known Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, the sports greats and the topnotch soloists in the world of opera. He and Ethel Barrymore have dined with kings and with one another. A true great in the world of broadcasting he has helped to create the personalities of Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Garaggiola and so many others. He knows he cannot die, but he knows he cannot live without the love of the woman he has lived with so long. He is tethered to pillars, supporting a temple of his own design, pulling it down around himself like a modern-day Samson.
There is much humor in this play. There is much drama as well. David Garrison creates a bigger-than-life figure who is still just a fragile mortal. He gives Barber a shake that could rattle a horse. He brings to the role a voice that is distinctly this famous announcer's voice, yet it is not like the original at all. His face, haggard and aged, is not like Barber's and yet it seems to be that of the famous baseball play-caller. There is something oddly right about it all, but thankfully it is still a theatrical experience that one can accept, applaud -- cheer even -- and then leave behind.
Garrison knows just how to play the facets of the jewel he has been given and director John Rando has been brilliantly selective in choosing which of those glistening faces to allow the actor to show. We see him at his best and at his worst. We are warned early on what that worst entails, but when Red Barber is overtaken by his excesses and his anxiety it is a truly difficult thing to witness. How Garrison handles what happens is nothing short of a brilliant example of what happens in the collaboration among author, director and actor.
Jonathan Wentz's very realistic set functions well for this play. Matthew E. Adelson turns in his best work of the season with his lighting design and the combination of music, sound effects by J Hagenbuckle and projections by Shawn E. Boyle work perfectly to enhance the concept of things remembered.
I have remarked many times in this frugal summer, reviewing plays in three states, that I am not fond of mono-drama, that often dreary format where one actor performs on a stage alone for two hours. I am ready now to withdraw that statement. There have been too many good ones this season, and "Red Remembers," in this world-premiere production, is certainly one of the best.

"Red Remembers" plays at the Unicorn Theatre at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge through Nov. 1. For full schedule and tickets, contact the box office at 413-298-5576 or visit berkshiretheatre.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:15 PM | Permalink

"Moonlight and Magnolias" by Ron Hutchinson. Directed by Philip C. Rice. At the Theater Barn.

According to playwright Ron Hutchinson, for five days in 1939 writer Ben Hecht was locked in David O. Selznick's office with Selznick himself and movie director Victor Fleming. They had paper, pencils, an endless supply of bananas and peanuts, and they were hard at the task of rewriting the script for the movie "Gone With the Wind." It was the week after Selznick had fired director George Cukor. It was three weeks after Vivien Leigh had been hired to play Scarlet O'Hara. It was after scripts by Charles MacArthur, F. Scott Fitzgerald and a dozen other writers had been completed for that motion picture.
This is the premise of one of the funniest plays I've ever seen, now in a wonderful production at the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y.

Four brilliantly funny performers are pulling off the best end-of-summer coup of this or any other season with a delicious, "laff-riot" experience that will have you heading out of the building weak from laughing, guffawing, knee-slapping reactions to the beautifully timed physical and verbal comedy of Matthew Daly, Aaron S. Holbritter, Richard Lounello and Melissa MacLeod Herion.
Under the slick and precise direction of Philip C. Rice, these four actors are dragging us screaming with hilarity back to a time when social pressures mattered to a relative few while the importance of the big-screen entertainments mattered to the masses. The Great Depression was coming to an end and the great war ahead was still just that -- ahead. It would be another two years before America became truly engaged in the world's trauma. For now, in 1939, the obsession of most Americans was who would play Scarlett opposite the massive appeal of Clark Gable as Rhett Butler. Millions had read the book. More millions waited to see the film. Selznick's problem was his devotion to the letter of the author's words.
In this play, he compels Ben Hecht to script an already much-scripted film. The only problem is that Hecht has not read the novel. To assist him in his five-day assignment to turn out a shooting script Selznick and a reluctant Victor Fleming act out the entire scenario for the writer while he turns their rendition into the bible that Fleming later filmed.
For Selznick everything is in the details: the shape of the ice, for example, or the color of a dress, a sky, a tree. He is compulsive in his slavishness to Margaret Mitchell's work, although he has ignored her suggestion that Groucho Marx play Rhett. And he is devoted to the large movie-going audience, "the ones with all the power," as he calls them. Hecht is on a tear about politics and the war in Europe. Fleming is just glad to get away from 150 fornicating "munchkins" populating his other hit movie of that year, "The Wizard of Oz."
Richard Lounello is a graphic and physically vital Fleming. A hunting, boozing, womanizing companion to Gable and others, he is a man for certain. Lounello plays him like a Mafia Don who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty. He brings a strength and a reality to the man that is never more well-defined than in the second act when, after nearly five days of non-stop work, he cannot do much, cannot stand, or even peel a banana. His physical comedy is never better than when he has to simultaneously play Melanie having her baby and Prissy returning without the doctor. In his debut with this company he has made himself a worthy addition.
Aaron S. Holbritter acquits himself masterfully as Ben Hecht. Big, bulky and bold he commands the stage when he stands up to the bully director and the brash producer. He provides a real sense of humanity in this otherwise egoistic assembly of Hollywood males. His Hecht is a fine figure, defending Jews and Judaism against the bigotry of self-denial Selznick exhibits. His skill with the typewriter seems genuine and his way with wacky comedy is unexpected.
As the beleaguered and compliant secretary Miss Poppenghul the company is fortunate in having Melissa MacLeod Herion. She handles physical and verbal comedy with equal ease. Her head is the show's timepiece, gathering more and more pencils as adornment with each entrance. Her handling of a bag of peanuts (the ultimate moment in physical solo comedy) is nothing short of Lucille Ball-like. Her voice rings like a southern belle's. Her eyes roll like the wheels of a flivver. Her hands flutter like those of Zasu Pitts and her ankles buckle like a comic illustration of young love in her first kiss. She is winning and a prize player in every one of her moments.
Selznick is portrayed by Matthew Daly, just coming off his stellar performance as Lawrence Jameson in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" at this theater. Unlike the character in that musical -- a man who is estimable as a faker of roles -- he plays an all-too-real comic figure as the movie producer whose life, future and reputation is at stake in this film venture. There is great humor in desperation, it seems, and Daly captures every aspect of that fear in his performance. He plays the producer's deep belief in the book and film with strength and an uneven humanity. Daly also manages to create the unique atmosphere of tension and compassion that is so necessary for his character to have as he hoists his employees through the experience of creating a classic that neither of them believes in from the outset. The subtleties in this play are evinced in the playing of Daly. This is a triumph of a performance.
One of Abe Phelps' best sets is trashed by the end of the play (although cleaned in record time by Miss Poppenghul in one of Herion's funniest bits). Allen E. Phelps lights the play to enhance every moment. Kate R. Mincer's costumes are exactly right for the period and the players.
Toward the end of the play, the principals tussle over the final line of the script. You would think that "Tomorrow is another day" wouldn't engender a lot of laughs, but if you aren't too weak from laughing by the time they get to this classic overstatement, you will be when they finish hammering away at it. That may be the only thing to keep you going on the way home from the play.
Tomorrow is another day -- and one you will cherish as you recover from so much fun.

"Moonlight and Magnolias" plays weekends only through Sept. 20 at the Theater Barn, located at 654 Route 20 in New Lebanon, N.Y. For tickets and information, call the box office at 518-794-8989.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:12 PM | Permalink

"Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," music and lyrics by David Yazbeck, book by Jeffrey Lanz, based on the film script by Dale Launer and Stanley Shapiro & Paul Henning. Directed by Michael Marotta. At the Theatre Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y.

When this show opened on Broadway in 2005, starring John Lithgow and Norbert Leo Butz, it came with credentials. Based on a very successful 1988 movie starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin, itself based on a reasonably successful movie made in 1964 starring David Niven and Marlon Brando (Bedtime Story), the show also boasted a score by the hottest new songwriter in town, whose previous show, "The Full Monty" which opened in 2000, had been a big hit. "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" followed by four years and played 650 performances.
In brief the story is this: Con-Man Lawrence Jamieson, tries to prevent younger Con-Man Freddy Benson from poaching on his territory in the south of France but, unsuccessful, agrees to coach his rival instead. When Freddy helps him out of a difficult, near-marital situation, they agree to work as partners -- again reluctantly -- to fleece a young heiress. What follows is foolish rivalry, shanghaiing, misconceptions and general hilarity.
At the Theater Barn in New Lebanon all of this is now firmly on their stage under the deliciously magical direction and musical staging of artistic director Michael Marotta.

Marotta knows how to make this material sell and he understands that nasty, somewhat despicable characters can still charm an audience and make them laugh and applaud. He uses every trick available to him here and it pays off nicely.
Megan Rozak, this year's musical heroine, does a nice job with the difficult role of Christine Colgate, a role that originated way back when with Shirley Jones. The musical variation gives to this woman a strange twist of fate that helps the show on its route to success. Rozak is up to the challenge. She sings and dances and does physical comedy with ease. She romances both her leading men, playing to their strengths and using their weaknesses. Her variation on the seductress is adorable (she is a zaftig chick) and her smile is a great part of her charm.
The two men she seduces with her innocence are Trey Compton as Freddy and Matthew Daly as Lawrence. Compton does bumptious very well. He is crude, mawkish and unattractive until groomed by his mentor. His loud-mouthed assertions are wonderfully delivered and this actor can project voice and personality equally well across the footlights. His loutish performance is just perfect in the context of this show and he just couldn't be much better if he tried.
As the elegant, older man, Lawrence, Matthew Daly makes a much needed return to this stage. A popular favorite, and one of my personal favorites as well, he is ideally suited to this role. He can even make his unpleasant sneer into an attractive gesture as he sings, dances and romances Rozak, only one of his many conquests in this show as well as Muriel of Omaha and Jolene of Oklahoma. Daly, warmly remembered for his performance in "Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks" a few seasons back, has developed a more charming side and it works well for him here.
Jerielle Morwitz is a pleasure to see and hear as Muriel Eubanks; her light handed comedy is a pleasant alternative to the more heavy-handed Rozak providing a sensual counterpoint. Daniel Moser is all right as Andre, although his singing wasn't up the standard he presented in his previous show here. Leslie Dorsett is a fine looking, if inadequate singing, Jolene Oakes but she is hilarious in the scene in which she is discouraged from marrying Lawrence. The chorus/ensemble is exceptionally fine although the band could barely be heard (too much fabric, I believe on the teasers that allow for speedy scene changes -- a trade-off that doesn't work for me, I'm afraid).
The team of Phelps and Phelps (Abe -- set, and Allen -- lights) with the aid of director Marotta has produced a fine looking production aided immeasurably by the charming, appropriate and often very funny costumes by Jacci Fredenburg and Kate R. Mincer.
But it is the show that counts with a show like this one and this one is just about as fine as it could be. Talents meld beautifully on this occasion providing a treat of a two and a half hour musical, one whose happy ending keeps on getting happier. So does its audience.

"Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels" plays through Sept. 6 at the Theater Barn at 654 Route 20, in New Lebanon, N.Y. For information and tickets call 518-794-8989.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:50 PM | Permalink

The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh. Directed by Eric Peterson. At Oldcastle Theatre Company.

There's a recessive gene somewhere, a chromosome perhaps, that informs a certain state of instability in the emotional makeup of some mothers and daughters. When control is the prime issue, as it is in Martin McDonagh's play "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," that recessive sense comes to the fore in a big way.
Mag and Maureen live alone together in a creaky old farm house on a hillside in Connemara, County Galway, Ireland. Their relationship is not good; at best it is testy at its worst it is dangerous. Mag tells lies about her daughter to everyone, especially to men, and Maureen rebels by making up a history that may or may not be her own. They pull at one another emotionally and sometimes physically, and no torture is too great for either one when it comes to controlling the actions of the other. Mag has seemingly destroyed her daughter's life and her chances at a life outside this small town and tiny home. Maureen is her servant and only Mag's death will bring about her chance to escape. When she finally gets a man to want her, the situation only gets worse for everyone.
Not a snappy comedy, as you can tell.

In its current incarnation at Oldcastle Theatre Company's Bennington, V., home, it doesn't even get its usually uncomfortable laughs. That doesn't really matter, though, because the two actresses who go at each other for two hours are doing a wonderful job at playing the ugly realities while the two men with whom they spar are doing their finest jobs playing the ridiculous in their characters.
As the unstable and overly cruel daughter Maureen there is Katrina Ferguson. She is tall, big-boned and plain, a stunning combination in the playing of this part. Ferguson makes Maureen alluring at times, seductive and pretty, but she never lets the character shine unduly or display too much of a good thing in her character. When confronted with a story of insanity in her past, she does a wonderful job of parlaying the story into just that, a story. Even in a state of confession, later on, she manages to make her boyfriend, and us, believe that Mag is making things up. Ferguson does it with subtle gestures, facial expressions and a voice that pours rich, thick cream onto the surface of anything she want to coast on. It's a beautiful performance right up to the final moments of the play when more is revealed than she has even conceived of up to that point.
The boyfriend here is Richard Howe delivering a fine performance, particularly in his letter writing scene at the top of Act Two. He is, and looks, a trifle too old for the part, but he plays it well enough so that the discrepancy between age and experience in Pato Dooley is smoothed over by the actor's work.
Playing his brother is a newcomer to this company, Michael Providence. His Ray Dooley is a game lout, into paralyzing the competition in a conversation by constant insistence and repetition. What could be annoying becomes almost charming, and certainly disarming, in his performance. There is even something odd enough about the lad to make you wonder if he could be the dotty one in the quartet of characters.
Another newcomer to the company, Emily Jon Mitchell, plays Mag Folan, Maureen's irascible and irritating mother. I always marvel at an actor or actress who, over the age of forty, can memorize lines and perform a difficult role with apparent ease, as Ms. Mitchell does here. She has control of her tone of voice so that each utterance has its own double layer of meaning. She has an overwhelming sense of the moment and she makes each turn of events pay off for her nicely. She is almost sweet enough to kiss, and always annoying enough to swat, like a bug. Mitchell outdoes herself in each successive scene until we're pretty sure she's the crazy one, but there are still places she wants to take us, and she sets out on her way with confidence and a depraved sort of pride. It's a wonderful characterization that Mitchell gives the woman: a horror who is almost endearing. I think it was what McDonagh was aiming for when he wrote her.
Kenneth Mooney has created a well-designed production and Eric Peterson has put his actors to work within Mooney's setting and brought on the flames of desire, anger, hatred and lust. That the set doesn't burn down is due, only, to the restraint in the playing of Katrina Ferguson. Lit from within, she withholds her heat most of the time and that helps a lot.
See this play twice and it will permanently destroy your desire to visit Ireland and meet the people there. It is clear that though they might fascinate you, they will also frighten you. Let this be a lesson, then, in travel clearance: "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" is great theater and a travel-trend destroyer. Among other things.

"The Beauty Queen of Leenane" plays through Sept. 13 at the Bennington Center for the Arts, located on Route 9 at Gypsy Lane in Bennington, Vt. For tickets call the Oldcastle Theatre Company box office at 802-447-0564 or find them on line at oldcastletheatreco.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:47 PM | Permalink