Peter Bergman Theater Reviews

"The Full Monty," music and lyrics by David Yazbek, book by Terrance McNally. Directed by Michael C. Mensching. At the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y.

Six men in need of restoring their personal pride, both pride of place and of self, agree to work together as a performance team and do the "full monty" -- meaning strip to the fullest extent possible -- in front of a bunch of women. This act will restore their pride. They have all been out of work for six months or more, unable to support their families. They have all found the bare opportunities open to them to be unsatisfying, impossible to bear. They have grown wary of too much honesty and of too little anticipated supports. Three of them underestimate their wives.
They come together to share laughter, music, dancing and group stripping and somehow this bonding of male egos and superegos has the desired effect on everyone, although for a while it appears that even the man whose idea it is to move this action forward might balk and louse it up for everyone. Along the way, as noted, three of the men discover the true mettle of their wives, or ex-wives.Two of them men find love and companionship. One renews his bond with his son who is about to reach the teenage years. One embraces his age and racial differences and comes out a first-class human with a five-star heart. It's a lovely outcome, and that won't spoil anything for you if you haven't seen this show before.
One other fact: the show is set in Buffalo, N.Y., and they talk about Albany, so don't be surprised if even the environs get mentioned. It's in the script.

The ego with the idea is Jerry, played at the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y., by Andy Hassell, making his debut at this theater. A nice looking man who sings passably and dances nicely, he acts his way into the role but doesn't quite act his way out of it again. There is an uneasiness in some of his playing but when his emotions get caught in the action, it's a fine performance. His act two song, "Breeze Off the River" was a delicious moment.
Brian Sheldon, another debut actor here, does very well with the role of Dave, Jerry's best friend. His scenes with his wife Georgie, played sweetly and with heft by Alison Rose Munn, are all wonderful, each one so very different. Harold, the out-of-work "boss" is played by an aggressive if vocally weak Sky Vogel. Amy Fiebke does wonderful work as Harold's wife Vicki.
Horse is played by Chaz Rose. It's a terrific performance from beginning to end. Ethan, who could out-horse Horse, is played with charm and grace by Steven Cardona and his newfound friend Malcolm was given a delectable interpretation by Edward Tolve. Nathan, Jerry's son, is played very cleanly and clearly by Zack Marshall.
Jerielle Morwitz is Pam, the estranged wife, and she give the role, remarkably small in comparison to the other wives, a fine performance. Courtney Nolan Smith as Estelle, Pam's ex-husband's occasional girlfriend, is just right. Trey Compton is funny as Teddy, Pam's new squeeze. Jeanette, the hard-drinking, ever-smoking accompanist is played to the obvious hilt by Carol Charniga who can make the smallest roles into the featured players finest.
The costumes help make this show as much fun as it is and they are the work of Michelle Bohn. Abe Phelps usual great sets seemed a bit heavy this time around and the changes slowed down the action somewhat. Allen E. Phelps lighting design worked wonderfully, punching emotions as well as defining spaces and times of day. He has a flair for musical lighting and the fact that his changes don't make you look up to see what's changed or changing is a tribute to the way in which he has brought this show to visual life.
Other than the set, which muffled the band and clunked itself into place all the time, this is a very good evening of theater, bound to please almost everyone for some element or another. Michael C. Mensching's excellent direction keeps the show focused on the principal issues and make the show a light, bright and airy thing rather than a more solemn look at how men fight depression during their own recession. If I had more than two thumbs, they would all be pointing upward signifying success and near triumph for the Theater Barn's closing show of the summer season.

"The Full Monty" plays weekends through Sept. 5 at 654 Route 20 in New Lebanon, NY. For information and tickets, call the box office at 518-794-8989.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:58 PM | Permalink

"A Delicate Balance" by Edward Albee. Directed by David Auburn. At Berkshire Theatre Festival.

Life's relationships seen as tots on a teeter-totter resting on the fine point of a metronome is what playwright Edward Albee presented to his audiences in this play back in 1966. Time is definitely ticking away at a steady beat and the motion of either immature human will undoubtedly upset the delicate balance that keeps both parties floating in mid-air. Connecting with the ground below as one tumbles, and dealing with the open, unsupportable air as the other one must in turn do, is not an option for the characters in this play. Sadly, for all involved, every see-saw has its Marjorie Daw (a silent screen actress, an orphan with a baby brother left in her care when she was only 15 years old) and in this play she exists as a troubled teenager who has never grown up to be her actual 36-years-old self.
That is Julia, the daughter of Agnes and Tobias, niece of Claire, god-daughter of Harry and Edna. She is announced, in Act One, as coming home from a troubled fourth marriage. She has come home before, found succor and gone on to the next relationship that has failed her. This is a different visit. Her Aunt Claire, sister of Agnes, who is an unredeemable alcoholic, the patron saint of failed relationships it would seem, is in residence rather than in rehab. Jullia's appearance comes at a bad time for the family triple; friends have moved into Julia's room and won't leave. Bang goes the teeter-totter. Smack comes the response.

A solid marriage, one in which everything is working in unison, is present in Harry and Edna. It is even clearer in this contextual home where Agnes and Tobias are clearly not only not in unison, they are seldom even on the same side of the page. Poles apart, they live their lives in an easily modulated manner, outwardly presentable and inwardly shaken. Julia, their child, is even more a misfit in this environment.
She needs a mother, and a father -- both in the popular television idiom of a "Father Knows Best" clan -- and a loving supporting aunt, godparents who would have her to their home for a separate chat, perhaps. Instead she finds her room, her place, occupied, and an edgy, angry, disapproving group of people who only want her to go away and let them live out their separate lives.
That is Albee's vision. What he gets in the final Main Stage production at the Berkshire Theatre Festival doesn't quite match up to this situation.
Jonathan Hogan plays a sweetly downtrodden man who is better at mixing a drink he knows he shouldn't be making for his sister-in-law than he is at listening to the ardent pleas of his daughter for a bit of understanding and compassion. He is a compassionate man; he makes that very clear. It just seems as though too much of it plays out in the wrong directions. Mostly Hogan follows the script and gets things right, but that is technical performance and the underlying need to be emotional in a world that won't accept that from him is never presented to us.
Mia Dillon as Edna, the wife/intruder, never takes the step that Albee demands of her. In a home not her own, she needs to take possession. She needs to stem hysteria with a hard slap. She needs to intimidate in her own sweet way. Dillon never gets to that edge. Instead she takes an insipid tone and turns it into monotone in performance. Her lack of authority and energy is where the play suffers the most...or almost the most.
As Julia we have Mia Barron, who is clothed wrong, directed wrong, played wrong. Julia's current husband is against everything, she tells her parents, but it is clear that she means everything Tobias and Agnes, and by extension Julia, stand for and believe in. Costume designer Wade Laboissonniere has ignored the social standing of these people and given Julia jeans and made her into a 60s hippy with long hair. This is not Julia. Julia is her mother's child, her father's dreadnought, that happily loaded battleship of a woman who is clinging to childishness as a weapon. Not in this production. Here she is a whimperer and that just won't do.
Keir Dullea does a nice job with Harry, Edna's husband. The role is somewhat sympathetic, but again the director misses the point by making him too likeable and not someone dealing with an unexplainable, inner fear. But Dullea does as well as anyone could under this misdirection. We can see why Tobias would want him to stay close.
Agnes is played to the regal hilt by Maureen Anderman, who clearly gets it; she knows intrinsically who her character is and how to play her. With the right opposite(s) on the teeter-totter, she would clearly have the challenge she needs to hold the play, and its incidents, together in that delicate balance that she is presented with at every turn. Anderman has the bearing and the voice and wears the clothes well, even with a dressing gown that is too new, too stiff. This is a stellar performance in the play as written, but it is a bit out of step with the play as directed. Nonetheless it is the right performance of the role that Albee has created.
About the best performance on this stage is Lisa Emery's Claire. Loose-limbed, loose-moralled, alcoholic Claire, who has a yen for inclusion, is delivered alive and well and holding up her end of things masterfully. If the play was about her this would be fabulous. Instead we have someone to enjoy and almost love, but she is not in the same play as the others. Also in the wrong costumes, she is still worth watching; her work is so enjoyable and so much fun that she is just about worth the price of admission.
David Auburn, the director, has somehow missed the concept and lost the suspense, the danger of the play. He gets most of the words in, but little of the author's intent. He and the cast basically miss the urgency, the very real fear, the "plague" brought into play by carriers of that psychological germ who never realize what they do. Without the layers that Albee has created, but not put into words all the time, the play is just a play and not an experience and this show needs that experiential level to succeed.
It is good to hear this dialogue again, to listen to the sound of people as Albee hears them, but that isn't enough to fully satisfy the author's intent or the audience's expectations. I am glad to have seen some wonderful work here, but I am saddened at being offered the shallow end of the swimming pool in a suburban setting where diving is not only allowed, it is mandated.

"A Delicate Balance" plays through Sept. 4 at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, located on Route 7 in Stockbridge. For information and tickets, call the box office at 413-298-5576.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 10:27 PM | Permalink

"The Memory Show," book and lyrics by Sara Cooper, music by Zach Redler. Directed by Joe Calarco. At Barrington Stage Company.

The scope: From the instant this show starts, you know the territory it charts. Pathways to the heart of the matter; characters who know the patter that brings them no relief and sets them up for encroaching grief. A mother and daughter in an apartment neither one knows as "home" and from which neither can ever roam, and each of them so very smart, pent up emotions and release their only hope.
This is the territory and the style of "The Memory Show," a new musical at Barrington Stage Company's Stage Two theater in Pittsfield. Written by a very young team (young in their collaboration and young in years as well) it is a poignant, sometimes funny, often heart-rending musical for only two players, the mother and the daughter, who juggle and fight over memories held close and held onto desperately by both. When they conflict in their memories the eternal fight is on, but when they agree on things then a purity in their relationship flares into being. In either direction from the daily norm, the journey is worthwhile, especially as directed by Joe Colarco.

Alzheimer's informs the text, but the sub-text is older than any disease: It is the difficult relationships that exist between two people who have never been totally honest with one another. Mother claims to have a secret; daughter has heard that before. There is a lack of trust between them over this issue. It turns out that Mom really does harbor a secret, and she spills the beans into her child's lap before the evening ends and while it may not change everything, it opens up new channels of communication where most channels are rapidly shutting down.
Catherine Cox is brilliant as Mother. Roaming through a wonderfully conceived set designed by Brian Prather, she settles in nowhere and yet is somehow consumed by her surroundings at almost every turn. Her growing confusions and her lucid, sensitive moments are touching even when we cannot like or enjoy the character she plays. She is hateful and spiteful and loving and caring, sometimes all at once and Cox navigates those shallow waters like sailor used to blind nights.
Leslie Kritzer is alive on stage in the role of Daughter. Her singing is strong and acted as much as it is sung. Her acting is exquisite. We can feel everything she feels, sense everything she touches, respond with her because she allows us alongside her. There is something rather catastrophic about her face and her hands. They seem to grip you, hold you too close. It's a fabulous technique this actress has of engaging with a strong look, locking in on your reactive sensibilities. When she faces off with Mother, with Cox, you can literally feel the walls rumble.
This is not a show where you go out singing the hit songs. Even so the music is traditional and strong and lovely and the lyrics are rhymed, make sense and are accessible to the ear first time out. You don't need to know the concept album in advance. You don't need to read the words. You just need to hear the songs to know the songs.
Among the best of the 15 or so musical selections "David's Smile" is a lovely song, one I'd like to hear again. The argument piece "You Remember Him Wrong" is another winner. Daughter's introduction number "Single Jewish Female Seeks Man" is a delight and "I'm Unlovable," an aria for Mother, is a moving experience, especially with the monologue that goes along with it. The talent shines in the writing and both Zach Redler, composer, and Sara Cooper, lyricist, are to be commended, applauded, sent on to the next project immediately. We want more from a team that can pen a winner like "You and Me, Toilet." Really. That's the title. I loved it.
Talk about trends: This is the third new show this week to deal with aging parents in an uncomfortable family situation, the other two being Theresa Rebeck's new play "The Novelist" at the Dorset Theatre Festival (seen on Wednesday), "A Song For My Father," by David Budbill (seen Saturday) at Oldcastle Theatre Company in Bennington, and now "The Memory Show," in Pittsfield for Barrington Stage Company. I am weak with emotion, touched deeply and differently by all three. But this one is a musical. I am partial to musicals and catharsis runs deeps in my family genes, and musicals make crying palatable. See them all, but save this one for last. It's a hard topic with a hard resolution, but it sings. How it sings.

"The Memory Show" plays through Aug. 29 at BSC Stage Two at 36 Linden St. in Pittsfield. For information and tickets, call the box office at 413-236-8888.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 11:50 AM | Permalink

"A Song For My Father" by David Budbill. Directed by Eric Peterson. At Oldcastle Theatre Company in Bennington, Vt.

Death never succeeds in glancing off us lightly. It leaves a heavy mark, a welt that never heals itself. In David Budbill's new play, "A Song For My Father," an adult son recalls his father, their difficult relationship and the father's demise in terms that would make Tennessee Williams blush with pride, then wipe away a furtive tear while criticizing life through the bottom of his cocktail glass.
Williams didn't create the memory play but he perfected it with "The Glass Menagerie" and his central character Tom, who recounts the history of the scenes of that play while stepping in and out of those scenes. Budbill echoes that form nicely in this play. The smoothest possible transitions are made between Randy's narrative spaces and his scene playing, and that is all to the good. It is his story, his view of the facts, that makes this play work even though he is a trifle too analytical about the history.

He remembers Frank -- his father -- with a combination of tenderness, diffidence and scorn. At times, his personal movie may be darker than reality; at other times, it's not critical enough. He regards his father as a person of interest but not a person of love and the Frank we meet and get to know is the father he recalls through his own clouded experiences. Now and then his memory allows him to take on some of the blame for moments gone wrong. I think I liked that about him, but I'm not really certain.
This is a son who deserts his family heritage for a life in the wilderness of Vermont. He is a man who travels home when he is absolutely needed and not at other times. He misses a great deal, as he later admits in a final moment that chills an audience into complete silence. It is an awesome experience to sit in the dark, knowing the play has ended and hear nothing, not even the breathing, of a crowd of people sitting near you. This is what the playwright, director and cast have brought to life in Oldcastle Theatre Company's current production up in Bennington, Vt.
Randy is played superbly by Tim Dugan. The actor transcends the poetical script and emerges an honest, whole character with flaws, emotional struggles and determination intact. He takes the occasionally flowery script and manages to ground in reality. We believe that this man can flirt and not mean it and not feel disturbed by this. We get close to him when he allows it and observe him at arms distance when he requires it. Dugan manages these changes with a certain honesty mixed with a dramatic flair. For his character, this combination works well.
His father is played by Gary Allan Poe, a wonderful actor whose work is completely unknown to me. He makes Frank a sympathetic character even when his story parallels my own father's and ought to turn me right off. He knows how to hollow out the atmosphere around himself and insert his stage personality into the gap. Never a false or "acted" moment in his work, he gains sympathy even when he is behaving outrageously. This is a performance that every young actor should see, absorb and learn from before going on to play anything more complex than Tom Sawyer.
Frank's two wives, Ruth and Ivy, are played beautifully by Janis Young, whose work as Ivy completely outshines her Ruth for splash, dash and lack o' compash. (Again, she so closely mirrors my stepmother it is hard to be objective). As Ruth (my mother's name, by the way), Young shines with sincerity and warmth and a hostility to developing trends that is a stilling force. In these two roles, Young moves up into the 10-best category in my book. These are performances no one should miss.
The other women in Frank's life, and they are many, it would seem, are played by Nahassaiu deGannes, a beautiful woman with a lovely voice and a good sense of characterization. She is fun to watch and delivers nicely as nurse Betty.
Peterson has done a wonderful job shaping this play and moving it along toward its inevitable conclusion. He never alarms with unusual or unneeded setups or movements. Instead he works Randy's "voice-overs" into the fabric of the acted relationships in a seamless fashion that is fascinating. His actors all seem to have benefitted from his personal vision of the play and the end-result is a moving, well-acted, nicely envisioned production that though done on the cheap never looks it at all.
The interesting and workable set has been designed by Richard Howe, the perfect costumes created by Deborah Paterson and the excellent and evocative lighting by Keith Chapman.
This play moved its audience, including me, to a silence that is a tribute to the collaborative efforts of all involved. A difficult play, one that could have been better written but satisfies nonetheless, it brings out the interesting in everyone: the interesting thoughts, reactions, motivations and emotions. Joining the finest theater of the season, and there have been some excellent new works presented in the region all summer long, "A Song For My Father" is another of those absolutely must see plays.
Remember I said that.

"A Song For My Father" plays through Sept. 5 for the Oldcastle Theatre Company at Bennington Center for the Arts, Route 9 at Gypsy Lane, in Bennington, Vt. For information and tickets, call the box office at 802-447-0564.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 3:43 PM | Permalink

"Show Boat," book by Oscar Hammerstein II based on the novel by Edna Ferber; lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and P.G. Wodehouse, music by Jerome Kern. Directed by John Saunders. At the Mac-Haydn Theatre in Chatham, N.Y.

It seems as though there are as many "versions" of the musical "Show Boat" as there are productions. In the current offering at the Mac-Haydn Theatre in Chatham, N.Y., for example, there is an edition of the show in which the married heroine and her husband have no children and are reunited after only a brief split in their marriage, before Magnolia Hawks Ravenal can go on with her career and become a Broadway star. At nearly two hours and 40 minutes as a running time, this can hardly be described as a tab version, an old-fashioned way of describing what was basically a touring show cut down to accommodate the difficulties of being on the road. So what do we have here, after all?
We have a good show with heart-tugging scenes, sensational hit songs and a chorus that would indicate that the southland in the era of the river steamboats was mostly white and only a few blacks lived, worked or were entertained there. We have a female Sandow, the Strongman at the 1894 Chicago World's Fair. We have a Little Egypt, the exotic dancer, who can just about manipulate her hips. We have some favorite moments in all theater, beautifully performed by a cast that tries so hard to be good that they succeed.

The Mac-Haydn has mounted a highly credible production. Costumes designed by Jimm Halliday are basically beautiful. Lights by Kevin Gleason are appropriately bright and well-focused with a superb color palate. Laura Brignull's sets are workable for this arena format and don't interfere with scenes being played. Director John Saunders has put on a very good show indeed and he has developed beautifully designed stage pictures that allow Karla Shook's dances to work with ease and grace.
A talented cast get to show off the things they do best in this presentation. Heather Dudenbostel is a lovely Julie, the troubled blues singer whose second departure, like her first, gives Magnolia a chance at stardom. Dressed in elegant style, in dark green and gold, she is a dynamic sight to behold. Her singing and acting in both acts was touching and emotional.
Saunders, the director, also plays Cap'n Andy Hawks (take note, program note writer -- and while you're at it, check your author's credits, too). He is both charming and facile, giving the character's long stage monologue about his play every opportunity it needs to impress and delight. He gets his laughs, too, as do Andrea Doto and Seth Eliser as Ellie and Frank. Doto delivers nicely with her song "Life Upon the Wicked Stage," and the two duet well in song and spar sweetly in their dialogue. Eliser has a wonderful face to watch as he uses his body to sing reactions to the goings-on around him.
Stephanie Gaertner stepped in for Nancy Evans as Parthy Hawks (Evans suffered a broken nose at the matinee) and was absolutely perfect in the role. Monte Howell was an excellent Joe, singing "Ol' Man River," and Yvette Monique Clark made a hearty Queenie whose "Ballyhoo" went over really well.
In the lead roles of Magnolia Hawks and Gaylord Ravenal, the theater provided two of its best: Caitlin Fischer and Ben Jacoby. They not only looked good together and sang well together, there was a real on-stage chemistry that was compulsive and heart-felt. Fischer did modesty a good turn in her performance working her way from it into confidence and then bringing it back late in the show when she needed it. Jacoby was eternally strong and determined and romantic in this role. When the two of them kissed, it was actually electric -- you could hear the crackling from the head-mikes all over the theater.
If you know the show, then go and enjoy the performance and the reminiscing that must come from what you see and hear. If you don't know it, try it out -- it was the first musical to deal with miscegenation, with blacks passing as white, with child abandonment and with gambling as a positive lifestyle. And the score is wonderful including, as it does, "Why Do I Love You?," "Only Make Believe," Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man of Mine," and the other hits mentioned above.
On just about every level, limitations included, this is a good theater experience. You owe yourself one, don't you? This is it.

"Show Boat" plays through Sept. 5 at the Mac-Haydn Theater, located on Route 203, north of Chatham, N.Y. For information and tickets, call 518-392-9292.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 7:55 PM | Permalink

"Sea Marks" by Gardner McKay. Directed by Daniela Varon. At Shakespeare & Company.

In the mid-1970s, young, up-and-coming Broadway actors Veronica Castang and George Hearn played star-crossed lovers in Liverpool in the play "Sea Marks," written by TV's "Adventures in Paradise" star Gardner McKay. They also filmed the play. After that, it filtered its ways into the regional theater arena, and now it's here in our backyards in the Berkshires, adorning the Shakespeare and Company season. To rediscover it now, after so many years -- and to have so completely forgotten the play after so much time -- is to sit down to a simple dinner and come away with a feast.

The richness in this two-character play is based in the cultures of the men of Aran and the women of Wales. On Cliffhorn Heads, an island in the west of Ireland, every man knows every other man and woman. After generations of intermarriage, they must all be related, but the men of this island seldom leave it, rarely bring anyone from outside into their world. Colm Primrose is typical. He has known few off-islanders. Then he meets Timothea Stiles, a Welsh woman who has left her heritage far behind her to forge a life and a lifestyle of her own. Colm is fascinated, but she can't recall having met him during her visit to Cliffhorn Heads. A correspondence between them changes all that.
When they finally meet in her apartment in Liverpool, England, there are sparks, then flares and then the flame of exuberant sensuality. His words become her mission and her acceptance becomes his. Like twin comets, they collide and in that collision is the play.
Kristin Wold is sensational as Timothea. She brings intensity into the relationship without every sacrificing the womanly delights of Timothea. Wold is delicate in her constant pushing of her new friend and partner and when delicacy no longer works, she exercises the alternatives. There is a sense that her punch could pack a wallop. Wold knows how to modulate, from scene to scene, the aggressive and passive aspects of her character. She pulls punches and punches for effect. She seems to have her own emotions in check as she manipulates the relationship, but now and then the woman inside the actress intrudes on the character with what appears to be her own personality, although I may be entirely wrong in this and it just may be that director Daniela Varon has called both the minor and the major chords in Wold's performance.
Matching her performance and at times exceeding it for subtlety is the Colm of Walton Wilson. Just as Diane Prusha amazed me making an indelible impression a few years back in "Enchanted April," Wilson in this role steps forward out of the shadow of secondary roles, nicely played, into the brilliant light of masterful interpretation. Colm in Wilson's hands is a man who feels the intensity of daylight, the deep chill of moonlight on a cloudy night. He doesn't merely write a letter, no Wilson's Colm composes a tone poem, a prose poem, a transcription of the elemental beauty of the universe in a few words. While the play is forcing this issue, the performance is making it practical. Wilson gives us a grounded reality that is inescapable. Here is a man able to bring a simple scene of mourning and disappointment to the highest level of extreme emotions without being sloppy, or silly, or supercilious. He brings the edgiest reactions into his interpretation. A limited man, in Wilson's hands, becomes a man without limitations.
Kiki Smith has created a perfect set, although one that requires a lot of a-vista adjustments and costumes that help define their wearers. Stephen Ball's wonderful lighting adds a level of realism that isn't otherwise available in this modern fairy tale.
Varon has kept close watch on her actors, it seems, pulling away layers of artifice to reveal what can only be seen as real. The end-result is a play that won't slip away, this second time, one that will remain in the memory. Oddly, the performance I saw didn't get the usual, ugly and ordinary standing ovation that has come to mean so little. Instead it received what it deserved, an ovation as obeisance. Brilliance strikes us just that way.

"Sea Marks" plays in repertory through Sept. 4 at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox located at 70 Kemble St. For information, schedules and tickets, call the box office at 413-637-3353.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 9:33 PM | Permalink

"Absurd Person Singular" by Alan Ayckbourn. Directed by Jesse Berger. At Barrington Stage Company.

Sidney Hopcraft is a contractor with a deeply felt need to advance in both business and in the social classes. He and his wife Jane host a Christmas eve reception in his home in suburban England for several other couples. Among them are Geoffrey and Eva Jackson and Ronald and Marion Brewster-Wright. Each of the three acts in this comedy, now on stage at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, moves us forward one more year exactly to the next Christmas eve and in so doing reveals to us the success of Sidney's efforts and the opposite reactions of his new-found friends.
Ayckbourn writes wonderfully funny lines and the situation he sets up, while artificial, is very humorous. He uses the traits found in the first appearance of each of the six participants to show us their true natures, then exploits them shamelessly within the framework of the play. Marion, for example, the wealthiest of the wives and the most sophisticated, is a drinker who becomes an alcoholic and whose imbibing ultimately turns her into an almost-not-funny harridan.

Jane Hopcraft is the most likeable of characters and also the one who is the least transformed over the three-year time period. Her clothes are more expensive, but her nature is just about what it was when the play starts. She is played in this production by Julia Coffey, who is extremely funny, both in her line delivery and her every movement. She delivers nicely on the premise established in the first few moments of the play.
As her husband we have Robert Petkoff, who is funny, I imagine, no matter what. He and Coffey never waver in their portrayals, their accents thick and maintained, their relationship clearly affectionate if difficult, with Naval salutes and heel-clicks. He manages to grow more manipulative and even a bit dark toward the end of the play, but she is just the same as she was, seemingly untouched by their successes. Their kitchen is limited to only two doors; this set plays like classic farce with Petkoff, in particular, in and out of the doors in the midst of rapid-fire dialogue (All three acts are set in different kitchens with two entrances each -- three if you count the window in Act Two). Petkoff has his timing down perfectly as to his entrances. A very funny, rhythmic portrayal.
Christopher Innvar is Geoffrey. He is funny in Act One and seemed to be very much inside his role. In Act Two, set in his kitchen, he lost his accent (an Innvar trait, it seems) and so lost his believability in the role.
His wife is played with an openness and an honesty and a flair for physical comedy by Finnerty Steeves. She turns the second act into the most hilarious possible mime show. Set on suicide, she works with what she can find until she has exhausted every opportunity. Her turn-around in Act Three was delicious and clearly she grows throughout the play from a petulant woman-child into a woman of grace, beauty and stability. Steeves takes these changes in hand and makes them palpable.
Graeme Malcolm plays Ronald with typical British charm and easy sophistication, like the best of the BBC. In his own set in Act Three, he is revealed as a man who may be exactly what he seems to be or a man unlike any seen since the days of Charles Dickens. Malcolm, like the others makes the transitions work simply by being true to his character as Ayckbourn has written him.
The frosting on the comedy-cake is the Marion, played by Henny Russell. From act to act, she slips further away from her easy sophistication until she is revealed as an alcoholic hussy with a penchant for luring unsuspecting husbands. It is a comic masterpiece in her able hands.
The three kitchens created by set designer Jo Winiarski are all winners (or winniarskis). Each is the perfect setting for the women who occupy them. Sara Jean Tosetti's costumes reek of the 1970s, from the layered panties to the neck-scarves worn by both men and women. Peter West's lighting is very evocative.
The term "laff-riot" was coined in the period in which this play was written and, for all I know, may have been created for the Ayckbourn plays as a clever advertising slogan. It does apply to this production of this particular Ayckbourn play. Even at its most fallible it is most comic and the laughter cannot be contained. You have to laff.

"Absurd Person Singular" plays through Aug. 29 at Barrington Stage Company's 30 Union St. theater in Pittsfield. For schedules and tickets, contact the box office at 413-236-8888.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:30 AM | Permalink

"Altar Boyz," book by Kevin Del Aguila, music and lyrics by Gary Adler & Michael Patrick Walker. Directed by Bert Bernardi. At the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y.

When Matthew, Mark, Luke and Juan get together with Abraham, music is likely to happen, so forming a group, a boy band for God(s), seems inevitable. These five guys, Christians all, even the Jewish one, sing to the Lord and praise to the skies their firm belief that man can be saved, and should be saved, by music. Even the sinners in the audience, and those upon the boards, can be factored in to their mission, especially with the help of the SSDX12, an electronic gadget that counts the number of sinners still to be found in the house ("SS" stands for "Soul Searcher").
There, in 12 musical numbers and 87 minutes, is "Altar Boyz." It's a slight plot, played for the fun of it requiring a small band, some headphone mikes, some '80s/'90s costumes and some vim and verve and vigor. Those three v's are all in evidence on the stage of the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y., these warm August nights.

Staged and Directed by Bert Bernardi, with additional choreography by Steven Cardona, the boys perform almost non-stop, moving to the funky groove of the show's ineffectual songs. Everything you see in those late-night TV commercials for the collected "Best of..." albums is in evidence on the stage and, to be totally honest, is fun to watch. High stepping, quick turns, arm-thrusts with and without fists, karate kicks are all happening number to number. With a touch of sadness offered by Juan, the piece has its genuine emotional side as well, making this the complete experience from jazz variation to sweet confessional and slightly gay love surprise.
Matthew, the group's lead singer, is played by Theater Barn regular Trey Compton, whose singing is strong and direct and whose dancing has never been better than it is here. Barry Shifrin is his best friend Mark. Shifrin adds an all-too obvious deviation from the norm to his performance, which actually seemed to be a bit over the edge for this script. Nevertheless, he is an effective performer who adds energy to the proceedings without half trying.
Tall, thin Tom Garruto plays Luke, almost an Italian-American stereotype, Travolta at the stretch. He plays the type for all he's worth, while Eddie Maldonado brings a definite Latin flair and flavor to the table as Juan. Maldonado has a million-dollar smile and hips that don't seem to ever stop moving. And then there's Abraham. Steven Cardona plays the out of his class renegade Jewish guy with a neat attitude and a fine style.
Independently, each "boy" carries a tune, but sometimes when singing together there was lack of harmony, of symmetry. Their coordinated movements as a group was really fantastic, but their five-part harmony just sounded like five guys singing different notes, maybe even different keys. So much of the show is sung, and sung as a group, that this weakness in delivery lessens the impact of the piece which is unfortunate, for each one has talent and ability. The singing did improve during the show, so perhaps one problem could be solved with a real vocal warm-up backstage before the show begins. Just a suggestion.
Victoria Casella's combo, with Chris Theriault on guitar and Ian Tucksmith on percussion, adds a lot to the flavor of the offering. Tracey Richardson's set, Michelle Bonn's costumes and Allen E. Phelps' lighting are first-rate here, but Jason Tamborini and staff, handling the sound, missed cue after cue, leaving one voice after another struggling to be heard. John Earle has programmed the Sony SSDX12 to a fare-thee-well (it has been provided by Woodwind Productions).
This show doesn't have the cleverness of "Forever Plaid," nor is it as irreverential as "Nunsense" (it has been booted about that Altar Boyz is a clever hybrid of these two shows), but it does bring a peculiar quality of its own into play: It tackles the rock forces of God to the ground in a gentle tussle and adds a bit of today's political conscience into the mixture. I enjoyed the show but wouldn't rush to see it again any time soon; frankly, I want to leave someone else the opportunity to find a good seat.

"Altar Boyz" plays through Aug. 22 at the Theater Barn located at 654 Route 20, New Lebanon, N.Y. For information and tickets call the box office at 518-794-8989.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 7:56 PM | Permalink

"Fifth of July" by Lanford Wilson. Directed by Terry Kinney. At Williamstown Theatre Festival.

When youth wears out early, it leaves behind the stench of middle-age worn too early and held too high. Two of the men in Lanford Wilson's family comedy "Fifth of July," set in 1977, have reached that plateau, and neither of them realizes it. Once best friends, once almost lovers in those easy, promiscuous days at Berkeley when the Vietnam War raged onward and the peace and love movement snarled and snapped at the news cameras for every photo-op, these two men have moved on and neither of them sees just how far and how dangerously differently that time between has made them. One of them, Kenneth Talley Jr., is the host of a Fourth of July celebration in his ancestral home in Lebanon, Mo. The other, John Landis, with his wanton wife, is his guest.
If that was the story, we'd be home-free in this triumphant Wilson play being given a most-worthwhile production at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, but that is not the story. With six other characters involved, the story is a much bigger one, a much more personal one.

These two men have partners, and for better or worse, those partners have stories, too. Gwen Landis is wealthy, whacked-out, wasted and wanting an identity, a career, to present as her self. Jed Jenkins is gardening his heart out to save his heart from breaking at the rejection he gets from his lover, Kenneth. Ken's sister June is courting her own daughter, raised by relatives, trying to create a mother/daughter relationship that will make sense and have resonance. Shirley Talley, 13 going on 21, needs to prove to someone, almost anyone, that she is not just a girl, but a special girl, one with a touch of genius, destined for great things. And, then, there is Sally Friedman, nee Talley: Sally Talley. Heroine of the next play Wilson wrote, Sally Talley, who marries Matt Friedman, is incidentally the center of this play, too, although not the intended center. But there is that about her that makes her hold center stage, even from far off stage right. Sally is the story.
In Terry Kinney's beautifully constructed production, on a curiously wonderful set designed by David Gallo, Sally moves inexorably into the center square. Played with an extraordinary tenderness and a glorious smile by Elizabeth Franz, Sally focuses for all the others their problems and their solutions. Sometimes with a line, sometimes with a look or a gesture, Franz becomes that magic wand every family craves to solve their problems. Less Auntie Mame and more Dolly Levi, she craftily maneuvers people into alignments. Franz has a voice that melts sugar and expressive eyes that bring tears to your own without half trying. The one thing she never convincingly portrays is frailty. Heading for a retirement community, fainting at a funeral, Franz's Sally seems rather destined to ride naked on a white horse down Main Street in a parade. To watch this actress bring to vivid life the older version of the heroine in Wilson's next play, "Talley's Folly," is to give witness to what is greatest in the art of the theater.
Luckily for her and for us, she is surrounded by actors who can bring fine qualities to their roles, acting a bit harder, a bit better, perhaps for her presence in their company. Shane McRae is wonderful, natural, bitter and bittersweet as Kenneth Talley. A character who thrives on rationale, McRae adds a dimension of masculinity tempered by fragility to the part. It is easy to understand his love for Noah Bean's Jed. Bean is gorgeous and strong and manly, nothing forced, nothing acted. He is supportive of his partner, and Bean plays that for all it is worth, scooping him up in his arms when necessary, standing devotedly behind him when that's best for Kenneth. The ease and naturalness of the relationship portrayed in this play's most curious sensitivity is remarkable. Remember that this is 1977, played in 1978. It almost makes you want to move to this town.
Kally Duling makes Shirley Talley into the perfect mouthpiece, the correct eyes for Wilson. In some bizarre way, this play is something very real, for Shirley sees what Wilson writes and sometimes she speaks the words he might have uttered at her age. Her mother, June, is played by Kellie Overbey in a somewhat lackadaisical manner. A character somehow out of step with her family, her contemporaries and her own child, she is played that way and her presence adds little to the production's success. Luckily she doesn't detract from it either.
John and Gwen are played by David Wilson Barnes and Jennifer Mudge. Loud, vibrant, motivated to move and carry on, these two actors assume every aspect of their husband-and-wife counterparts and make us both love and resent them. Too much comes too easily for Gwen and we see that in every movement Mudge gives to her, from a simple kick-back of her heels to a table leap, to a toss-down of a towel, reality. She's terrific, in a word. Barnes is almost her equal, but for a long moment, when John is confronted with his own shaky sexuality, Barnes seems to want to back-burner this. It is the one weak moment in the cast's performances and Kinney may be at fault here, but it's hard to know for sure.
The Landis' friend and songwriter, a stranger to almost everyone, is played with a luscious diffidence by Danny Deferrari.
The production looks right, thanks in part to the costumes designed by Sarah J. Holden and the lighting by David Weiner. Words sometimes got gobbled up by subtle sound effects, but one thing remains clear: this is Sally Friedman's play, and as she goes about being Sally in her finest Sally way, Sally claims her rightful position in the hierarchy of family positions.

"Fifth of July" plays through Aug. 22 on the Williamstown Theatre Company's Main Stage, located at 1000 Main St. in Williamstown. For information and tickets, contact the box office at 413-597-3400.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 10:58 PM | Permalink

"The Last Goodbye," book conceived and adapted by Michael Kimmel, music and lyrics by Jeff Buckley. Directed by Michael Kimmel. At Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Thank goodness for the talented people of this world. Thank goodness for Leonard Cohen and Benjamin Britten, for example. They give us two of the finest musical moments in this new show by Jeff Buckley. "Corpus Christi Carol," sung by the character Paris, is Britten's excellent contribution, and Cohen's "Hallelujah," introduced by Benvolio at the finale of the show, is a standout hit. These are, of course, in Buckley's own versions of the other composers' hits.
It becomes clear how truly tragic it is that tragedy transcends trash. Euro-trash, at any rate. In this modern, update of the Shakespeare play "Romeo and Juliet," author Michael Kimmel holds fast to the language and style of William Shakespeare in the dialogue while interpolating songs by Buckley into the mix. He places his play where Will did, in Verona, and the people who populate the square where Capulets and Montagues fight are mostly from the lower end of the human spectrum. Euro-trash. They dress, or cross-dress, in slutty chic, or teen-age casual, or last year's styles. Their hair is mohawked or spiked or just unkempt.

And then there's Juliet Capulet, young, quasi-virginal, probably on Ridalin most of the time to control her ADD. She flits about, seemingly unable to keep herself focused on much, and when she awakens from her self-inflicted catatonic state, she is early, erotically charged and over-the-top. Even so, her death is tragic and moving, even while singing the title song.
Romeo is sweatpants-ed, T-shirted, flannel-hooded and in sneakers. He stands out from the Euro-trash crowd by appearing perfectly mid-western American. He is a poor dancer, sings in falsetto a lot of the time, which makes him appear even younger than he is, and permanently in love with someone (just like in the Shakespeare play).
Mercutio is a girl; the Prince of Verona is gay; Lady Montague seems to be a widow from wrong side of the tracks; the Nurse is a young nymphet; the Friar is a hippy left over from 1972; Lady Capulet is gorgeous and young and the victim of spousal abuse; Paris is lascivious; Tybalt is a beautiful "baiter" always looking for trouble; Rosaline is a slut right out of "Married, With Children." You have to love this updating, for somehow it all just works visually. Of course, the Veronese might sue, but the American image of urban Italians prevails here, thank you, Hollywood and television.
Does that give you an impression of this show? Well, it's basically all you'll learn about the production concept from me, until we talk about the score. But that comes later.
Kelli Barrett is a beautiful and passionate Juliet, a replica in some ways of Natalie Wood in "West Side Story," that other show based on the same play. Her look, hair, makeup and dress, seems to stem from that popular source. Damon Daunno plays her husband. He isn't the best-looking young man in the company, but he has a sweetness that is reflected in his smile that works well in this role.
Tybalt is a stunner named Ashley Robinson who is effective in this part, mostly because his looks belie the nastiness of the character. His Tybalt is one-track-minded and he plays this very well. Michael Park is most effective as Capulet, finding the darkest edges for the man most of the time, but then resorting to a native charm that works for him. Nick Blaemire makes a marvelous Benvolio, the one character who survives throughout by remaining neutral and nice.
Chloe Webb is wonderful as the Nurse, even if her singing voice is the least effective in the company. Jo Lampert almost pulls off the cross-dressing Mercutio. She sings like thunder over the next hill and acts up a storm. And she can fight, too. She's good! Jesse Lenat is a character stand-out as the Friar, always consistent and always interesting. Celina Carvajal introduces Rosaline into the proceedings as a hostile, controlling bitch right out of The Sopranos.
Merle Dandridge is a beautiful woman playing a woman who is beautiful. Her quixotic emotional shifts were well handled and her singing was equally effective.
On a fascinating set by Michael Brown that was constantly being transformed by the company, dressed in erotic and odd costumes by Anne Kennedy that really defined each character's inner character, and lit romantically and harshly -- as the moment demanded -- by Ben Stanton, this is a very engaging physical production. Ken Travis' sound design, however, often left the singers out of the equation so far too often the lyrics were unintelligible.
The combined stage direction forces of Michael Kimmel and choreographer Sonya Tayeh were reminiscent of some of the odd moments in theater and film, such as the "beatnik" number in the film of "Funny Face" or the "Rhythm of Life" in the film version of "Sweet Charity." This choice didn't always work for this show, but when it did, it really truly did. Kimmel used the set effectively as his company moved in, out around and through it and it was nice, in this instance, to see the band members on stage.
Musically, the show is outside the realm of reality. Though Buckley's sound is consistent, it didn't always really fit into the script, particularly when the words were Will's and not Michael's. It might have worked better if the current author had transformed the Shakespeare into current vernacular before adding his own words for the characters keeping the gist of the Shakespeare and even the best-known quotes. The move from dialogue into song usually went smoothly, but then the lyrics couldn't always support the moment as they moved into their own particular realm.
Still, in spite of all the disparate elements that make up this show, the tragic ending was moving, as it must be for the final scene to work. Buckley's hit song "Grace" comes next to closing, as the 10 o'clock number (so-called because it came just before the finale -- usually the place for a hit song to be added) and it does work there. Even so, the best pieces in the show, other than the Cohen finale and the Britten item, were Buckley's "Morning Theft," which was perfect for its spot, "Everybody Here Wants You" which made no sense but meant everything to Romeo's wooing, and "Forget Her."
I wouldn't necessarily see this one again, but once is interesting enough to spend a night with this show. You can do worse. You can do better. You owe it to yourself to risk it if you have the chance to see a lot of shows this season. You just might fall in love, or be moved, or want to know more about the man who wrote the songs. That's an interesting story in itself.

"The Last Goodbye" plays through Aug. 20 on the Nikos Stage at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, located on Main Street in Williamstown. For information and tickets, contact the box office at 413-597-3400.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 9:26 PM | Permalink

"Macbeth" by William Shakespeare. Directed by Eric Hill. At Berkshire Theatre Festival

History may take its time happening, but in a Shakespeare tragedy directed by Eric Hill, time is speeded up to an almost intense level and the English language as it was once spoken becomes a whirlwind of words forming instantly fading images that pile up somewhere off-stage-right in mountainous structures that soon will fade into memory. The biggest complaint heard from theater-goers who don't like Shakespeare is how long it takes to get the story seen and heard. Well, no fear with the Berkshire Theatre Festival's current offering. The story is on, under way, and over before you even know it.
The energy generated and expended in just the first act, one hour and 15 minutes long, could light up the town of Stockbridge for about 37 hours. Words tumble out of mouths, hit the ground and bounce back up to be confronted by more words. Sometimes they make perfect sense and sometimes the senses are assaulted by the nonsense engendered in this form of delivery. Somehow by the end of the act it all makes sense again.

This is Hill's style of direction. The "Scottish Play" (you don't say it's real name, folks; that is bad luck) tolerates it well. His players seem to know how to get out their phrases in comprehensible ways while tossing off those lines as though they were playing basketball in the corner court. In. Jump. Spin. Toss. Rebound. And so it goes.
Among the best of the players in this game of "Shakespeare On the Side" are some remarkable young men and women. Walter Hudson, for example, as Banquo, the title character's best friend and hereditary enemy, commands the stage in the rapid-fire game. Once murdered, his cadaverous corpse becomes a symbol of all that's wrong in the Denmark of Scotland. Make no mistake, there is something rotten here, besides the incidents in the plot. There is something very rotten and wrong in this production of a play that bears a long dire history of tragedies all its own.
Hill's direction is based on eastern philosophies of theater presentation, and while that can be compelling -- the three witches, for example, manage to work well in a heavily stylized form of delivery, and Elizabeth Terry, Tommy Schrider and Equiano Mosieri are eerie and weird and mesmerizing in these roles -- it can also keep an audience at a distance. This play should draw in its viewers, hold them fast and nearly torture them with anxieties. This production never quite does that, although it has its moments, most of them early on in the first act.
C. J. Wilson is an interesting but never compelling Macbeth, or "Lord The Scottish Play." There is no grandeur in his playing, not that that is easy to achieve. Still, there is no majesty either and no real commanding presence. He delivers his lines in a deliberate fashion and is generally understandable. He has a good look and a fine stance and in the final sequence, fighting shadows for his life and sanity, he clearly loses his grip on reality. Finely done, but never engaging.
As "Lady The Scottish Play," Keira Naughton delivers the lines but never the beauty, the bizarre, twisted beauty of the woman who utters them. Her sleepwalking scene in Act Two, one of the few places where the play slows down time to become a moment of reality, she is not sympathetic. She is as cold as a cucumber, as ritualized as a career nun nearing the end of her days. It's too bad. Naughton should be able to do much better at this stage in her career.
Brandy Caldwell is a fine Lady Macduff, Ralph Petillo is a fine Duncan and an even better Doctor and Aaron Costa Ganis an excellent Malcolm. The ensemble players make the most of their moments and some of those moments are chilling.
The star of the show is definitely the set designed by Joseph Varga. An ugly marble cavern in a quarry it accepts the odd lights and projections thrown all over it by lighting designer Dan Kotlowitz. The instant changes in place and time of day are actually realized in this combination of set and lights. Olivera Gajic's nearly monotone costumes function well, but someone should have explained to her how awful an idea it was to put Naughton into a tight-bodiced strapless red evening gown, which made her shoulders too broad, her arms too sluggish and her body too squat. It is not the best look of the evening.
It's a get in, get it on, get it over with, get out evening with Shakespeare. Two hours and 17 minutes with the intermission and someone's head is on a pike. It's intriguing, indeed, and not a major investment on your part, so why not give it a try. You might, like me, find it fascinating but not arresting. You might find it more alluring or elusive. The Scottish Play is on the boards with a new style and a new sound and it is someone's cup of tea. Yours, perhaps.

"Macbeth" plays through Aug. 14 at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, located on Route 7 in Stockbridge. For information and tickets, contact the box office at 413-298-5576.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:17 PM | Permalink

"The Taster" by Joan Ackermann. Directed by Tina Packer. At Shakespeare & Company.

Henry, a broker without work, is suffering from a number of psychological complexes, the least of which is a personal identity crisis that leaves him gasping for enough fragments of many alphabets to use to reconstruct himself. His wife, Claudia, may be having an affair, but even she isn't able to conceive it, at least not in polite conversation with her husband. Their nutritionist friend Syd wants to recommend some herbs and some foods to Henry, but finds it difficult to cope with the depressed man's recent discovery, the pomegranate. Bernard, who taught Henry, wants to see a Basque play well-translated and brought to a conclusion, something Henry seems unlikely to accomplish.
That's not the main story. That's the secondary play, the framework situation, the counterfeit that defines the real.
In the 1500s, Octavio Pillars, a royal taster, befriends both the king, Gregorio, and his damaged queen, Mariana, who is condemned to death for not conceiving an heir. When she suddenly manages to do so, things change radically for all three people. And when the child is born, the definition of poison takes on new shadings. That's the main story.
Or is it?

Playwright Joan Ackermann weaves these tales together so masterfully that these two stories intersect in both casual and distinctly urgent ways, making the entire play into a unified, well-knit piece that cannot bear a separation of one tale from the other. Actually there are three stories, for Bernard's short story is an essential drift on its own.
Five actors play 10 roles, and the switch back and forth from one legendary figure to another, more mythical one -- present day or not -- is a wonder to behold. Of course, regulars at Shakespeare & Company will have seen smoother transitions than some of these by now and so there will be no sense of wonder here for them. They have come to expect such acting marvels. For the rest of the audience, expect a hush, a chill in the air and a flash as people reimburse the audience's investment with a payment of interest unlike any other.
Tina Packer has directed this play with a clear love for the writing, the characters and the language of the play. There is the true beauty. In spite of Ackermann's clear gift for plot and character development, it is the language and how she uses it, that makes this play into a miracle. She presents her show with an impeccable English, some gratitude for Euskara, the ancient Basque tongue, and a dangerous level of physical interplay that has, over the recent seasons, characterized this company as a team of players who will stop at nothing for the laugh, for the tear, for the amazement felt by an audience. This show is no exception. Packer literally packs into the play enough movement to keep a self-winding watch very, very happy. She has brought her actors to an oddly healthy place in which they can comfortably shed their own skin as they take on the multi-layers of performance interpretation for which this company is famous.
Shining bright in a role that must have been written just for her, Maureen O'Flynn adds her lovely voice to two Basque musical numbers while providing us with a seductive, brutally elusive Queen Marianna and a non-seductive contemporary equivalent named Claudia. She is expert in defining each of her roles. They are vitally different and yet once in a while when they need to dissolve, we can see O'Flynn falling into that widening gulf. She also sings the songs with gorgeous tone, a legato sensibility that lets things flow and a high respect for the odd-sounding words.
Tom O'Keefe plays both her husbands extremely well. The manic manner of Henry comes through from his first entrance and it grows constantly as he begins to fit himself back into his own world. The "love the common man" sensibility of the king is heftily portrayed by O'Keefe and his heartier moments are delightful alterations in his otherwise dark personality.
This show is all about personality and Robert Biggs, in both his gigs, has much of it. Bernard is an almost tongue-in-cheek professor. He shows his intelligent face in this role and he takes his three brief scenes in stride leaving an impression of erudite understanding. However, as Estaban he manages to go much further with fewer lines to say. This king's man is a human being from his eyebrow to his toes and with gesture, facial expression and sounds he engenders compassion.
Zachary Krone's two roles are called Guillaume and he handles them both very well. It is the titular role, though, played by Rocco Sisto, that truly takes top honors here. The Taster, Octavio Pillars, is a man who has taken the job of assuming the death of kings to new heights with his scientific approach who makes us wary, makes us laugh, makes us weep with a florid flurry of emotions. Sisto is brilliant in this role. He has taken every ounce of manhood and dispensed with physical strengths to give us psychological ones. He plays out thoughts rather than actions. He is generally always in motion and yet he is the calm, unstirred center of things.
Is this Henry's play or Octavio's play? The only thing that matters is that the two of them have met though more than five centuries lie between them. A grand physical production holds them close together.
Designed by Yoshi Tanokura, with superb costumes by Govane Lohbauer, rhythmic lighting designed by Christopher Thielking and erotic music by Scott Killian the trappings of this play seemingly roll out the dough of this pastry of a play whose filling is humanity at its most complex.
Onward, Clothilde. Oh, go see the play -- I cannot tell you everything.

"The Taster" plays in repertory through Sept. 4 in the Founders' Theatre at Shakespeare & Company, located at 70 Kemble St. in Lenox. For information and tickets, contact the box office at 413-637-3353.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:46 PM | Permalink

"Mame," book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. Directed by John Saunders. At the Mac-Haydn Theatre.

Complacency is an instance of contented self-satisfaction, says my dictionary. Complacent, it continues, is satisfied to a fault. Therein lies the problem with the current production of "Mame" at the Mac-Haydn Theatre. It seems as though everyone came into this project assuming that just putting it on was enough, that audiences would love it no matter what and that working out its interior problems was just not worth the effort because no one would need that; they only wanted to hear the songs and watch the dances.
Not so, Director Saunders. Not so. A "Mame" without energy and enthusiasm, without effort, is a "Mame" that merely exists by the skin of its, or her, teeth.

Monica M. Wemitt is a perfectly cast Mame Dennis. She has the joie, the wit, the voice and the wisdom to make this character into one of her most memorable performances, but for much of the first act she is only barely there, hardly in the show at all and certainly not the dominant character that Mame ought to be. She is overshadowed by a mere slip of a youth, one Jack Mastrianni, charmingly playing her nephew Patrick. She is submerged in a sea of familiar (by this point in the season) faces and fannies as they parade around the stage on which she cannot upstage them. Even Karla Shook as Vera Charles, Mame's oldest and dearest friends, wipes Wemitt off the absorbent turkish towel of a production that Saunders has delivered.
This all changes in the second act, but by then you almost don't care any more. For her confrontation with the Upson family, Wemitt manages to tear up the theater with two back-to-back numbers, "That's How Young I Feel" and "If He Walked Into My Life," and still have room for the humor to come in the following scene. She walks with honors in her duet, "Bosom Buddies," which provides Shook with her best moments also. In the final scene, Wemitt is bedecked in a sari that she should be allowed to wear home after the show closes, it so flatters her face, body, demeanor. This production has a lovely second act.
However, the one hour and 27-minute first act should be scrapped and sent back to the rental house. Lifeless, listless, lazy and lousy all come to mind. No one seemed to be into it. Perhaps it was just an off night, but somehow I don't believe it, not after Act Two.
In rewriting their wonderful play, Lawrence and Lee removed many of their finest lines, and best laughs, leaving the setup but not using the payoffs. The songs by Jerry Herman add some color and lustre, but they don't compensate for the lack of true humor and wit. I've never been as aware of those cuts as I was in this production.
There are some lovely performances, though, and they need some applause right about here. Colleen Gallagher's Sally Cato was perfectly vile and wonderful. Ben Jacoby as Older Patrick was more charming than usual and absolutely adorable as was Sarah Pigion as Pegeen Ryan. Ralph Ambrosio made a dashing and pleasurable Beauregard. John Cardenas was just fine as Ito and Kevin Kelly made Claude Upson into an upwardly mobile moron to be counted.
Brittany Weir was an Agnes Gooch strained through a strait-jacket. It was hard to believe that this woman could possibly shepherd a small boy across the country or survive even in the Mame Dennis kitchen. Weir came out a winner with Gooch's Song in Act Two (that switch of energy and understanding again), but her character in the first half of the show was undefined and aimlessly helpless. Coricable Kidder was an undistinguished Gloria who was not believable at all.
Technically, this was not one of the more brilliant productions of the season at this theater. Kevin Gleason's set pieces were clumsy and large and impeded audience vision. Jimm Halliday's costumes were great, but the tightly fitted jackets that Wemitt wore never seemed a proper fit, always riding up and wrinkling in the back. Andrew Gmoser's lighting seemed wrong much of the time, especially in the second act transition between the two Patricks. The usual musical carp on my part doubled in this show, as the synthesizer seemed to have missed an audial level or two in the first act. I wasn't even sure it was turned on, but it was better, more of a presence, in the second act.
The choreography by Scott Barnhardt and Ryan VanDenBoom did all it was supposed to do, but not much more. For a company that has saved a show through exceptional dances this year and last year, the Mame number and several others were a disappointment in that regard.
You might not think it, but I love "Mame." I love this show. I don't love a production, however, that assumes I'll love it because I love the show. I still need the elements to be present that make it as wonderful as it can be. Bring Wemitt back in this show again, but give her a director who knows she can deliver a performance with the right direction and let's see her make a major memory, not a minor one.

"Mame" plays through Aug. 15 at the Mac-Haydn Theatre on Route 203 west of Chatham, NY. For information and tickets, call the box office at 518-392-9292.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:32 PM | Permalink

"Our Town" by Thornton Wilder. Directed by Nicholas Martin. At Williamstown Theatre Festival.

"He just cut his hand. . .whilst eating a apple."
The quote above is about as dramatic as it gets in "Our Town." Grovers Corners, that is, in New Hampshire. Does that make it clear to you that I am not a fan of this play? I am not. I have seen nine productions now and only number eight, about three and a half weeks ago in Chatham, N.Y., really got to me. The latest production on the main stage at the Williamstown Theatre Festival is peopled with wonderful actors, played up against a bizarre set, with the emotional resonance of cream cheese. It's all the fault of the author, who has crafted one of the best-known and best-loved American plays. If only there was a play there.

Wilder gives us a tapestry of small-town America at the turn of the last century. He has created a narrator he calls the "Stage Manager," and that character has been a lasting problem for me since my earliest days with this play. He is not a stage manager in spite of director Nicholas Martin's inventive dumb-show actions at the top of Act One. He is a narrator with a bizarre knowledge of the future; he becomes a god-like starkeeper in the third act and in between he plays many roles. He might as well be called the General Understudy, for that seems to fit him better and would be, for me, less confusing.
This character is beautifully played with a simplicity and honesty, both of which struck me as unusual, by Campbell Scott. Here the actor makes no pretense of his role. He goes about his business, often just leaning on the proscenium arch watching the scene unfold before him, with a Spartan gaze. He is an observer, just like the audience, and if he knows how a scene will go, he rarely shares that information with body language. Scott is a brilliant interpreter of this role, the best I've ever seen. It's just that I cannot decide who or what he is and what his relationship is to the implied reality here.
Among the people he watches are John Rubenstein and Becky Ann Baker as the elder Gibbs folk. These two actors bring so much to their roles that it's not hard to believe you know them. Both are recognizable, not as themselves, but as the people they portray. Baker in particular is most accessible as Julia Gibbs. It's a lovely performance in the first two acts and an enigmatic one in the final scene of the play. She is compelling throughout, though, and that says a lot for this role.
As the Webbs, across the street, Dylan Baker and Jessica Hecht struggle a bit more to be liked. He is irascible and she is shrill. He hates intimacy and she loathes sloth. He adores his daughter Emily (played with a grating soprano voice by too-pretty Brie Larson) and she loves to flaunt her New Hampshire accent, which was sometimes hard to cut through. Again, both actors seem to have become the people they portray.
George Gibbs, the young hero, if there is such a thing in this play, is defined by Will Rogers who seems to have no idea who George might be. Thirty-two other actors portray the balance of the townspeople. They all do as well as might be expected with this material.
We're told at the beginning of the play that in Grover's Corners people are born, grow up, marry and die and that's about it. The play shows us how that works out. We're also told that no one important ever came from there. Bryce Pinkham plays a man who came from there, established something and came home for the funeral that is at the center of Act Three. We have to wonder if he is someone who at least made good or if he is just a stand-in for the author himself who redefined this concept in his final novel, about a boy who leaves his small town home to make it in a larger, brighter world.
Physically, the set by David Korins defies the description of the set as spouted by the Stage Manager. It was an interesting set, but definitely in the wrong play. Kenneth Posner's lighting design did some beautiful things and some baffling things, and when the stage needed the special light that heavy morning rain provides, he gave us nothing. Gabriel Berry's costumes helped to define each of the characters very nicely. Michael Friedman's original music was innocuous and so worked with the production just fine.
Martin celebrates Wilder's concepts as written and does a fine job with his company, all of whom do what they can to complement Wilder's words with their performances. What Mr. Martin has not done is bring to light anything new or interesting in this play. One of the most popular pieces, both its words and ideas are left on the page in this incarnation. What Martin has given us is pretty pictures where nothing happens and no one really changes.
Martin freezes Wilder's friezes, and for two hours and 16 minutes we are suspended in a place where the only climax is death and grief is only mimed.

"Our Town" runs through Aug. 8 on the main stage at the Williamstown Theatre Festival at the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance, 1000 Main St., Williamstown. For information and tickets, call the box office at 413-597-3400 or go on line at wtfestival.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 2:47 PM | Permalink

"Babes in Arms," book by George Oppenheimer, based on the original by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart; music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart. Directed by E. Gray Simons III. At Berkshire Theatre Festival.

"Babes in Arms" is one of those shows. You think you know it because you know the songs; they've been a part of your history your whole life. You know the movie well: Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, June Preisser and Douglas MacPhail, with a little bit of Margaret Hamilton thrown in as well. The original show ran through most of 1937 for 289 performances and introduced such mega-hits as "Where or When," "My Funny Valentine," "The Lady is a Tramp" and "Johnny One-Note." You know this show.
Its plot is simple: Kids left alone by their Vaudeville parents put on a show in a barn to keep themselves safe from the authorities who want to put them in state-run institutions. So there you are: Kids in a barn putting on a show.
At the Berkshire Theatre Festival, you literally have kids in a barn putting on a show about kids in a barn. The funny part here, however, is the show isn't the show you know and it isn't the show you don't know because the movie watered down the plot of the show and it isn't that show either anymore.

Now it has a new book, written in 1959 by film writer George Oppenheimer that changes the plot into kids apprenticed for the summer at a Cape Cod summer stock theater trying to put on a show in a barn. This second simplification robs the show of much of its initial punch and the daring qualities that limited its hit potential to just those 289 performances.
The original dealt with racial prejudice (the song "All Dark People," which you won't hear and probably have never heard), psychic phenomena, child abuse in talented children, Hollywood pretensions and mismatched talents surrounded by misplaced concern. You also won't hear a brilliant song lyric by Hart, "You Are So Fair," which gives to the final word in that title the opportunity to be heard in every possible meaning and nuance. Instead you will hear the interpolated song "You're Nearer" which was written two years later for the film version of their college musical, "Too Many Girls."
But back to the kids in the barn playing kids in a barn. Valentine White has written a revue that his Cape Cod Summer Stock producer has promised to put on stage. However, with a child star returning to the stage in a straight, if boring, play on his docket, he cancels his commitment to the "kids," leaving them without much hope for a summer experience in front of an audience. Eventually, with the help of a youngster names Susie Ward, they get to do their show and find a producer for Broadway. Happy ending. That is Oppenheimer's take on the show. The original show had Mitzi Green and Ray McDonald, Wynn Murray and Alfred Drake, Dan Dailey and Robert Rounseville, Grace McDonald and The Nicholas Brothers. There is a large and largely talented company of players at the tiny Unicorn Theatre at the Berkshire Theatre Festival.
Several performers are stand-outs. Samantha Richert's comic character, Bunny Byron, has some of the best songs and she delivers them with gusto. "Way Out West" in Act One establishes her brilliantly. In the second half she has two smart, witty songs, "The Lady Is a Tramp" and "Johnny One Note," and she delivers on the promise of Act One.
Sarah Kauffman's Susie is a bit pale for my taste and her voice is a tiny bit thin, but she is very effective in the song "Imagine" and in the romantic ballad "My Funny Valentine." She also makes a mock seduction scene into something hilarious, not easy to do these days. The man she loves, Valentine, is played in as pale a manner as his hair by Michael Brahce. He acts with sincerity and charm, but his character doesn't really come across as worthwhile; this may be the Oppenheimer script giving the actor little to work with, but I am not certain.
Johanne Borge Kesten becomes a little bit repetitive in the comic role of Terry, who makes a habit of teasing and taunting the men in her life, and Ben Rosenblatt, so charming a year ago on this stage in "Candide" as Doctor Pangloss, does a comic turn as Gus in this show and almost makes us like him.
There are marvelous bits throughout the show played by Hannah Hughes as a chorus girl and apprentice named Libby. John Tourtellotte plays a southern not-so-gentleman named Lee Calhoun. This is the character who, in the first version, was the bigot who ejects black people from the cast of the show in the barn by the kids in the barn. He is hateful in this version but never reaches the character's earlier low points. Abby Armstrong plays the movie's least notable child star, Jennifer Owen. Her character as rewritten seemed to be formless, aimless and generally without any character traits at all. This, I am certain, is the writing and not the acting, for Armstrong was a delightful personality on stage.
The 1959 book leaves the kids without an actual time period in which to play. This is reflected not just in the dialogue, but in the costumes for this production. Every costume was a gem but there was no definition: 1930 to 1960 seemed to pop up depending on which character you were looked at in any given moment. Costumes were designed by Jessica Risser-Milne. Also there were too few of them; I'm sure characters' body odors were so rank by the time they finally got to change costumes for the show in the barn by the kids in the barn that those dresses and shirt were probably standing up on their own.
The lighting design by Robert Dagit was delicious, even providing old-fashioned footlights that again grounded the show in its period, whatever that might be, between 1939 and 1959. R. Michael Miller's set was what was called for and he didn't disappoint.
Rachael Plaine's choreography can't hold a candle to the original ballets by George Balanchine, and this company does its best to make them look beautiful and/or funny as called for in the storylines. Simons' direction of the piece provided a sense of fluidity, but a musical of this sort doesn't seem to be up his alley. Clear mistakes in comic timing and awkward stage pictures dominate the proceedings. There is little character development work in evidence and the caricatures that prevail are simplistic and not very compelling; again the writing may be at fault, but the director could overcome that somewhat better than is in evidence here.
Go for the music; ignore the book. Rodgers and Hart are back in the neighborhood and it is worthwhile hearing these songs played live, sung well and even danced -- it prolongs the tunes. Don't expect the "Babes" you know, but go support the wonderful efforts of young people coming into a treacherous business who need all the love and appreciation they get out in that barn playing kids in a barn playing.

"Babes in Arms" plays through Aug. 28 at the Unicorn Theatre at the Berkshire Theatre Festival on Route 7 in Stockbridge. For information and tickets, call the box office at 413-298-5576.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 2:40 PM | Permalink