Peter Bergman Theater Reviews

"Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins" by Margaret Engel and Allison Engel. Directed by Jenna Ware. At Shakespeare & Company.

Raised in Texas, died in Texas. That could encompass the life of Molly Ivins if she had not intruded on our national conscience through her skillful reportage, her brilliant and observant mind and her fine-old Texas-style use of humor and gall in calling a spade a spade and not meaning a black person.     
After dubbing the recent President from Texas, during his former life as a Texas Governor, "Shrub," she commented on his role in Federal politics "however you put it, George W. Bush is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America." It was that sort of incisive and deliberate political writing that endeared Ivins to Americans well outside of her Texas haunts.
In a new play about the reporter and columnist, "Red Hot Patriot," we meet the woman herself toward the very end of her life. She is at her desk in the newspaper office trying to write a column about her father, a man whom she has been unable to fathom for her entire life. She has gotten down three sentences and is stumbling about the rest of it. A cancer survivor herself, she is being assaulted by news stories from her own personal history on the AP machine and each one inspires her chatter. It isn't until late in the one-act, 93 minute play that she realizes the awful truth about her own status. She has died. Even this doesn't stop her from laying down a few more insightful remarks and that, it seems to me, is true Molly Ivins.

In this production, well directed by Jenna Ware on the Elayne P. Bernstein stage at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox Molly is played by company founder and goddess Tina Packer. It is hard to be too critical of Packer, who is a good actress who somewhat sacrificed that side of her career to run a large company that has given so much back to the community over the years. Her appearances in other works, recently, has helped to reinstate the actress-side of her work and her venturing into a character so completely American as Ivins is a risk a good actress should take on with panache. I cannot quibble too much with her accent. British overtakes Texan and the peculiarities of both coming out of one mouth is the result. You get used to the oddness of it quickly and the words she spouts take precedence. That's all you need to know about that aspect of her work.
In the attitude of the character she really ranks supreme. Her Molly has the swagger and joie that the real Ivins had. Her laughter is on target and her anger is imbued with the spirit of the real woman. She moves through the survey of Ivins' life as though truly reminiscing and not acting and that alone is a triumphant combination of talents. Packer gives the impression of having disappeared into Ivins and on those rare occasions when the actress is visible it really doesn't matter for it seems as though Molly has taken a deep breath, stepped back to take a look at herself and then decided to continue as though nothing has happened.
"Hate has taken over the conversation," she comments at one point in an open discussion about the state of American politics. It is a point of departure for the witty woman who turns the humorous tale of her life and her work into a personal polemic that is so real and genuine it almost becomes frightening. Therefore, be warned: you may find yourself challenged there in your seat in the audience. Molly Ivins, dead since 2007, may still be finding you out and holding you accountable for your thoughts, feelings and actions. When the play takes this turn, it is as though all hell has broken loose in the newsroom in Texas and, as with Hurricane Irene which was storming her way up the coast on the night I saw this play, you may find devastation all around you.
A comic diversion from the wit and wisdom of Ivins is provided in the semi-silent addition of a copy-boy who appears from time to time to provide Ivins with the latest Associated Press updates. He is played with style and humor by Harrison Wilken and his "heavenly messenger" is a fascinating aspect of the last fifteen minutes of the play.
This is a limited run and Packer is worth the time and effort of getting to Lenox to see the show. I didn't realize how much I've missed the commentary of Molly Ivins until I sat down to watch Packer in this play. What I know, now, is how pertinent she was and still is. That's all there is to say.

"Red Hot Patriot" plays in repertory at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre at Shakespeare and Company on Kemble Street in Lenox through Sept. 4. For information and tickets go to their website at shakespeare.org or call the box office at 413-637-3353.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:20 PM | Permalink

"The Drowsy Chaperone," book by Bob Martin and Don McKellerson, music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison. Directed by Bert Bernardi. At The Theater Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y.

There's just too much fun taking place in New Lebanon these nights. The 2006 Broadway musical "The Drowsy Chaperone" - a musical within a play - has taken up residence in the region and the silliness and loveliness of this absurd, Tony Award-winning Canadian show is tickling the funny bone and assaulting audiences with luscious melodies, over-the-top lyrics and so much on-stage talent that humming is being heard on both sides of the Taconic range as late as midnight every night.

It doesn't matter that the 1928 musical that is being conjured up in a small New York City apartment by Man in Chair is trite. He knows it's trite. Trite is just right when his mood goes decidedly 'blue' and he needs a dose of his favorite show to get through the long and lonely night. It doesn't matter that the songs have lyrics that are so forgettable when the music alone has the power to conjure up a mood. And the stars - there are loads of stars from the silent screen, from the Broadway scene, from streets both mean and rude. It's the attitude that counts, that sense that a musical can cure your ills, so much better than booze and pills, so much more than a few cheap thrills. Janet van de Graaff will marry Robert Martin. Trix, the aviatrix will play her part in the marriage vows plot and Mrs. Tottendale, the hostess, who cares a lot, will tolerate each guest, and for all the rest, there's the chaperone herself, Kitty the chorus-girl elf, two gangsters disguised and a Broadway producer along with a man who's a self-acclaimed seducer. That's the show, but it really is Man in Chair about whom we care.
Craig Treubert plays the role of Man in Chair. It is his journey we take as "folks in audience." (No, we're not named that in the program, but we could be.) Treubert plays a man who lives in a world of self-delusion. He cannot hide behind a facade. He is who and what he is and even if he won't define himself, or resign himself to being who he is, he still has a way out of those personal blues. Treubert manages to make all of this feel absolutely reasonable. His performance is much more involving than the original, Bob Martin, was allowed to be in the role. While existing outside the plot of the "show" the play is his alone and he handles it nicely.
The rest of the cast exist only as physicalizations of voices on a long-playing record of the old musical. They are sometimes exaggerated in their playing, sometimes genuinely touching. They are: Lara Hayhurst as Janet, Jerielle Morwitz as the Chaperone, Matthew Daly as Aldolpho, Allen Phelps as Feldzieg, Tom Garruto as Robert Martin, Amy Fiebke as Mrs. Tottendale, Nicole DiMattei as Kitty, Judah Frank and Trey Compton as the Gangsters, Keisha Gilles as Trix, Danny Blaylock as Underling, Ryan Halsaver as George. I'll try to do each of them justice.
Hayhurst is adorable. Her show-stopper "Show Off" fulfills its promise in her hands. Halsaver is delicious tapping his heart out and singing with large, broad gestures that deserve a larger stage. Blalock is fun as the servant who works his way up the social ladder. Morwitz is both glamorous and a vocal standout as the Chaperone and her comic skills are put to good use as well. Daly is a confection as he grinds, bumps and swirls his way about the stage in his best latin-lover role to date, a sugarplum in satin shirts come to life on the stage. Gilles sings her way into your heart as she marries the marriagable and pilots them all into the finale. Compton and Frank are triple-threat killers on the loose with song, dance and pastries to everyone's taste. Garruto does a fine job in the role of a bridegroom whose lips cannot stray too far from home and his dancing is lovely too. Fiebke is a confection in pink and fun to watch and listen to while DiMattei takes things to another level including the split-level with fun and a mischievous attitude. Phelps is mesmerizing, all the light on the stage bending in his direction as he sings and dances his heart out in a Toledo Surprise.
That's the cast.
Bert Bernardi turns in one of his finest combinations here as director and stager. The choreography is elaborate enough to make the musical numbers work and also to show the inspired imagination of Man in Chair who must imagine all of this from the sounds on the recording. As far as his direction of the play is concerned it seemed, watching the show, that much more time than is allowed in two-week stock theater had to have gone into this event. Period movement has been worked into the actors interpretations to perfection. Poses and attitudes are idealized accurately. Each part played by the list above seems to have been in the actors' experience for much much longer. In short, Bernardi has turned in a nearly perfect show for the Theater Barn and their audiences should understand how difficult that is in such a tight schedule.
Abe Phelps has reduced the large Broadway production nicely to fit on the New Lebanon stage and it all works. Alyssa Couturier has created an extraordinary pallette of colors in the costumes and, in addition to those, every appearance by Janet, in costumes by John White, is lovely. Janet may not "want to encore no more," but the designers have made it possible for her to change costumes more often than the rest of the company actually enter the stage. Allen Phelps has managed to light the show to a fare-thee-well while playing a principal role on stage. Where does this man find the time to do both jobs and still sell raffle tickets in the lobby?
If you haven't heard of "The Drowsy Chaperone" before it really doesn't matter. This is a musical treat, a large bon-bon you don't have to unwrap in your seat - it comes to you ready to consume care of the Theater Barn's producers. It has too short a run, for my money, and I may have to spend some to see it again while I can. I'll look for you at the theater.

"The Drowsy Chaperone" plays at the Theater Barn located at 654 Route 20, New Lebanon, N.Y., through Sept. 4. For information and tickets, call the box office at 518-794-8989.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:33 PM | Permalink

"My Name is Asher Lev" by Aaron Posner based on the novel by Chaim Potok. Directed by Aaron Posner. At Barrington Stage Company.

In telling his own story, a man cannot be completely objective, no matter how hard he tries. An artist painting a revelatory picture knows that there are things not shown, emotions not expressed; even a "Guernica" leaves out something. For Asher Lev, an observant Jew, an artist, a son of his Hassidic community, truth is at war with desire and is constantly eating away at his heart. He has a gift. A gift that compels him to draw and which draws him away from study, from tradition, from the life his family would have him lead, is a dangerous thing. He want to control it but it is in control of him.
In a wrenching, heartbreaking play, "My Name is Asher Lev," the son grows into his own man and the man betrays the child of his parents. In order to nurture the gift that he has lived with from the age of five the child-man, wiser than his parents, learns that betrayal is inevitable and that his own life is what he risks when he becomes a man. In the Jewish tradition a Bar Mitzvah at age thirteen is the graduation of the child into that manhood and so it is with Asher Lev. His personal journey through that transition is what Barrington Stage Company is presenting at its Stage Two space in Pittsfield and audiences, if they're like the one I spent the evening with, are being moved to tears, sobs wracking their souls and bodies as they bear witness to this artistic Bar Mitzvah.

Directed by the author Aaron Posner in the simplest of story-telling terms, this play is graced with the talents of three marvelous actors: Adam Green plays Asher, Daniel Cantor plays all of the other men in the story and Renata Friedman plays all of the women. Cantor is Aryeh Lev, Asher's father, a man opposed to his son's talents and abilities, a man who is humiliated by the concept of a son who is different. In this role Cantor is almost lyrically severe as his temper flares, as his temper cools, as his temper remains anything but indifferent.
As his own brother Yitzchok Cantor takes on a marvelously Al Jolsonesque manner playing a man whose sense of humor is tickled by a simple portrait of himself drawn by his nephew. As The Rebbe, he shows a side of wisdom that is unexpected and oddly heart-warming, but it is as the complete opposite of Aryeh, Jacob Kahn - an artist and a rebel - that Cantor truly shines. Kahn is old and as the play progresses grows older before our eyes. His strength in wisdom and capability is brilliantly shown through Cantor's interpretation.
Friedman is lovely and lyrical as Rachel, a young model whose nude posing is a problem for Asher Lev. This brief scene is a sharp and drastic change for the actress who spends most of the play as Rivkah Lev, Asher's mother. She also plays Anna Schaeffer, an art dealer whose gallery sponsors Asher. Anna is sharp, sophisticated and a dynamic beauty in Friedman's hands, another, more motherly contrast to Rivkah. Rivkah; haunted, human, warm and strict, loving, torn between her two men, husband and son, tormented by her losses, overcome and overwhelmed by the peculiarities of her position between them. Friedman uses all of these qualities and presents a woman so real she is painful to watch and to listen to at times. The depths to which she takes her character are so far-removed from the Brooklyn of her reality that she almost encourages you to take her in your arms and protect her from herself. A lovely and lyrical performance.
Green as Asher Lev makes a mitzvah, a miracle, a blessing out of his role. He plays the boy of 5, the boy of 6, the boy of 10 and 13, the man of that same age and the older man who must narrate his own story because only he can tell it. He plays a compulsive individual living in a world of conformity and regularity, a world of old eastern European values that cannot be considered modern or American. His "observant" Jew is being strangled by that need to conform when every fiber of his being is rebellious and so very strong he must be in pain without an outlet. Green, with a sweet face and a charming voice, makes off this clear without being obvious about it, without torturing his audience with his character's own ritual madness. In a not very subtle role, Green is subtle in his changes and his growth. He is most convincing when he isn't about convincing, but merely conveying information.
Posner keeps this show going at a remarkable pace. While Asher's growth into manhood is slow and gradual the play keeps us involved by moving us quickly and definitively into the next stage of his development. With the fairly quick-change characterizations of Friedman and Cantor, the play never has a dull moment and never moves too quickly for the audience to feel they have missed anything. He maintains that balance nicely in the writing and the staging and he has some help from his lighting designer, John Hoey, who uses the window structures of the set to keep things moving from place to place. One of Hoey's most illustrative moments is his lighting of Rivkah Lev as she sits huddled in the living room window ignoring everything around her. Designer and actress and director have created a haunting image there.
Daniel Conway's set is ideal for this design concept show, a single set that manages to be just right for every setting and the costumes by Olivera Gajic are excellent, helping to evolve characters perfectly.
"My Name is Asher Lev" is one of those incredible theatrical events that will never leave you. Ethel Merman in the final moments of "Gypsy" and Zero Mostel's inhuman transition in "Rhinoceros" and Angela Lansbury with her "Mame" trumpet entrance, Don Quixote's death scene in Richard Kiley's hands, and Anthony Quinn and Laurence Olivier standing off against one another on moral and religious issues in "Becket ," along with Gwen Verdon in her mini-dress in "Sweet Charity" all hunched over with the pain of love deserted in the park - these are theatrical moments that live forever in my memory - among others. Asher Lev's 90-minute confessional joins those other moments tonight.

"My Name is Asher Lev" plays through Sept. 11 at Barrington Stage Company's Stage Two at 36 Linden Street in Pittsfield. For information and tickets (get yours soon) call the box office at 413-236-8888.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:51 AM | Permalink

"The Last Days of Mickey and Jean" by Richard Dresser. Directed by John Pietrowski. At Oldcastle Theatre Company in Bennington, Vt.

The uneasy relationship shared by lovers Mickey and Jean, as witnessed by us in their Paris hotel room, is one of faithfulness and love colored by a shared guilt. Jean is not to be rushed, but when she is ready for something she is not to be dallied with either. She is a woman who knows how to live and when her longtime boyfriend doesn't care to share a moment with her she experiences it solo. She is tough. She is determined. And she has a few secrets she is only willing to share when she thinks she has nothing to lose.
Mickey's a man on the lam. He has nerves of steel wire drawn tight through years of experience in the Boston mob. He's a killer with 19 dead to answer for should anyone ask. His weakness is Jean and his weakness is drink and his weakness is other women, but mostly it is Jean, his one great love. In the comparative safety of a foreign country they live an uneasy day to day existence, not hiding in the shadows but not really exposed much to the light of day.

This is a comedy, a romantic comedy, with twists and turns and just a hint of the life of James "Whitey" Bulger, who was captured recently at age 82 after 16 years in hiding with his girlfriend Catherine Greig. Like Jean, Catherine Greig refused to testify against her boyfriend. The play premiered in March of 2010. Timely, it preceded the arrest of Bulger and Greig by just 14 months. Life imitates art once again.
In the new Oldcastle Theatre Company production, Mickey is played by Duncan M. Rogers. His performance is delightfully edgey and clearly paranoiac. He moves with the sleek and clever motion of a panther, speaks with a decidedly South Boston accent and carries off his role with the charm of a snake-oil salesman on the pitch. As this "man in retirement" begins to reveal his true nature the comedy of the play goes dark but remarkably remains light. This is due, in no small measure, to the excellent consistency of the character as presented by Rogers.
Bev Sheehan embodies Jean perfectly. No longer young, her Jean is still a dynamic and attractive woman who can use her best features to her advantage. Whether charming a stranger or disarming Mickey, she brings forward the sometimes elusive personality of this character and leaves us wanting more of almost every moment she dominates. This actress is playing the ultimate actress, a woman in love with a man who will be everything he wants when it suits her own purposes and still serves his at the same time. She is complex and in a long confessional scene in the second half of the one-act show she manages to make her bad-girl secrets into some of the funniest and most charming bits of revelation.
The third actor in this play, Oliver Wadsworth, takes on several roles including the deceptive Bobby and the remarkable Tinsel. Bobby is Southie himself and much moreso than Mickey. He is so phoney you know he is real. As Tinsel, a French drag queen, he is almost more woman than man but never less man than when he is playing Bobby. In one of the funniest scenes in the play Tinsel confronts the others with the face of truth-telling that makes us choke back the laughter even as we understand that the lowest of the lowdown may be the finest of the finesse.
Director John Pietrowski handles all of this material with a careful and tender hand. He helps us see the love behind the obsessions that control Mickey and Jean. He helps his actors control compulsive behavior and still show us that harsh urgency that motivates both of them. It is wonderful work and should be seen to be appreciated.
Kenneth Mooney has created a fresh look at a Paris hotel room with his set and his costumes are just perfect for these characters. Jean's final dress is the ideal vision for the woman. In addition he has lit the show to keep things moving, keep things in place. The single vision of this designer works well for the play.
A lengthy single act of one hour and 21 minutes, it flows like a movie and seems a bit too short. Of course, whenever miscreants are caught and their flight aced, things feel the same way. Some realism in the predictions of this play is what has happened in the months between its first viewing and now and that alters things just a bit for the theater-goer in the know. Really, truly, it just makes it more interesting than ever.

"The Last Days of Mickey and Jean" plays at the Bennington Center for the Arts through Sept. 4. For information and tickets call the box office at (802) 447-0564.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:47 AM | Permalink

"Carousel," book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, II, based on the play Liliom by Ferenc Molnar, music by Richard Rodgers. Directed by John Saunders. At the Mac-Haydn Theatre in Chatham, N.Y.

No one can ever doubt that "Carousel" is very good. At just under three hours, it is a musical that seems to fly by, taking no time at all. It's songs are marvelous and its storyline is compelling. Even though, due to length, its finest song has been removed from the score in every production I've seen in the past 15 years, the show and its characters are real and alive and potent.
The story of Billy Bigelow and his love for Julie Jordan is a classic. She is a strong-willed woman and he an obdurate and unfailing failure of a man. He has the makings of a fine person, but his own past won't let him move forward and upward in life. Circumstances control the outcome of his decisions. With Julie pregnant, he takes a step in the wrong direction to assure her future and it proves his undoing. In an afterlife that is startlingly contemporary, he discovers that his nature has no outlet (the missing song goes here and reaffirms his stand; his ego is greater than the sum of its parts), but he is given an opportunity to make right what he has left wrong. How he proceeds is what the story has been leading up to for over two and a half hours.
At the Mac-Haydn Theatre in Chatham, N.Y., young summer stock performers are doing a three-week run of this classic. They are joined on stage by a classic performer, Monica M. Wemitt, and the resultant show is special.

Not that everyone cast is perfect in their roles, but the sum, again, is greater than anyone's egos. This is one of those almost perfect shows, written by a team that had mastered the form and would never again achieve the brilliance and scope of this score. Songs flow so easily into one another here that most of the titles are not used, not given or hinted at in the printed program. At times seemingly through-composed, at other times song, book, song, this show helped to open the way to the Sondheim musicals of the 1970s and 1980s, to the rock operas, to the modern musical, and it all happened in 1945.
Wemitt plays Nettie Fowler, aunt to Julie Jordan, protector to her and her child. She sings three of the best songs ever written and puts them over superbly. If this company has a resident star it is Wemitt. Her presence in this role lends a believability to the show as a whole and that is not something to be overlooked. Not the star part, it is the role that captures the most attention.
Her niece, Julie, is played by Alison Drew who has a lovely voice and who uses it wisely most of the time. Her interpretation of the role is a bit shallow and thin, but she makes the final scene into a thing of beauty as she shelters her daughter Louise, played by Amanda Myers. Principally a dance role, Louise is the catalyst to piece of mind for Drew's Julie. The two make the final musical chords of the show respectable as they watch the void that is Billy Bigelow ascend to heaven.
Billy is played by John Grieco. I went back and forth with his performance, buying it completely in the opening sequence, losing it in the scene that followed, then finding it again at Nettie Fowler's place, losing it in the island scene and wharf that follows it, finding it finally in the "Up There" sequence. His playing is erratic and his singing is also. Delivering a nice "Soliloquy" he destroys the reprise of "If I Loved You." I wanted to like him so much, but he didn't deliver enough solid performance.
Julie's friend Carrie Pipperidge suffered some of the same fate, although she became better and stronger in the second act and was amazingly moving in the death scene, bringing me and the folks around me to tears. Overall, this is a lovely performance by Victoria Broadhurst. Her swain, Enoch Snow, is delightfully played by Kevin Kelly whose work has often been a standout this season. Likewise the Jigger Craigin of Joshua Phan-Gruber was a pleasant surprise. Phan-Gruber really pulls off the mentally unstable morality of the character. In a role that can easily bump over the top, he is restrained and tolerable. It becomes easy to see why Billy trusts him most of the time.
Lauren French nearly became Mrs. Mullin, the owner of the Carousel. There was little of anything that came before this season in her performance here. She was sharp and mean-spirited and sexually fraught. She balanced these elements skillfully. And as the Heavenly Friend, Andy Geary made a symbolic figure into a solid man. He was most believable in this role which has stretched more experienced actors into caricature.
John Saunders has a genuine feeling for this musical. His staging was superb and clearly he put some time into his players moving them into difficult, though seemingly simple, characters. His choreographer, Kelly L. Shook, took some big chances with male dancers' feet and audience heads but kept things under control and produced some lively and stylish dances. There are two ballets, each as important as any song in the score, and her work in both was fine and sharp and clear and clean. Together Shook and Saunders have put a fine edition of this show onto the circular stage at the Mac.
Kevin Gleason's overly dense set does set the tone for the work, and Dale DiBernardo has provided period costumes that look right and still allow for movement and fluidity. Andrew Gmoser provides excellent lighting as usual. Kevin Finn and his trio at the keyboards and percussion produced excellent musical accompaniment, particularly difficult in the ballet scores, but terrifically rendered.
I've never understood why this show is named "Carousel" since so little of the action or the characters' world revolves around this particular item. Of course, remove the "l" and you have carouse, both meanings of the word, verb and noun, being played out before us on the stage. Still I don't think that was its author's intent. There is no better title, so go see "Carousel" while you can. You may come away feeling that perpetual motion of complete circles before the end of the show. I almost did.

"Carousel" plays at the Mac-Haydn Theatre at 1925 State Route 203 in Chatham, N.Y., through Sept. 4. For information and tickets, call the box office at 519-392-9292.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 9:51 PM | Permalink

"The Game," book and lyrics by Amy Powers and David Topchik, music by Megan Cavallari. Directed by Julianne Boyd. At Barrington Stage Company.

In 1782, French Artillery office Choderlos de Laclos published an epistolary novel that made his own nation shudder at its portrayal of immorality in the upper classes. Even so, it sold out its first printing, and much later, a copy, no title or author on its cover, was found in the personal collection of Marie Antoinette. An underground classic through the centuries it made its way back into the light of day in the mid-20th century when it took the world by storm. In the author's own original preface he wrote, "Several of the characters described by the author have such abominable morals that it is impossible to suppose they could have lived in our century - a century in which (as everyone knows) all men are worthy, and all women so modest and reserved." Was he serious? Or not?
The new musical based on his book, "Les Liaisons Dangereuse," titled "The Game," may help to answer that question.
Developed in the early part of this century at Barrington Stage Company by artistic director Julianne Boyd, the show has opened at their Pittsfield home as the final mainstage production of the 2011 season. Having seen the workshop production in 2003, I think that the piece has grown and changed over the years, or perhaps I have done the growing. I don't really know. What I do know is that in spite of the questionable morality of the people who occupy the world of this musical play, what I didn't enjoy then I do now. Perhaps we've all changed since then.

Briefly, the story is this (and forgive the difficulty of the names -- they are French): Marquise de Merteuil and her close associate Vicomte de Valmont, once lovers and now friends, wager on the moral undoing of several people. Each has her or his reasons for the bet and for the goals of seduction. Each has people they hate or despise or dislike and the lives of these people are in the hands of the Marquise and Vicomte. They each achieve their nefarious sexual goals and each is taken down by their own actions.
In a musical, it is best to have at least one (if not two) person whom you like and essentially root for. In this show you start out hoping for the best for two young people caught up in the web of the Marquise, but by the end of the play you really couldn't care less about them. They have willingly given themselves up to the loose morality of the generation in which they live. Even a modest and traditionally pure and faithful wife is far too easily wooed into the world of easy virtue and so loses our respect and our prayers. With no one to root for, the show begins to lose its charm and its hold and the final result is an evening with wonderful talent exposed in roles that make us almost wish we had stayed home.
I'm no moralist. I'm not blameless in the errors of my own youthful exploits and adventures. I can understand and sympathize with what takes place here. However, this story is much more suited to a straight play, or even an opera where death and retribution to music is almost a requirement of the form. Nowhere on the program do I see a rating comparable to a PG-13 or an R the way you would in a film on this topic. Don't let that title fool you, folks; "The Game" is not a family show.
The score by Megan Cavallari and Amy Powers and David Topchik is melodious and relatively unremarkable. There are a few beautiful pieces that, post-show, don't linger in the brain or on the tongue. They vary in style from mock-period, to standard ballad, to operetta. The title song, which opens the plot point of the show, starts badly with a sung dialogue that would have been better spoken over the music until the refrain catches in the throat and demands to be sung. A trio, "Until Then," was a standout in the first act, as was the Marquise's solo, "Wanting Her More," which ends the first act and lets us see into the darkness and truth behind her beauty.
In the second act she brings down her cousin Cecile's sense of self-worth in the dynamic duet "They're Only Men." Valmont has the powerful solo "How Could I Dare?" in the second half of the show and his lady-love, Madame de Tourvel sings the extraordinary "My Sin" (not a song about perfume, but about the odor of passion) and final two duets "Victory is Mine" and "Finally, Finally" bring a new level of passion to the proceedings.
All of this included, the show is not emotionally rewarding for the audience. The show leaves its audience alienated and judgmental.
A beautiful and powerful Rachel York instills as much humanity as possible into the Marquise de Merteuil. She is stunning to look at and amazing to hear. It's the sort of performance that should win an award, for she makes her character's chilled heart and acidic soul into something worth watching. It isn't just her looks and her grace that does the trick here; it is an actor's gift that she brings to the stage. At her most sensual and appealing, she shows her devil's face to her victims and she makes that a treasurable moment each time.
Her Valmont is played by Graham Rowat, who is her equal in many things but who never shines out with that satanic power. Instead he is clearly a victim as much as he is a victimizer. We can never forget that his willingness to play the game of seduction, and then the game of war, is a game of his own choosing. Even so, Rowat at his most charming is disarming to both his victims and to his audience as well. He is very good at making everyone forget how besotted his character is of the woman behind the game.
Cecile is played by Sarah Stevens who looks young, and plays young nicely. Her singing is at its best in the middle range of her voice, for when she takes it up into her higher register she becomes shrill with a fast vibrato that is unpleasant to hear. In all, her performance is delightful, as is that of her swain, Chevalier Danceny, played to the enthusiastic hilt by Chris Peluso. Cecile's mother, Madame de Volanges is given a fascinating Elsa Lanchester quality by the excellent Christianne Tisdale.
Madame de Tourvel, the faithful wife who loses her soul to Valmont's wickedness, is beautifully played by Amy Decker, whose elegance and style deserves a much more beautiful name than just Amy Decker. Her combination of physical beauty and delicacy is very special indeed. Her lovely voice and her dramatic abilities just push her up additional notches. Here is a player with true star qualities.
And welcome back to Joy Franz, who played here in the early versions of the show. As Valmont's aunt she sings grandly and looks great. She is a joy indeed.
Julianne Boyd's production is special. She has clearly put into this production everything she has to give to such an endeavor and it shows. The sets designed by Michael Anania flow as she needs them to and the extraordinarily beautiful costumes by Jennifer Moeller aid in creating the perfect picture Boyd has seen in her mind and transferred to the stage for us to witness. Jeff Croiter and Grant Yeager have turned light into more than mere illumination. Ryan Winkles fight choreography for the duel in act two is special also. Boyd's assembled masses bring us into that class of French aristocracy in the late 18th century where reality and fiction blend into a world of their own. It is Laclos' land. It is the late-night hostel of Marie Antoinette. It is the musical place where no matter how much we dislike the people we see, the picture is still very nice.

"The Game" plays at the Barrington Stage Company's mainstage at 30 Union St. Pittsfield through Aug. 28. For information and tickets, call the box office at 413-236-8888.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 9:45 PM | Permalink

"The Andrews Brothers" by Roger Bean. Directed by Bert Bernardi. At the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y.

The new, silly, musical called "The Andrews Brothers" tells the story of three men unable to serve in the military, and also brothers, who work as stagehands for USO troops in the South Pacific. They meet a woman, Peggy, who is the opening act for the world famous Andrews Sisters, Patty, Laverne and Maxine, and they are smitten with her and she with them when they step in to perform backup for her set. The men, Patrick, Lawrence and Max, do harmony like their female counterparts and when a disaster strikes the three guys agree - reluctantly - to replace the disease-downed sisterly trio. Unfortunately they agree to do so disguised as the Andrews Sisters.
That's the plot and I'm not giving anything away with that summary for the title of the show tells you everything you need to know. This little four character musical is fast becoming the most produced show of the year with productions all over the map from San Diego to Chicago to New Lebanon, New York where I saw it. At the Theater Barn the production is geared to the talent on hand for the season and in some cases that's a good thing and in others it isn't.

Least interesting in this play is Tom Garruto as Max. His big problem is his inability to genuinely sing. He belts out a tortured note, then another one and then a third. Finally his voice drifts into a semi-somnambulant state and the lovely trio harmony is lost forever, but at least we don't have to hear his loud voice dominate in that toneless way. In fact, it is the lack of harmony that drives this show downward. As nothing is made of that fact I can only conclude that in other productions elsewhere this is not the case.
Peggy and Patrick, played by Lara Hayhurst and Ryan Halsaver, duet sweetly on "On a Slow Boat to China" in the first act, establishing a romantic atmosphere that the two manage to keep going through Act Two. It is clear from the beginning of the show that Hayhurst's Peggy is really only interested in her career, but her minor swerve into romance is a lovely and touching aspect of the show. Hayhurst manages all this without a single double take, that exaggerated reaction that is ever so often jarring, and she wants to move on, but her deeper feelings hold her back. Hayhurst is especially wonderful in the "I Want to Linger" number, a classic Andrews Sisters song with an added voice for Peggy.
Halsaver's character is shy, stutters, takes odd jobs as a living billboard and he genuinely seems to have fun playing on stage. The actor here is able to condense a lot of feelings and transitions into his music and that's good. On the flip side, however, we'd love to see him take the pratfalls and endure the scorn and then move on to another town, another country. A little of him can go a long way. His voice is decent and his movement unextraordinary, yet he is fun to watch and to hear in this show.
Lara Hayhurst plays Peggy with joy, with verve and an extra-sensitive larynx and pharynx. She sings up a storm and makes the most of Peggy both before and during the show that gets performed in Act Two. It is surprising that her voice, unmiked, does not carry across the footlights. In fact, no one's does in this production.
Trey Compton plays Lawrence, the shortest and funniest Andrews. He plays the role with style and a true comic's use for simple props. His eyeglasses become one of the most overused of costume pieces and as they appear and disappear, as with this pieces of paper, each appearance is sweeter and funnier than the last. If there is a talent carrying this show it is Compton's.
Abe Phelps set is practical and provides just enough sense of place to make sense. Allen Phelps lighting employs the homespun and amateur effects that one would assume possible in the South Pacific in 1945. Jimmy Johansmeyer's costumes are both fitting and fun, particularly in the second act.
This is not director Bert Bernardi's best work. Whether or not this is due to the material or other factors is not known. I just look forward to more work from him in the future with a finer result.
Popular now, this show may not survive another decade. If the Andrews Sisters music is your cup of tea, see the show. You may occasionally wonder what happened to the melody line; you may suddenly suspect there's a harmony thief somewhere. You will hear some gems of the period. It may be enough just to have so many songs sung in a single evening. It may be.

"The Andrews Brothers" plays at the Theater Barn on Route 20 in New Lebanon, N.Y., through Aug. 21. For information and tickets, call the box office at 518-794-8989.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 10:32 PM | Permalink

"Ten Cents a Dance," conceived and directed by John Doyle, music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart. At Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Despair. Rejection. Angst. Bogus. Fury. Sour notes. Rage. Unmitigated. Bitterness. Misery. Refuse. Sorrow. Dissonance. Forlorn. Violence. Heartsick. Malevolence. Fetid. Pathetic. Ambush. Damage. Sham. Liability. Malignity. Two dozen words I have never used before in a review. I will not use them again in this one, but I thought they needed to be out there, just to set the proper mood.
"Ten Cents a Dance" is an 80-minute intermission-less (no one would come back in to the theater for a second act) musical tirade about absolutely nothing. It devalues itself almost from the beginning to something more reasonably stated as ha'penny a dance and - by the way - there is no dancing in this performance; I cannot call it a show. It isn't a show. It's a show-off sequence by a director who cannot create anything. John Doyle has been rewarded in the past for his "innovative" money-saving rapes of classic American musicals produced without orchestra and with his actors compelled to compensate for that by playing musical instruments, usually when they're not singing but not always, and generally but not always with a low level of competence. In the case of this Rodgers and Hart compilation, playing instruments isn't always the right way to go for these actors, especially when some of that musical stretching is incompetent and some of it is simply faked.

Five women dressed in the same gown, but not quite the same gown, and wearing the same flame-thrower wig, but not quite the same wig, walk circles around a man who plays the piano in spite of himself, and in spite of the fact that there doesn't really seem to be a playable keyboard on his piano. The man likes to take long pauses and in them nothing happens. Then he takes off an article of clothing and nothing happens. Then the women walk circles around him again. Fascinating stuff, isn't it?
The man, played by Malcolm Gets, enters slowly and with emotional difficulty down a long circular staircase, eventually followed by the five women who can easily be mistaken for one another in spite of the fact that one of them is obviously Donna McKechnie in a role she should have reconsidered after the read-through, for this American musical star does not even have one song to perform. After the sturm-und-drang of Getss' character's inner torment, the canker on stage begins with some one-handed notes on the piano, a half lyric sung in a half-interested manner and the thing is on its way to its inexorable conclusion, halfway up the stairs. The Finish. Bravo. Ooops: sick encore. More bravo. Audiences, it seems, especially the staff of the theater in the rear rows, will stand up and cheer for almost anything just because it's over. I shouted to the woman two rows in front of me to sit back down, but she ignored me. Standing ovations, folks, need to be reserved for things that are phenomenally good, not things that have come to an end. Try to remember that the next time you are confronted by drek-- a Yiddish word meaning this presentation. And, by the way I counted seven people who pushed their way out of the center section of the orchestra during the show. When did you last see that happen in a Berkshire theater?
This season at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Artistic Director Jenny Gersten has managed to annihilate Tennessee Williams' masterpiece "A Streetcar Named Desire," to destroy the centuries-old impact of a door slam in Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House," and now to downgrade to the rank of amateur the brilliant songs of Rodgers and Hart in dismal arrangements by Mary-Mitchell Campbell. Thank God their season is over! She might have taken down the entire canon of theater. Not that she is alone in this quest. She has had the help of many who have allowed her fine old summer theater to become a laughing stock and a much-pitied venue.
Let me share with you the official public relations description of this show from the press release I have received no fewer than five times in the past two weeks: "Crooner Johnny wistfully recalls his lifelong love affair of chorus girl Miss Jones, who is embodied by five women, each portraying a different stage of her life. As Johnny and Miss Jones take 'Manhattan' under a 'Blue Moon' while 'Falling in Love with Love,' you can't help but think 'Isn't it Romantic?' -- even if sometimes 'The Lady is a Tramp.' These and so many other unforgettable songs -- filled with infatuation, longing and enchantment -- will sparkle like a glass of champagne on a sexy summer evening. 'All you need is a ticket, come on, big boy, ten cents a dance.'"
If anything other than some of those songs exist in this presentation on the Main Stage at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, it would be considered a miracle. A. He doesn't croon. B. There is nothing wistful in this show. C. What love affair? Prove it! D. There are no different stages of her life portrayed; each woman is just a mirror of her other selves in some limbo somewhere in someone's rank imagination. E. No. Nothing here is romantic, including the dark, dreary, depressing arrangements of some of the best songs ever written. F. Sparkle? In the dimmest, drabest lighting possible? No. F. Sexy? Not in those dresses and not in that undershirt either. G. Ten cents? Make that change back in the hand, please.
Scott Pask designed the incredibly ridiculous set. Ann Hould-Ward embarrasses herself with the costumes. Jane Cox needs to go back to illumination school after this lighting plot and Dan Moses-Schreier, sound designer, needs to look at the pots on his board and decide which way is louder, which way is softer. Paul Huntley's weird wigs are not up to his usual standard and Mary-Mitchell Campbell plays a fine piano -- somewhere, I suppose.
The cast of women includes Diana DiMarzio, Lauren Molina, Jane Pfitsch, and Jessica Tyler Wright all of whom, clearly, have done what was asked of them. They can all relax again in two weeks when this is all over. This production in association with the McCarter Theatre Center will hopefully die here in Williamstown and never show its face in Princeton, N.J.
T.M.I.? Or not enough? Take the risk if you dare, but if anyone is organizing a protest march over the banal and base treatment of Rodgers and Hart, or the talented actors who have been set out before audiences only to lose their reputations and standing in their fans eyes or the fine playwrights whose works have been misrepresented this summer, let me know. I'll change my schedule and carry a banner.

"Ten Cents a Dance" plays in Williamstown at the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance through Aug. 28. You can look up the box office number yourself and, by the way, no production photos were made available by press night. Use your imagination.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 10:30 PM | Permalink

"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to The Forum," book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. At the Weston Playhouse.

With the Roman comedy, part farce and part burlesque, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to The Forum," songwriter Stephen Sondheim took an enormous step forward and a partial step backward. While still a student at Williams College, he wrote a musical version of the Roman play "The Frogs," which was destined to be performed at the indoor pool at Williams. Professionally he had written the lyrics for "West Side Story" and "Gypsy," two of the landmark musicals people still talk about and produce, both of them more than 50 years old and basically still new and fresh. In 1962, he brought the current show at the Weston Playhouse to the stage for the first time with a cast that included Zero Mostel, Jack Gilford, David Burns and Ruth Kobart. They left indelible impressions on those who saw the show.

What we have been discovering about "Funny Thing" is that it is as timeless as "West Side" and "Gypsy." Its story is delicious and the dialogue never grows old or tiresome. The songs are still fresh and make us laugh or want to hug someone just as much now as they did before, in the olden times. What is equally refreshing is watching and listening to audiences seeing this show today. Gone is the "need" for relevance, for psychological manifestations, for the importance of political correctness. In this show the men are horny and the women are in control. The central character is a manipulative devil who never gets his comeuppance, although he comes close to it. Disguise and laughter go hand in hand, just the way they used to and no one is killed, maimed or even reduced to a rubble pile of tears and remorse. We just have fun! Fun! What a concept! A musical that is just fun! I don't seem to be able to say that enough.
Up in Vermont, the director, Tim Fort, has assembled a cast and a production team that truly understand what fun is all about. A newly installed orchestra pit is the object of the overture and may include in all performances (seeing only one it's impossible to be certain) the participation of an audience member. Larry Pressgrove makes good use of this new space producing an even and balanced sound from his five-person pit orchestra. Above and behind is the intriguingly utilitarian set by Howard C. Jones that continually surprises as it lends itself to more and more farcical material. Nancy Leary provides an odd cross-over costume concept with bicycle pants, sneakers and togas mixed and matched while Michael Lincoln's lighting design is a broad-strokes style with slashes of color and occasionally epic shadows keeping the eye focused on specific spots on this theater's unusually small stage.
Fort's leading man, David Bonanno, is an excellent Pseudolus, although he started out seeming to be too young but quickly grew into the role. He has an exceptionally good singing voice, a face that seems to twist into a variety of shapes and feeling of flavors. He moves indelicately back and forth between vanilla and black raspberry...it's hard to explain, but he seems to be more a sensory experience in this role instead of just a person. There is a curious element to his work here that just produces an aura of ice-cream sundaes.
As his young charge, Hero, one of the oddest looking actors I've seen in the role, Logan Lipton, gives us a petulant young man with a perpetual pout who presents piquant yet precise postures as part of his acting technique. He poses, but is not a poseur; he is acting his role and that is the part of a young man out of step with his time and his needs trying to understand his own urges. He does it well and though it makes the role different, that difference is less shallow and more contemporary.
He loves Philia, played by Marissa McGowan who is not as silly and insipid an individual as we've seen before in this part. It amazes me to see how different a role can be when taken from another angle, and this Philia is both lovely (as she sings) and heroic, rather than lovely and colossally stupid. She sings beautifully.
Less successful for me was Sharon Wheatley as Domina, Hero's mother. Too young and attractive for the role, her makeup could make her more severe, but her emotional take on her second act song needs more variety and strength to make it really work for me. A case, perhaps, of indelible memories of the first Domina, Ruth Kobart.
Her husband is the charming and silly Geoffrey Wade. Their excellent neighbor is played by Munson Hicks who makes Erronius a charmer in spite of himself. Marcus Lycus, another neighbor, is played to the silly hilt by Allen Kendall. David Benoit is a peculiar choice for Miles Gloriosus, but he makes the role work and that is never easy when playing an egotistical S.O.B. He comes off as a man with charm, deeply hidden but still there.
Tom Aulino is a very funny and rather endearing Hysterium, the servant who cannot make anything work or anyone behave. The rest of the company fall in line with the principals and the show as a whole seems seamlessly perfect.
Last year's production in Williamstown seemed absolute and unbeatable. This year's Weston edition of the show seems marvelous and unbeatable. Where will I see this play next year and how will it seem - no answer and no need. If you require a bit of fun and a time out of the sun plop your buns down in Weston. It's a funny thing.

"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to The Forum" plays at the Weston Playhouse on the town square in Weston, Vt., through Aug. 20. For information and tickets contact the box office at 802-824-5288.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 10:44 PM | Permalink

"Four Dogs and a Bone" by John Patrick Shanley. Directed by Andrew Volkoff. At New Stage Performing Arts Center.

Hollywood returns to the stage and the sharks are biting the whales who are swallowing the unicorns who have speared the mudlarks. In his four-character play about Hollywood on the Hudson, "Four Dogs and a Bone," Manhattan Theatre Club alumnus John Patrick Shanley sticks it to the moguls, the stars, the starlets, the screenwriters and the directors (off-stage and unseen as usual).
In its initial appearance, after a 1993, 41 performance trial starring Tony Roberts and Mary-Louise Parker it moved later in 1993 to the Manhattan Theatre Club's rented space -- the Lucille Lortel Theatre in Greenwich Village. It ran 230 performances and featured Polly Draper and Peter Jacobson and understudy/replacements Debra Messing, Cynthia Watros, Alan Arkin, Kim Zimmer, Ann Magnuson, Reg Rogers and Grant Shaud (just about every soap opera star with a short story that year). It was directed by the author.
It has been a very often staged piece in schools and regional theaters, partly because of its short 90-minute length with intermission and partly because of the accessibility of its tale. It is the story of a young playwright, Victor, who has penned a film script being shot in New York and the two women who want to control everything. One is a performer (unspecified genre) who has abandoned the West Coast and the other an older New York stage actress making her sixth film, neither one wanting to admit that the other could be the lead. Five years earlier, in 1987, young playwright Shanley had been drafted for a film script shot in New York with two actresses -- Cher, in an early film role having left her husband in Hollywood shortly before, and Olympia Dukakis, coming off a long line of successful stage performances in New York and with her own company in New Jersey. Seeing the play and knowing all this makes one wonder about its comic realities.

The cast in Pittsfield are local and the designers and technicians are also for the most part. Director Andrew Volkoff has been working in the Berkshires for more than a decade, lighting designer Jeff Davis has made this his home for a great many years, set and props designer Brian Prather is a fixture at Barrington Stage Company and Enrico Spada, the new company's marketing consultant is, along with Associate Producer David Joseph, a fixture at Shakespeare and Company as is the costume designer Arthur Oliver. Everyone has done a good job in the difficult and restricted black box space of New Stages above the cinema on North Street.
Volkoff has directed his company well, always giving them the comedy alternative to the tragic one. He and his players juggle the rhythms of the work well and the show is both easy to watch and understand and a pleasure to go along with as its characters plummet out of the gray skies they work under to the softly padded earth below.
The most honest and open of the players is Michael J. Foster as Victor, the playwright. Foster has a natural style that lets us believe even the silliest of rationales -- his mother's death and funeral are not attended to because work calls -- as he moves onward and upward in the convoluted world of film-making.
His two female co-workers are in the hands of Clover Bell-Devaney as Brenda, the younger actress, and Deann Halper as Collette, the stage-oriented star. Bell-Devaney serves her character well, sometimes almost dropping her onto the invisible silver platter, as she elbows her way to fame and stardom. Halper, on the other hand, works her way from broad strokes to subtleties and back again, sometimes in the course of a single simple dialogue. She plays the character of the aging star with almost as much passion as Garbo might have employed. It give an additional layer of good humor to the proceedings.
The producer of the film, a bottom-line obsessed megalomaniac named Bradley, is played beautifully by Daniel Popowich. With his swiftly advancing invasive growth on everybody's mind, Bradley -- in Popowich's hands -- makes points even when there are none to make.
All in all the company, in its first production, makes a solid impact on the summer scene with a play you might see elsewhere but can comfortably see here and now.

"Four Dogs and a Bone" plays through Aug. 21 at the New Stage at 55 North St. in Pittsfield. For information and tickets go to www.berkshireactorstheatre.org.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 10:41 PM | Permalink

"In the Mood" by Kathleen Clark. Directed by Marc Bruni. At Berkshire Theatre Festival.

Comedy rears its sitcom best on the Berkshire Theatre Festival's FitzPatrick Main Stage for the first part of August. Kathleen Clark's lightweight romantic farcical comedy "In the Mood," with a delicious cast of coy players, is lighting up the stage for a while and we should all be very grateful. The 75-minute one-act, about half the length of a real play, could probably be pared down even further and made even funnier by taking out a subplot that really adds very little other than two characters who aren't really needed to tell the story in this play.

Right up front we're told that Sally Elliot won't be attending a party given by Perri Rubin, even though she was expected to be the body at the piano for the cocktail surprise bash Perri is throwing for her husband Derek's birthday. When she shows up about midway into the evening, it is both a surprise and a curiosity, for her brother Nick is already there playing 1940s songs. Nick has a thing for Perri, a thing they once exploited before her marriage to Derek, Derek's fourth marriage it seems. The biggest surprise comes when Derek and a small blonde woman suddenly appear. Misunderstandings begin to mask the classic comedy thrall of French farce, except that the six doors and the staircase entrance never function in the physical manner of a farce. They just exist.
Clark is lucky to have director Marc Bruni and a very talented company to shore up the basic simplicity of her play. Her lines are mostly amusing. Their delivery in a dry and droll manner gets the laughs. Bruni's timing is responsible for the success of this piece and when the cast members move through laughs or ignore the audience's reaction the play is really doing its job delivering a human and humorous reality.
Perri is played beautifully by Erin Dilly, Never better than in the final moments of the play when she spurns her husband's next wife or when she discovers her old love may be her best love, Dilly has a sensitivity that shines in her face. Her character tries to hide this facet but not even the biggest setting can obscure this diamond's superb cut.
Damian Young played her husband. He has a Roger Rees quality that screams untrustworthy from his initial appearance. That he maintains this throughout is a tribute to his abilities in such a role. Jennifer Cody is his short friend Carolyn and she plays this part with the strength of a future Medea of comedy.
The superfluous, but genuinely endearing, couple are played by Johanna Day as Sally and Arnie Burton as Edward Norton (not the film star, but an actor nevertheless). Edward is an actor playing a contractor and as Burton plays him he is a much better actor than Perri, who has hired him, might have a right to expect. Day has a strong, masculine charm about her and she makes Sally into a memorable woman. She does forthright behavior with charm and charm with a bullishness that is genuinely amusing.
Nick, Sally's brother and Perri's ex, is a stalwart sort of fellow, although quirky and a bit standoffish with Perri. Their attraction is evident and as played by Stephen R. Buntrock Nick is attractively burly and almost brutally real. His presence grounds the play in reality and he makes the comedy softer as a result. With a slightly stronger ending, his vocalizing might have an even deeper resonance in terms of romance.
There's a beautiful set designed by Lee Savage, lush costumes from Laurie Churba Kohn and reasonable lighting by David Lander. Scot Killian's sound design includes an off-stage scene with John McMartin and Jessica Walter.
A light, frothy confection with a whipped center and a cherry on top, "In the Mood" is one of those plays you will see, enjoy and forget before your next night out. It is clever, but caught in its own familiar traps. It is funny, but the lines aren't ones you'll be quoting to friends for their amusement. You won't covet the clothes, or the characters' friend. You will only laugh and pass an hour or so in a comedy situation that smacks of "that's not going to happen to me." But if forewarned is fore-armed, see this play and then examine the world close to you for comparisons; hopefully there won't be any.

"In the Mood: plays at the Berkshire Theatre Festival on Routes 7 and 102 in Stockbridge through Aug. 13. For information and tickets call the box office at 413-298-5576.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:09 PM | Permalink

"Grease," book, music and lyrics by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, additional songs by John Farrar. Directed by John Saunders. At the Mac-Haydn Theatre.

"Grease" is a fun show -- always has been, always will be. Its characters were instant classics when they first trod the boards, are immortalized in film and appear quite regularly in revivals all over the map. Sometimes the map is rocky and sometimes it's flat and sometimes the hills and valleys of the show are harmonious and provide clarity with humor. In the case of the Mac-Haydn's current production, there is a bit of all three landscapes to deal with.
This production has a terrific look. Jimm Halliday gives his usual great costumes and the lighting by Kevin Gleason is just about perfect for this show. Laura Brignull's set is a bit crude, but the show can tolerate that. John D. Smith does a fine job as musical director and the choreography by Brian Knowlton works remarkably well in the restrictions of the circular stage without enough room to accommodate the complete company.

John Saunders' direction of the show does as much to halt it in its tracks as it does to keep it moving at an acceptable pace. Too often the rhythms seemed awkward and slow. Something just didn't jell in the playing of the scenes that did work in the musical numbers. Sadly, this play is as much a play as it is a dance show. When characters are trying to communicate, they need the force and direction that it takes to make that happen and this seemed to be lacking somehow. I don't know how. People were in the right place at the right time. The words came out as written, I believe. Maybe it is this: Teenagers age when they hit their 20s and these 20-somethings had aged into mature tempi in their performances.
Perhaps that was it, something that simple. Whatever it is, the show suffered from it and not even the energy of the dancing could make up for the sluggishness that comes with not being totally in the moment, completely in the character. Just because the story is silly and songs are rock 'n' roll parodies doesn't mean this is easy theater, after all. It's not. It's hard.
Particularly good in their roles were Scott Wasserman as Doody, whose song "Magic Changes" was wonderful, Meghan Glogower as Frenchy, whose diverse looks were perfect for her continual growth as a character, and Ryan Green as Sonny is smarmy and predictably warm. Also fine as Miss Lynch was Carol Charniga, who turned in a perfectly delightful performance as the teacher/administrator who longs to be a part of the student body herself. Corey Masklee was a brightly amusing Eugene and Joshua Phan-Gruber did a lot with his Kenickie, especially in his relationships with Betty Rizzo, played wonderfully by Carman Napier and with his car. He made the "Greased Lightning" number one of the best on the Mac-Haydn stage. Napier sings a killer "Worst Things I Could Do."
Less successful were Danny Zucco and his ladylove Sandy as played by Charles South and Kelsey Self. Self was a dark-haired, lifeless broad who even in the finale didn't inspire much lust or love or anything else. Somehow she and her role never jelled and result was darkly colored water, not pretty or attractive and not musically interesting either. South, on the other hand, could sing brilliantly and move very very well, but still, watching them was like watching an accident on the highway: fascinating, but you wanted to keep a distance between you. These people need to be compelled toward one another and we need to be compelled in their direction, jointly. That element was missing from the show and where the problem lays I cannot truly say. And, by the way, Sandra Dee -- often referenced in regard to Sandy -- was a pale-shade-of-yellow blonde. That could be the simple problem.
It's hard to go wrong with "Grease." Not an easy show, but if you cast it right you have a hit on your hands. This production is mis-cast and more. What might have worked just didn't and it would seem that the director is at fault for some of the problem. Resident season casting accounts for the rest of it.

"Grease" plays at the Mac-Haydn Theatre on Route 203 north of Chatham, N.Y., through Aug. 14. For information and tickets, call the box office at 518-392-9292.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 5:48 PM | Permalink

"Touch(ed)" by Bess Wohl. Directed by Trip Cullman. At Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Two sisters and the man who affects them both form the core of the apple that is the two-act dramedy "Touch(ed)," now playing on the Nikos Stage at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. In its second major production the play is still growing and still forming. It has not ripened into something delicious as yet. It has all the ingredients necessary for a bright and shiny fruit that could adorn your table. What's missing is maturity and a room to grow.
It is a tightly wound play about two women whose lives are inextricably intertwined: a younger sister, a caregiver, who loses her self esteem in the dream of having her older sister sane and whole once again; an older sister who lives the dream but cannot sustain it or present it in a way that seems credible. As their very different sensibilities come into direct contact and immediately clash each begins to realize that nothing will ever make them whole again, that their cores are rotten in a way that cannot be perceived from the shiny exteriors they are able to present to strangers, outsiders who come into their lives to provide both professional and amateur insights.

Sadly the first act is dull and boring. Often new plays have "second act trouble," but in this case it is just the reverse. Too much confusion reigns in Act One as Kay and Billy, her boyfriend, try to disaster-proof the kitchen of a rented house where they plan to keep Kay's sister Emma, who has just been released from a mental institution. Abandoned by their parents, Kay is the one who sets up care for her sister. She is the one who gives when there's little left to share.
Emma is presented as strange, odd, queer, peculiar and yet she has a strength that is perceivable right from the onset of the co-habitation. When the first act ends, there is little to bring one back into the theater after the intermission. Fortunately we stayed because we had to.
Act Two injects wit and humor and honesty and a sensibility that instilled life into these two women. It is almost as though the second act was written as the play and then some fool said "you need a first act to explain all this" so Bess Wohl wrote her introductory paragraphs as Act One and so demolished much of what is good about the play.
The final scene of the play, a third act really, is presented in such a way that it confuses the audience with its obvious continuation of events that precede it, but not really. It is awkward to play with the unities in this way, especially with time. That takes better writing, too.
The actors in this play seem to do what they are asked to do by the playwright and the director, but perhaps some greater dynamic range would have helped the play along. Merritt Wever is Emma and her second act is spectacular acting while her first is mummery at best. In the last two scenes in which she appears she has a glorious voice and personality that shines through the words Wohl gives her to say. She moves with the grace of a gazelle. There is honesty in her portrayal. Would she had even a token of all this in the first half. Instead she is a dead thing, again courtesy of the script. She is obviously better than her material but perhaps not as good as we'd like to think since she does not instill Emma, at first, with any clarity or oomph or anything of interest at all.
Lisa Joyce does better with Act One and, as written, loses my attention in the latter part of the second act. The play is her character's play; she grows, changes, perhaps even begins to find out who she really is once she's on her own. Yet as played she becomes little more than a cleaning rag the others use to express their own frustrations. This imbalance is unfortunate for at the end of Act Two, Scene Two we really hope she finds out who she is and fast for there is a lot happening for her then and there.
Michael Chernus is the catalyst in their lives, a man named Billy who writes books when he's inspired and these two women clearly do not really inspire him all that much. It is his intervention that brings Emma into focus and forces Kay into a mud-thickened mire of personality disorders. Chernus does what he can with his underwritten, if talky, role.
Talky and stagnant is seemingly the overriding vision of director Trip Cullman. Cullman takes the curiously unpolished script and rubs off any sheen that may actually be there when the scene is dramatic. Likewise, he heightens the denser, thicker, less-well defined moments by exposing them to light they cannot tolerate. Clearly much of the imbalance here is Cullman's doing. There is no excuse for a director to deliver a dull 55-minute first act. That needs to be cleaned up somehow for the play to succeed.
The set designed by Andromache Chalfant is perfect for the play and the lighting designed by David Weiner delivers handsomely. Emily Rebholz's costumes are good for the characters but, like the script, are in-line pedantic. It would have helped us to understand Emma if there had been a costume for her that was truly not what we expect. Sometimes defining a character means hair, makeup and costume. This play could have used it.
History has shown us that a long out-of-town tryout can be the making of a show. This one needs a few more consecutive stands to iron out the many kinks and errors, many of them all too visible. Clever lines do not make up for the curious lack of well defined characters: "Miraculously he starts to become human" and "It was a bit of a cumin situation," are not the bon mots of a George Bernard Shaw but they did get a laugh and now and then a chuckle. This isn't a play you rush to see, but it is one you might enjoy if its creators would give it the attention it desperately deserves.
 
"Touch(ed)" plays on the Nikos Stage at the Williamstown Theatre Festival's '62 Center for Theatre and Dance at 1000 Main St. in Williamstown through Aug. 14. For information and tickets, contact the box office at 413-597-3400.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:48 AM | Permalink

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

Who says "you can't go there again?" At Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, three funny actors are not only repeating a season's past roles, they are doing it in a new way in a larger setting and making their mark into a potential annual event. Nineteenth and early-20th century actors returned to favorite roles often and toured them to the same towns where the same audiences dutifully and delightedly came out in droves to see again what had pleased them before. Why shouldn't that sort of magic be renewed by a resident company here in our midst?

This three-actor "Hound of the Baskervilles" is even funnier this time around than it was in September 2009. Jonathan Croy's Dr. John Watson is more of a boob this time and he's twice as funny. John Aaron McCabe's handsome and virile Sherlock Holmes is more vulnerable today than he was a while back. Ryan Winkles is more adorable in his various cheeky roles than he managed to be in the first edition of the play. The truth of the matter here is that these three actors are thoroughly enjoying themselves in this play and their audience is enjoying their on-stage relationship just as much as they are enjoying the antics and language of the play itself.
This is a feisty little play. It does not staunchly emulate the Conan Doyle story but seems almost too much a stage parody of a John Waters film version. The humor is sometimes slyly gay-oriented, hinting at relationships on the back burner that don't exist in the characters more literary lives. We catch Watson admiring Holmes posterior, for example, in the first scene of the play. The word 'butt' is often implied when the word 'but' is used. There are visual sexual jokes and spoken ones as well. Occasionally someone talks about, indicates or produces the noise of "horse-farts." Vulgarity is not out of the question, and yet it is of a piece and never really offends.
Winkles plays Sir Henry Baskerville, the last of the Baskerville line and next intended victim of the historic hound. He is sweetly ingenuous in the part. As written he might be considered stupid but as played he is clearly just Canadian. That's a major step up, but not enough to appease the colonialism of the British. Winkles shines as the Scots meat seller, milking more laughs from us than he can wring milk from his baby cow in a bag.
McCabe is stellar this time around as both Holmes and the charlatan he hopes to catch. He also plays the erotic Brazilian woman who attracts Sir Henry, dancing and flashing her eyes and her two fans. This may be his finest creation so far, and certainly his funniest. As both the servants, husband and wife, he brings to life two quirky characters that honestly keep us laughing at their unreality while seeming to be very real indeed.
Croy is just the perfect Watson. Tall, secure, serious and very right, he handles comic lines with a sincerity that makes them almost too good to arouse laughter ... but they do so without fail. He also manages physical comedy well beyond expectation at this point in time. When he and Winkles begin to fade in the mire you cannot help but feel sorry for them and yet laugh out loud at their crazy predicament.
On this larger stage, assisted by four costumed stage hands, the show seems to be a bit more prone to lengthy costume changes and stage waits that require some improvisation. Similarly these extended moments seem to inspire some onstage shenanigans with actors losing control now and then, breaking into laughter of their own and having to deal with that problem in front of the audience. Director Tony Simotes has clearly not bothered with such problems realizing as he must that these waits and the fills that each actor is clearly capable of creating are better than any other solution. His own sense of comedy, physical and verbal, shines in the work done on this stage. The way in which all three men handle such silly moments is almost worth the price of admission all by itself.
Guess what - I enjoyed myself immensely. Comedy is rearing its glorious head in the Founders Theatre in Lenox and it is not to be missed. You'll fall in love with these three actors in this show. You just can't help yourself.

"The Hound of the Baskervilles" plays in the Founders Theatre in repertory on the Shakespeare and Company campus at 70 Kemble St. in Lenox through Sept. 4. For information and tickets, call the box office at 413-637-3353.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:35 AM | Permalink

"Noises Off" by Michael Frayn. Directed by Jenn Thompson. At Dorset Theatre Festival.

Garry Lejeune is a non-communicative soul. Despite all his best efforts, only his nearest and dearest can ever make sense of his foot-in-mouth disease sort of utterances. Like it or not, Garry, you make us laugh.
Currently, Garry is currently playing the role of Roger Tramplemain in Robin Housemonger's "Nothing On," a farce comedy touring the outer stratosphere of British theatrical towns, such as Weston-Super-Mare and Stockton-on-Tees. His current squeeze, the older character/star Dottie Ottley, is both producing and starring in the show opposite him in the classic farce role of the housekeeper Mrs. Clackett, a woman obsessed with putting her feet up with a plate of sardines. Her old friend Selsdon Mowbray is playing Burglar and her dear friend Frederick Fellowes has agreed to play Philip Brent, a tax-dodging playwright technically hiding out in Spain with his wife Flavia, played by Belinda Blair.
These are a few of the facts surrounding the play in production in the play now playing at the Dorset Theatre Festival, "Noises Off." Everything above is true, but nothing above is real. Comedy. Get it?

When you see this production - and you must see this production - be certain you read the second program insert, the one for the show's show. It will have you splitting your sides wide open with laughter. Then prepare to have your funny bone tickled with a long, hard feather. This production is just as much fun as the original with Dorothy Loudon, Brian Bedford, Victor Garber and Paxton Whitehead as Dottie, Lloyd, Garry and Frederick, which opened on Broadway in December 1983 and ran for 553 hilarious performances.
Director Jenn Thompson has assembled a cast of players whose work is stellar and whose characters take them, the actors, into another plain, a high plain, a grand plane of illusion and deception and confusion and misperception. It doesn't matter how high they each attempt to fly, they are grounded in farce and they stay there no matter how lofty their goals.
On a deliciously fun set with nine doors, the nine actors in this play often seem to be using all of those entrances and exits simultaneously and in such a fun way that the laughs come easily and are generally loud. The set was designed by Debra Booth, and she and costume designer Emily Pepper have created the trappings of true comedy. They've done it to suit Jenn Thompson who, in a couple of intense weeks, has rehearsed one of the most difficult plays in the English language to a fare-thee-well. What makes it difficult is the script of the play within the play is identical for three straight acts and yet is never the same twice. The "actors" need to be able to play the original script, but it too is altered constantly as these British professionals struggle to get their own lines and movements right, but they can't do it.
Amelia White is fabulous as Dotty, the star/producer. Funny in her role as star, she is equally as funny playing her own role in this play that is being rehearsed, a role known as Mrs. Clackett. She starts out endearingly humorous, but by the end of the production she has graduated into an attitude seen but never heard: just how lucky are we to have you? 
Matthew Schneck is just hilarious as the philanderer Garry LeJeune. His granite-hard good looks work perfectly for his role. He has the acting stripes as well, carrying props that would cripple a better man and managing a damaging shoelace incident with floppy grace. He is also just plain funny.
Stephen Kunken plays the distressed and overwrought director Lloyd Dallas as a more mature man with a young man's hunger. He is gentle in the first act, subversive in the second and unexpected in the third. He handles himself well in the physical situations and has mastered the fine class of the art of comedy.
Kate Middleton plays Brooke, a vague and disconnected actress who is so self-absorbed that she has the appearance of being fully absorbed and needing a major squeeze, like tube of toothpaste, to be restored. She also looked perfectly cut off from reality throughout the show.
Nilanjana Bose is Poppy, the stage manager whose job it is to keep these people in line and she performs her duties and her role with amazing self-control. She is marvelous in this part.
Her cohort in backstage crime is Tim Allgood, as played by Jake Green. Green gets his part just right, understanding all of Tim's flaws and he places them in an order we can discuss but never emulate as he rushes from one disaster to another.
Oliver Wadsworth plays Frederick with relish and Valerie Wight is the perfect Belinda. Evan Thompson as the alcoholic old codger named Selsdon is merely marvelous. As a company it is hard to imagine a group working better together to create a seamless theatrical garment.
The production values here are first-rate also. Debra Booth's set is a marvel. Emily Pepper has provided ideal costumes and Philip Rosenberg has delivered well in the lighting of this show. Thompson has been clearly supported by her design team as well as by her actors.
The true use of an audience's imagination is hearing things on stage that cannot be seen, the sources of those 'noises off.' In this production no laugh is left untouched and the playwright's gift of comic writing is given its fullest interpretation. Coming in mid-season it is hard to believe that any other show will reach this level of humor, overwhelm it, or remove from memory any of its comedic merriment. This is a perfect triple-A experience.

"Noises Off" plays at the Dorset Theatre Festival on Cheney Road in Dorset, Vt., through Aug.13. For information and tickets, contact the box office at 802-867-2223.

Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 5:07 PM | Permalink