Peter Bergman Theater Reviews

'Canterville Ghost'

2008-10-10T19:11:39Z

“Tour de force” — what does it mean? “A feat requiring great virtuosity or strength, often deliberately undertaken for its difficulty,” says my dictionary. Such is the result of the process undertaken at Shakespeare & Company for their autumn production, a new version of the early Oscar Wilde story “The Canterville Ghost.”
While it takes a sense of virtuosic playing to create a work with at least 15 characters played by five people, it also takes the talents and skills of those actors to make such playing worthwhile. The company here is partially successful, with three of the company doing wonderfully and two not quite up to the task.
But first, a sense of the story.

]]> “The Canterville Ghost” by Anne Brownsted (and the ensemble) based on the novella by Oscar Wilde. Directed by Irina Brook. At Shakespeare & Company.

Wilde’s 1887 short fiction work pitted a family of Americans, with four children, including twins, living in an old English manor house against the house-ghost, a 16th-century nobleman who finds in the culture-clash more than enough reason to haunt and frighten the occupants of his ancestral estate. It is a comic piece, intentionally. The ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville is a rather inept figure, at least in the late 19th century.
The battle is eventually won (I won’t say by whom), and the prize is the son of the young, current Lord Canterville, who resolves all problems by wooing and marrying the young daughter of the American minister working in London and living in his family’s manse. She, Virginia Otis, wins his heart and the long-hidden family jewels that are much prized and much sought by the Cantervilles. Essentially, everybody wins — even the ghost who is finally granted an eternal peace.
Wilde did his best to capture the qualities of the Americans he had met during his tour of this country. The Americans he drew are nowhere near as grotesque nor the over-the-top jingoists that Brownsted, Brook and the bunch are presenting on stage in Lenox. Caricature abounds in this production — abounds and almost out-of-bounds, although now that a real frontier woman is running for a national leadership position, I may be the one out of bounds in this literal judgment.
Over the last century, the story has been fiddled with many times. In this new version, directed by Irina Brook, the show is considerably updated, and the American family is presented as a rather startling family of Texans who have purchased their way into the house and plan to turn it into a haunted house theme park. When a hypnotist, who seems to already haunt the place, turns them into the 1940s versions of themselves, the story takes up the traditional mold of the Wilde original transplanted almost into the period of the Hollywood film version that starred Charles Laughton, Margaret O’Brien and Robert Young. Country music gives way to “Dancing at the Savoy”; western duds are replaced with dresses and hats. A softness comes back into the play that would otherwise be missing. So does a bizarre sense of confusion, unfortunately, for the ending of the play is somewhat hard to discern. We don’t really know which family, which Virginia, is responsible for the ultimate turn of events, for the crown of jewels reward.
Apparently, a great deal of experimentation and improvisation went into the procedure. The script was developed during the rehearsal period. Sometimes things created on the spot were made permanent, and sometimes they should not have been made so definitive. A lot of what happens on stage is funny and should definitely be saved and used. But now we’re at the “tour de force” consideration, so let us go directly to it.
Dana Harrison plays the eldest contemporary Otis girl and also Lucretia Otis, the wife of the 1946-48 Hiram Otis. Her two principal characters are wonderfully different, and her Lucretia is particularly endearing. As her sister Chastity, and also her son Washington in that earlier era, Alexandra Lincoln does an excellent job of keeping the two different. There is a nice setup for this sex change in characters during the hypnotist’s show that opens the evening, but even so, Lincoln does a surprisingly good job of being the teenage boy. She also plays the “twins” from the original story, but this time they are Washington’s hand-puppet playmates.
Michael F. Toomey is the two Hirams. They are not the same person, and not played as the same person, but Toomey is harder to alter. His physical characteristics make him much more difficult to multicast, for so little is really changeable. He is good in both roles, but they are so much more interchangeable that only the costumes and the company he keeps make any visible difference.
The two Virginias are played by Alyssa Hughlett, and, once again, her two characters emerge as the same one, so it really doesn’t matter which one she is playing. Luckily, both Virginias dance, and Hughlett dances wonderfully well, with a gusto, joy and gymnastic flare that truly sets her apart from so many other actresses. She is pretty and has a sweet voice, but her dancing is really what rivets your attention and admiration and respect.
This foursome also plays a quartet of inept, dead magicians who come at the Ghost’s request to find a way to shake up the 1940s Otis family. Here, with deeply different costumes changes, they are all marvelously new and newly invented.
The big “T-de-F” is the challenge handed to Michael Hammond. As the hypnotist, the two Cantervilles and the housekeeper, Mrs. Umney, he is forever changing costumes, demeanors, voices, accents, tempos and even facial expressions. I say “even” because Hammond has a charming smile that he uses so often on stage it is almost a cliché. This summer, his evil Iago smiled more than the Cheshire Cat grins in “Alice in Wonderland.” Here that smile is often perceivably a grimace, a sneer, a smile, a lurid lip-line, a tremble and an egress for accents that define his principal characters perfectly. There are times in this play when his exits and entrances are so snappy that it amazes me that he can even begin to remember who he is, where he is and why.
Hammond never makes this constant set of quick transitions look easy. It is very obvious at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theater, where no seat is more than five rows from the playing area, that the man’s perspiration is absolutely real and clearly deserved. He is working very hard, perhaps too hard in this instance, to make something viably understandable out of this semi-improvised mish-mash: today vs. yesterday vs. the day before yesterday.
There is really no reason to have a modern-day Otis family when the one in the actual story would do. Doing so, especially with the surprise ending in the wardrobe (so to speak) only serves to confuse the ending, creating an instability for the audience. There is also no viable payoff for the modern Virginia who may, or may not, have been the person responsible for the seemingly happy ending. The lack of a really concrete script seems to have also given the audience and actors nowhere to go in the final moments. Virginia gets the jewels, but who really knew there were any to get? No one gets married at the end, but that may be all right, because sisters can’t wed anyway, and who else is there?
Shelby Rodger has done a nice job with the costumes, and Katy Monthei has used the large expanse of playing space to arrange her set design capabilities. The lighting by Tina Louise Jones is very handsomely designed, giving the minor special effects their due and the players their necessary lights.
This is an enjoyable romp for families in need of a different, unique, experience. It is not perfect theater, not a perfect play by any means. However, if a few thrills, some magical effects, a silly set of performances and/or an evening about life-force “tour de force” ghosts is your thing, then this is for you. Personally I am glad I saw it. It’s given me a new perspective on a few people and a new idea on dealing with the ghosts that haunt my own life. May the “force” be with you.

“The Canterville Ghost” plays at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox through Nov. 9. Tickets are $48, but there are some special rates available. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. with 2 p.m. matinees and a series of 11 a.m. special performances as well. Info: 413-637-3353.

J. Peter Bergman sleeps in Pittsfield, but spends his days with poet Edna St. Vincent Millay in Austerlitz. For more of his reviews, check out advocateweekly.com or his own Web site, berkshirebrightfocus.com.

'Visiting Mr. Green'

2008-09-07T02:06:05Z

“Visiting Mr. Green” by Jeff Baron. Directed by Tony Capone. At the Theater Barn.

Ross Gardiner is a young man assigned by the court to serve a public service duty toward an elderly man he has nearly run over with his car. Every Thursday, Ross must visit crotchety old Mr. Green, who suffers from a lack of almost everything: memory, kindness, understanding, tolerance, humanity and just plain love.
In nine scenes stretched out over two acts, these two men play out their peculiar, and oddly growing, friendship. They exasperate one another, admire one another, put up with an awful lot of foolishness and meddling, and just plain enjoy the experience of playing with one another. It is an uneasy friendship forged out of mutual dislike and distrust.
The show premiered at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in 1996 before going to play for a year in New York. These two productions, starring Eli Wallach, launched an international history of more than 300 productions in 37 countries in 22 languages and now the play has returned to the region with a two-week stint at the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y. Without Eli Wallach.
Wallach is not missed.

]]> In his place is John Trainor in what is, arguably, his finest performance in years. Trainor not only physically and emotionally understands and "gets" Mr. Green, he transforms himself, and the character in so doing, into someone tender, endearing, empirical and mesmerizing. Every ailment this character embodies, from sorrow and bitterness to brittle bones and hysterical imaging, makes sense as Trainor plays it. This is not a man we hate, only to come to tolerate as in Wallach’s classic performance. Trainor’s portrayal is actually deeper, richer and more human. Here is a man who cannot be anything other than himself. His tenderness, well hidden behind a gruff and suspicious exterior persona, emerges periodically with each stage of that appearance softer and more open than the one before it. In Trainor’s hands, Mr. Green becomes a human being capable of acceptance and love and not someone forced to rectify the mistakes of decades.
Ross, his almost "killer," is played here by a new actor to the region, Joe Digennaro. Tall, slender, swarthy and handsome, he is a menace to the older man, a stranger with unseen motives. Ross’s own gruffness, a neat parallel to Mr. Green’s, makes him the perfect adversary, and Digennaro plays every aspect of this with ease and a quiet self-assurance. The actor brings to life elements of the character that clearly telegraph revelations to come, and when he brings to the fore the motivating forces of his own life, shocking Mr. Green, the actor takes full possession of the character. In the second act, his secrets on the table, Digennaro lets his character’s foibles unfold like flower petals in the spring, with slow movements and slight bursts of joy. He plays these contrasts for all they are worth.
Tony Capone is expert at drawing nuance out of blatant statements and making large physical pronouncements out of small gestures. He has guided these two men superbly and helped them to anoint their characters with the oil of reality. There is something slick here, something too easy, but it’s all right in the end, for Ross and Mr. Green seem very real. It is only in the bows at the end that we completely realize that Trainor has been acting and that Digennaro probably has been acting also. Capone and his actors make a perfect team in creating this lush performance of a play that sometimes seems less than a play, more a collection of sketches from Saturday Night Live. The problem with the show is the week’s wait between each scene.
These men have no visible lives outside of the two rooms in Mr. Green’s apartment, designed by Abe Phelps and Michael Marotta. Since they connect only once a week (for the most part) we are left with a vague sense of their lives and their daily realities. Some of this is addressed in the script but, for the most part, not. That such real characters emerge is a miracle wrought by the director and his cast.
Using Ella Fitzgerald recordings between the scenes is a lovely touch, especially in the second act when she scats to Jewish themes before breaking into Irving Berlin’s "Blue Skies." Her voice and songs add a very nice touch to the production.
For an hour and 40 minutes, the stage of the Theater Barn becomes another world, one so commonplace you wouldn’t want to go there, but also one so rich in interaction and growth you won’t want to miss being there. So go there, already. You only have a few days. So why are you waiting? So, nu? Revelations, chapter who-knows!

“Visiting Mr. Green” plays at the Theater Barn, located on Route 20 in New Lebanon, N.Y., through Sept. 14. Tickets are inexpensive and you can book them at 518-794-8989.

“Eleanor: Her Secret Journey”

2008-08-28T19:22:58Z

“Eleanor: Her Secret Journey” by Rhoda Lerman. Directed by Stephen Temperley. At Berkshire Theatre Festival.

When I was growing up we had an LP, much cherished by my mother, titled “Eleanor Roosevelt: Impressions of Great Men.” It always disappointed me, each time I played that record, that Mrs. Roosevelt wasn’t doing impressions of Churchill and Stalin and others. She was only talking about them. She clearly knew the people she was talking about and of whom she was drawing endearing word pictures. She just made no attempt to sound like them.
So much for impressions.
On the Unicorn stage at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, actress Elizabeth Norment is playing Mrs. Roosevelt (1884-1962) in a new, one-woman one-act play that claims to be about “her secret journey.” While recent years past have proclaimed the former first lady’s longtime flirtation with lesbianism, this is not the obvious topic at hand. There are hints of this in the latter half of the play, but nothing is made clear, nor should it be — that is not this particular journey. (Norment, by the way, is not doing her “impression” of the lady, but is playing her as a living and breathing person, one who actually does do impressions. Imagine that! Full circle.)

]]> In the play, set in 1945-’46, Eleanor has been asked by President Truman to head the American delegation to the newly created United Nations, and she is unsure about the rightness of such a move. She takes time to assess her own past and comes to the ultimate conclusion that she will accept the offer and take a giant step into her own political career. This was a position, by the way, that the lady maintained until 1953 with Eisenhower took over the White House.
The drama Eleanor relives in this period of contemplation over her own future, are the years surrounding World War I, the war to end all wars, the start of the abortive League of Nations. A difficult time for the Roosevelts, separated by Franklin’s official duties and her own responsibilities as the mother of five American aristocrats, she discovers her husband’s infidelity with Lucy Mercer and separates herself from his proffered intimacies. Her exposure to the horrors of the war only aid in her defiant independence from her husband and her domineering mother-in-law.
Eleanor begins to explore the world outside her narrow social strata and discovers the breadth and depth of the women’s movements, makes friends and decides to establish her own home with her new women friends. Is this lesbianism? The question is never addressed. Nor need it be. It is not the issue in this play. This is about making up one’s mind about the future rather than addressing the past.
Along the way the actress gets to portray a young army sergeant who develops a quick and ardent friendship with Eleanor, financier Bernard Baruch ("a Hebrew"), her own schoolteacher Mlle. Silvestre, her army escort Major Duckworth, Uncle Ted (Theodore Roosevelt), Sara Delano Roosevelt and Dorothy Payne Whitney Straight, among others. She plays them as Eleanor might have were she capable of doing impressions. This double layer of acting suits Norment well, and she pulls off brilliantly the stunt of becoming someone becoming someone else. It helps us ignore the fact that she, the actress, is not doing an impression of the real Eleanor. She never quite gets the accent or the peculiar vocal strains right, but her self description of having “twice as many teeth as anyone I know” is borne out in Norment’s enormous smile.
Norment’s Eleanor is a woman with a certain degree of class and an awkward beauty that isn’t always apparent. She bears little resemblance to the lady in question and could not be mistaken for her, even in half-light. Instead she creates, quite wonderfully, a character named Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, based on a historical figure. Her choice is the right one, there are enough impressions taking place in this play. The show needs a good solid grounding in a woman who looks, sounds, feels real. That she has done.
Stephen Temperley has accomplished something unusual in this work. This single actor experience is not about the actress’s ability to create a multiple character piece, but rather about the character’s ability to transform her memories into something solid on stage. He often placed Norment in the worst possible light and position and lets her find her way through to the realities of the people Eleanor is addressing. It is a fine technique to use, allowing his collaborative efforts with the lighting designer, Thom Weaver, to bring out the differences.
In a lengthy and really amusing conversation with her mother-in-law, played downstage center, Weaver’s focused and concentrated light allows Sara Delano to move about from stage left to stage right, around her finicky daughter-in-law who addresses the moving woman without ever losing us in the process. We always know who is speaking and where each one is at any given moment.
The set, by H. Richard Miller, and Tracy Christensen’s plain and straightforward costume work to the advantage of the play, never interfering with our belief in place or period and providing a simplicity to the program that removes all but two props from the actress, a telephone and a framed photo of FDR.
Finally, a major kudo to the playwright for not making this a play about Franklin. She keeps the focus where it belongs — on Eleanor. It is hard with such a dynamic and enthralling American icon as FDR to not move him into the center spot, and even his wife’s adoration of him and her devotion through the difficulties of early-middle years of their marriage take second place to her inner search for herself and her need to express her feelings. If there is a secret journey explored here it is Eleanor’s own personal journey to a simple sense of completion. Lerman, Norment and Temperley help to provide that full circle sensibility.

“Eleanor: Her Secret Journey” plays at the Unicorn Theatre at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge through Nov. 9, closing for a hiatus between until Sept. 25. Ticket prices range from $19.50 to $44. To purchase tickets, call 413-298-5576 or visit berkshiretheatre.org.

“Noel Coward in Two Keys”

2008-08-25T17:07:26Z

“Noel Coward in Two Keys” by Noel Coward. Directed by Vivian Matalon. At Berkshire Theatre Festival, Stockbridge.

Playwright, composer and actor Sir Noel Coward undertook the journey of completion late in his life by writing three plays to facilitate his return to the London stage. The year was 1966, and his brand of sophistication was already outdated.
The young middle-aged man who wrote and performed in “Private Lives” 36 years earlier was now an old man, and he required a vehicle that would show him off, present his best side. He began with a long two-scene play that could easily be played as a two act vehicle, calling it “A Song at Twilight.” Not completely satisfied with it, he wrote a lighter, airier curtain raiser entitled “Come Into the Garden, Maude.” Still not where he wanted to be he composed a third play, “Shadows of the Evening.”
Now the show was too long, so he split it into consecutive evenings, appearing with Lilli Palmer and Irene Worth. Directed by Vivian Matalon, the shows played under the title “Suite in Three Keys,” and were well received, bringing about the revival of interest in Coward’s works after long years of neglect and a lot of sniggering by the young bucks of the British theater.
Coward died in 1973. The following year, his “Suite” plays were finally brought to Broadway, again directed by Matalon, but reduced to a single evening of two plays (“Shadows of the Evening” bit the dust). The shows in that 1974 New York production starred Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy and Ann Baxter. Flash forward to 2008 and here we are again, with Matalon bringing the “Two Keys” version to the Berkshire Theatre Festival to end the company’s 80th anniversary season.

]]> There are no true major stars in this edition of the play. Rather than focusing on personalities, the plays are asked to stand on their own. In a very unusual way, it seems a good thing that the same director who started them on their way has been able to shepherd them to this destination. He has been there for Coward and Cronyn, two strong and very different personalities. Another director might have ventured into one of those two stylistic pathways to replicate, or imitate, what came before. Matalon has not done that, and, in fact, the three actors who take the six central characters play them vitally differently than their forebears did. That is the one of the very good things about this edition of the show.
In “... Maud,” the Conklins, Verner and Anna Mary are played by Casey Biggs and Mia Dillon. Maud herself is played by Maureen Anderman. In “... Twilight,” the roles of Sir Hugo Latymer and his wife, Hilde, are played by Biggs and Dillon and the actress Carlotta Gray is assumed by Anderman. Felix the hotel waiter is played in both pieces by Gian Murray Gianino. Both plays consider the futures of men who have lived lies and must face the realities they have buried within themselves.
Biggs and Dillon play the ugly Americans in Europe to a fare-thee-well in the first play. She is preparing to host a dinner for royalty in the Hotel Beau Rivage bar and dining room in Lausanne-Ouchy, Switzerland, where they are residing temporarily. He has money, loves golf and just stretching out on a couch; she has all the pretensions and artifices that make such women into the Gorgons we expect them to be, especially when aroused. A sudden visit from Maud Caragnini, a Sicilian princess they have met in their travels, completely alters the event, the evening and the Conklins’ destiny.
Biggs is a perfect picture of American manliness in this play. He blusters, calls people “sweetheart,” refers to all drinks as “booze,” and is generally irritating and embarrassing to his spouse. Dillon is shrill, ugly, overbearing, over-dressed and poorly coifed — she is as funny a figure as you can imagine. The two of them, good as they are, come off as caricatures of Americans, Americans as perceived by Europeans. They play these parts too well, and even the best comic moments and witty lines afforded them by Coward emerge as parodies of themselves. You cannot help but laugh, while all the while you wish you wouldn’t, didn’t have to, and that these folks would just go away.
Things change in his playing when he is left alone with Anderman’s princess. She conveys the simple sophistication of even the most down-trodden upper classes. Her character lives and breathes, and she transposes that effect onto Biggs’ character in their scenes together, leaving Dillon to tromp on alone as the sole comic figure in the first 50-minute play.
In the second half of the evening, things are markedly different. Biggs plays a sophisticated British author, ostensibly based on Max Beerbohm and also Somerset Maugham, but in reality an open exposure by Coward of his own cowardly existence. Here he gets to play, at an advanced age, a typical Coward male, haughty, self-righteous, self-important, witty and sharp, mean and romantic. He pulls this off beautifully, managing to do everything the play anticipates for the mind, but never quite touching the heart.
Dillon, as his long-suffering German refugee wife, is very good here. Her second scene, when she returns after dinner, gave her many moments where she could take center stage and exhibit the tenderness we pray her Hilde can provide his Hugo. Dillon does this expertly, getting every nuance just right.
Anderman, as the intruder from his past who brings exposure of long withheld truths, is just brilliant. Every line, every gesture shows us the depth of her emotions. She is able to pull back when that is needed and to refrain from too much show of conflicting reactions to his stubbornness. She can be sweetly romantic, even lush for a moment and then switch instantly to the sharp jab in his psychological ribs. It is as though, in their time together, they are the Amanda and Elyot of Coward’s “Private Lives” grown old, seen 40 years later. She has known his secret since their early days, and she throws it in his face, expecting the denial that comes, witnessing the breaking of Dillon’s heart as she confesses that his secret has never been a secret at all.
Here we see the Coward who in his old age remarked, “Homosexuality is becoming as normal as blueberry pie,” a quote from one of his earliest hit plays, “The Vortex.” But when he brought that line back into fashion during the run of his “Suite” plays, he was doing much more than commenting on the times in which he lived. He was allowing his audience to reach into places he had always hidden, or thought he had hidden, from them. In “A Song at Twilight,” he learns that his secret, his character’s and his own, has never been far from the surface.
Gianino does fine as the waiter whose line, “At your service,” has so many meanings I won’t even begin to go into them.
R. Michael Miller has provided Matalon and his players with a lovely set, with muted colors that allow the performers to shimmer under Ken Billington’s lights. David Murin’s sense of humor comes out in the costumes, particularly Dillon’s first act clothing and Sir Hugo’s elegant, if seedy, smoking jacket.
Hopefully the director has finally found all of the answers, the “$64,000 answers” that this play has long sought. Finally in the hands of legitimate actors who bring no long, flaunted, high-fame history to the parts, the characters in both plays have a chance to be seen for who they are and not for who is playing them. It takes a Coward to write about the secrets we hide. It takes a brave man to face them.

“Noel Coward in Two Keys” plays through Aug. 30 at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge. Ticket prices range from $23-$68. For information and tickets, contact the box office at 413-298-5576.

"The Sound of Music"

2008-08-23T13:37:30Z

“The Sound of Music,” book by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, II, music by Richard Rodgers. Directed by John Saunders. At the Mac Hadyn Theatre in Chatham, N.Y.

There is usually a simple answer to any question, a solution to any problem. For the Von Trapp family, the answer comes in the spritely package of novice nun Maria. Without batting an eyelash she gets the seven kids singing, the servants looking away and the father, a semi-retired captain in the Austrian navy, a widower with a bitter streak, strumming a guitar and developing his soft side. When the Nazis threaten their future Maria answers that challenge by taking her new family to the nuns who hide them and inspire them to "climb every mountain, ‘till they find their dream."
That dream, in case anyone didn’t know it, was to lead them to America where they opened a camp for music and became a successful, if quirky, folk-song-singing musical troupe. It would seem that the solution to the problem of how to focus on your future in show business is find a bunch of Nazis and a whole lot of nuns.
It’s really not that simple, although the musicalization of this story tends to put it that way. On stage at the Mac Haydn Theatre in Chatham, N.Y., a talented company makes it seem all that easy but you can tell from the hyperactivity in the blackouts that there’s a whole lot more going on.

]]> The Shook sisters, Karla and Kelly — who have dominated this stage in the round this summer — are back on the boards as rivals for the love of the one good man in Austria, the one man willing to stand up for his beliefs. Karla Shook is funny-nun Maria and Kelly is wealthy-bitch Elsa Schraeder. Elsa has the money, clothing, hairstyle and posture to attract any man. Maria sings and pokes fun at children’s fears. Elsa sings about survival of love; Maria sings about simplistic concepts. Obviously the sophisticated, wealthy widower is going to fall in love with Maria.
The trouble I’ve had with “Sound of Music” since its creation is the simplicity placed over the horrors of the tale, the difficulties faced by these people. Falling in love in a time of war is dangerous, and so it is for Maria and for Liesl Von Trapp, a 16-year-old girl. In Liesl’s case there is the ignorance of youth, attaching itself to the wrong side because it seems to be the winning side. In Maria’s, it’s the already-stated unfair competition.
What factors into the tale, only slightly, are the political ramifications of choices in a time of war. It falls to minor characters to deal with the philosophies that drive the story, motivate the main characters. This isn’t a musical about war, but like other hit shows, such as “Cabaret,” there are clear indicators that the trouble brewing around the romance — almost always a prime factor in a musical — is real and that trouble brings threats and potential disaster.
In John Saunders’ handsomely directed production, the threat never feels very real. You almost expect a German military parody number, which you already know doesn’t exist, to pop up suddenly, a rousing chorus of "Heil, Heil the Fuhrer’s Smile" or something like that.
Karla Shook plays a credible Maria, as she is written for this show. She has sincerity and honesty and her voice handles the music well. She has a quizzical face that sometimes tips one side of her mouth upwards into an awkward half smile half sneer. She is, perhaps, a closer replica of the real Maria Von Trapp than her more famous predecessors, Mary Martin and so on.
Johnnie Moore is Captain Von Trapp and his good looks and rich voice make him a very good one. We can believe in him in the role and that helps a good deal. In fact, he is so good at times that it seems impossible that he is not one of the professional Equity actors in the company, which the program tells us he is not.
Monica M. Wemitt is a wonderful Mother Abbess, her best role here since Lizzie in “110 in the Shade.” She sings the role with strength and beauty and her scenes were consistent to character and often quite moving.
Kelly Shook is miscast as Elsa. For the first time, she seems to be a prettier clone of her sister, which works against the reality of the role and Elsa’s fight to win her man who is clearly becoming interested in Maria. Similarly, her buddy Max is played by a miscast Colin Pritchard. He comes across as far too young for the role and just a bit too effete.
The kids were wonderful. The "Alps" cast — one of two completely different groups — consisted of Eddie Knight, Victoria Ruddle, Zachary Mooney, Cassandra Pearson and Shelby Kline as a wonderful Gretl, the youngest child. Lauren Palmeri was a believable Liesl.
The rest of the large company did well in their roles, particularly the trio of nuns.
Beautifully, and sometimes appropriately awkwardly, clothed by Joshua Marsh, the show maintained a lovely look surrounded by the alpine wall paintings provided by set designer Bud Clark.
“The Sound of Music” is a decent musical that has been somewhat destroyed by the enormously successful film starring Julie Andrews. Judging from this production everyone has to start the show walking in a circle with arms outstretched, just like Julie, or you don’t have a show that people will like. Saunders, the director, has fallen into that trap here, when a simple, quiet exultation of angels would have served. Most of his choices were fine, but to even make a vague reference to that filmic source was a mistake.
The show is better constructed than the film, which sacrificed cohesiveness and character for scenic splendor. The book for this show actually works better than I remembered and score, in its current arrangement, has greater emotional impact than it does on celluloid. If you’re not moved by the first rendition of "So Long, Farewell" and if you are left without fear, remorse, sorrow or love by Edelweiss you should not be seeing this production of this show. Both moments are critical and both are delivered with every emotional stopgap opened up.
Reservations aside, this lovely production makes a fitting season-ender for this company.

The Sound of Music plays at the Mac-Haydn Theater on Route 203 in Chatham, New York through Aug. 31.

"Grease"

2008-08-22T19:39:52Z

"Grease,” book, lyrics and music by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. Directed by Artie D’Alessio. At the Theater Barn.

It seems that the most famous words ever to emerge from a Broadway musical, other than “Some Enchanted Evening you may meet a stranger” and perhaps “Oh, what a beautiful morning...” are “Rama lama lama, ka-dinga, ka ding-dong” and “Shoo-bop sha wadda-wadda, Yippity boom-de-boom.” Those last two phrases come from the musical now playing at the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y.: “Grease.”
Trying vainly to remember the original cast and the replacements in that remarkable long run the show had in 1972, long enough to replace all the Rodgers and Hammerstein shows as long-run winner, I went and looked them up. During that first New York run, not counting the revivals, the cast of the show included all of the following folks: Barry Bostwick, Jeff Conaway, Peter Gallagher, Patrick Swayze, Treat Williams, Adrian Zmed, and as their understudy Richard Gere, all in the pivotal male lead role of Danny Zuko. Betty Rizzo was played by Adrienne Barbeau and Judy Kaye, Kenickie by future director Jerry Zaks, Sandy, the heroine, by Carole Demas and Ilene Graff and others in the company included Tony winner Walter Bobbi, Kathi Moss, John Travolta (who later played Danny in the movie but in the play he was Doody), Walter Charles, Jamie Donnelly (who repeated her Jan in the film), Marilu Henner, David Paymer, Nicholas Wyman, and local “singing realtor” Alaina Warren.
It’s an impressive group of folks. Each in his or her way brought an electricity to their roles that helped to keep the show alive and well — and none of them were stars when they went into the show, unlike the major revivals of “Grease” in New York which have kept their efforts going only by bringing in large name stars who will draw an audience to anything they do, including reading a phone book.
At the Barn there are no stars, but there are a few young actors who might just make it up that wobbly ladder to fame and success.

]]> Rick Desloge plays Doody, the role that Travolta first took over. He solos in both acts in two important numbers, “Those Magic Changes” and “Rock ‘N Roll Party Queen.” This guy has so much charm it bursts out of him, and that personality will take him a long way. He plays his role with great conviction and obvious interest. But much as he did as Jinx in “Forever Plaid” here, he moves beyond the role he is playing to allow a fusion of his own persona and that of the character he plays.
Allie Schauer is a force to be reckoned with as Betty Rizzo and Ashley Blasland makes more of Patti Simcox, the total opposite of Rizzo, than most people have done in the past. These two women are hilarious in their few scenes together. Such amazing opposites, Schauer keeps Rizzo an unsympathetic character, and yet she still makes us like her and root for her, particularly in the final scene where so much “story” happens suddenly. Blasland manages the same sort of minor miracle as she pines for Danny and works to make him her own. We know that nothing can come of such a union and it doesn’t matter because Blasland moves her character in and out of the morass of men musing on her frigidity, a quality this young actress knows how to move across the stage and out into our consciousness.
Wade Elkins, a second survivor of the Plaids, does a fine job with Kenickie, setting the song “Greased Lightning” on its musical ass. It’s a powerful performance.
There are others, just as good, but other than Angie Perez’s hysterically funny Cha-Cha DiGregorio, a woman whose upper body never stops moving in this production, I am not going to continue enumerating the best of the show.
Instead, there are the two weak points: Zuko and his paramour Sandy. Brittany Boivin just doesn’t seem or feel right. Her whining about her life made the wrong impression on me, and I grew to dislike her. When she undergoes a drastic transformation, which I find remarkable theater work with incredible timing, she finally comes alive, but her personality, or rather that of her character, has remained steadfastly intact for too long this time around and I just couldn’t warm up to her.
I felt the same way about the Danny Zuko of Michael Borges. He has that smarmy, 1950s look down pat, and he is muscular and dances in a manner reminiscent of Travolta in this and his other signature roles. But somewhere, inside his head, he never manages to make himself into the high school kid who acts out his aggressions. There is no romance in him and there is no anger in him. No matter what he does, he never gets the Danny Zuko we need to see onto the stage.
Without a threatening and forceful Danny and a Sandy we can sympathize with, there is no show, just a bunch of numbers strung together by talented actors. That is what we have in this “Grease.”
There is no one to blame for this. Director Artie D’Alessio has done a very nice job of re-creating a classic in a limited time. He knows the right buttons to push and he almost gets the movement down right, but there is almost a sense of ridicule, of ugly parody at times that may or may not be his doing. I didn’t attend rehearsals, so I don’t know. The show becomes stagnant now and then, and that may be attributable to him or to the actors; again, it is hard to be certain.
The Phelps team, Abe and Allen, do a very nice job with the look of the show, as do Elyse and Leah Miller with the costumes — a bit too borrowed, again, from the film version. I did miss the Pink Ladies pink jackets, but that’s all right. If that’s what I’m left thinking about, then that was not the only thing wrong, it just means I am concentrating on black leather replacing pink silk instead of the greater issue of why the show just didn’t work for me.
I doubt it was the jackets.

“Grease” runs at the Theater Barn on Route 20 in New Lebanon through August 31. Tickets are inexpensive enough for you to go, make up your own minds and tell me off if you think you must. Call the box office for tickets at 518-794-8989.

"See Rock City & Other Destinations"

2008-08-21T20:12:48Z

"See Rock City & Other Destinations," book and lyrics by Adam Mathias, music by Brad Alexander. Directed by Kevin Del Aguila.

"New" doesn’t come to mind. Sweet, fun, nicely done — those words apply when describing "See Rock City..." but not "new." Six musical sketches comprise this 93 minute review of quirky people in quirky places and a cast of seven talented players are performing it frequently on Barrington Stage Company’s second stage at the old VFW hall in Pittsfield.
The final entry in this year’s musical theater lab exposes some talented writers who seem to be caught in a rut left by the squealing tires of other, older musicals that often dealt with the same sorts of stories.

]]> "33.39 N.,, 104.53 W," for example — the second, fourth and seventh sketches, deals with a man who has abandoned girlfriend, home, job, friends and family to wait in a plastic strapped folding chair outside of Roswell, New Mexico for the aliens he is sure will return there. He has a tape deck to record the event and his reactions, a miner’s helmet to see through the night, and to shine a spotlight on himself as he waits and records the smallest sounds and shifts of late-night lighting. He gets to sing "We Are Not Alone" many times and he makes his point easily. But I’ve seen this before. I know I have, and if I cannot exactly pinpoint the where and when it is something I have seen and it feels like something old, not something new.
The title sketch, about a drifter with a mind that screams "fried on drugs" convinces an ambivalent waitress that the map he possesses will lead them to Rock City, a place-name scrawled on the tin roofs of many bars in the southeast. She throws over her job and whatever life she has outside the luncheonette and goes with him. When they find the place she can see magical aspects, but can only see rocks. The wanderlust theme here gets lost in memories of other, recent shows that have presented it better: Spitfire Grill, for example.
There are three fascinating pieces in the six and they could become the core of a much better show: "Remember the Alamo," "Crossing Glacier Bay," and "Greetings From Niagara." Expanded into fuller acts they could be an interesting three-act musical, or just be surrounded by better, more interesting material than they have now.
Luckily for audiences that see this version of this show, there are fine talents at work on all of the material, good or mediocre as the case may be. John Jellison, for example, plays Grampy in the "Alamo" play. He is an old man severely handicapped by a stroke who is returning for his yearly visit to the Texas shrine. It was the place where he met his true love, his long-dead wife, and heard an angelic promise of true love. His granddaughter is his shepherd and on this particular annual occasion she meets a man at the same place where her forebears met. A lawyer named Dempsey, played by David Rossmer, helps the girl out in a crisis and finds himself tongue-tied but fascinated by her. She is unsure.
Jellison is divine as the stricken man whose inner voice creates beautiful music. Rossmer is endearing as the fumbling young man who says things awkwardly. As the girl, Lauren, the company gives us Cassie Wooley who plays insensitivity with more sensitivity than should be allowed. She gives a moving, strong performance in this piece.
The show’s three women inhabit the Glacier Bay story. Three sisters are trying to dispose of their dead father’s ashes on an Alaskan cruise but complications in their relationships with him and with one another keep getting in the way. In spite of that brief synopsis let me assure you that this is the funny sketch. Wooley plays the scattered sister whose emotions keep getting the better of her. Jill Abramovitz plays the one whose personality chills even the Alaskan waters and Gwen Hollander is the sweet girl who holds this family together. All three are just perfect in these roles.
Abramovitz is a bride on the run in the "Niagara" story and Rossmer is her personal tour guide. The frenzy of this piece and the pent-up anger which drives both characters makes this a fascinating road to take. Both actors are at their best in this work.
Then there is "Coney Island Spook House" in which two teenagers on a run-away day from school discover painful truths about themselves and each other. The outcome of their contemporary music play is a Brokeback Mountain twist that is both uncomfortable and inevitable and too easy to anticipate in spite of some fine playing by Benjamin Schrader and Wesley Taylor (on a pass from his Rosswell duties).
If the two framework pieces were as good as the others than this patchwork evening of mini-musicals might have been more successful.
Brian Prather has done a fine job of creating the scenic splendors for this show using projections and pieces instead of more concrete forms. Mark Mariani has a neat way with contemporary character clothing and David F. Segal makes the most of his lighting touches, each of them just right for the particular story. Vadim Feichtner does just fine as the orchestra (piano off right).
Del Aguila, the director, moves his company perfectly in and out of each tale and establishes interesting relationships between, or among, his characters. Better material would benefit from his eye, his vision of how the show moves.
In spite of its two big awards, this show is not the show it could be or should be. There are obviously good talents at work, but when a show without an intermission that is both actable and musical provides not one musical memory to take away, it needs more work.

"See Rock City & Other Destinations" plays at the Stage Two theater in Pittsfield on Linden Street through Aug. 26. Tickets are $15-$30. For schedules and to book tickets, call the box office at 413-236-8888.

"June Moon"

2008-08-18T20:28:20Z

"June Moon" by Ring Lardner and George S. Kaufman. Directed by Jesse Berger. At the Dorset Theatre Festival.

Innocence isn’t what it used to be, at least, I don’t think it is. In 1929, when George S. Kaufman worked with Ring Lardner to adapt his short story "Some Like ‘Em Cold" into a play, there were definitely innocent men and women, people who had no true comprehension of the world and what it contained. This play, one of the big hits of the 1929-1930 season with 273 performances, featured some very innocent types caught in a typical New York City trap from which it would seem there was no way out.
Of course, with true innocents, there is always a last minute realization and a loud questioning of morals. At least in a comedy — and that is what the Dorset Theatre Festival is presenting for its final entry of the season.

]]> The season that brought this show onto the scene was a pretty exciting one, and one of the busiest Broadway had ever known. Jimmy Durante and Ruby Keeler starred in "Show Girl" by the Gershwins, Dorothy and DuBose Heyward’s play "Porgy" had been produced by the Theatre Guild, Gert rude Lawrence and Leslie Howard were in "Candle Light," a play which would soon spawn a hit Cole Porter musical, and George S. Kaufman had at least two more plays in preparation to open that season. Bette Davis made her Broadway debut in a light comedy, Noel Coward’s "Bitter Sweet" was about to open and "Death Takes a Holiday" would follow shortly — and all of this before the turn of the year, just the first half of the season.
"June Moon" was one of the big hits. It struck a chord with audiences because of its central characters, Fred Stevens and Edna Baker, two innocents abroad. These two still hold center stage in the current production in Vermont.
Fred is a GE clerk who has decided to go to New York and be a lyric writer for popular songs. Edna is a dental assistant to a big city dentist who seems to only have a male clientele. These two meet on the train from Albany and strike up a friendship that soon blossoms into love for her and fondness for him. As his star rises in the Tin Pan Alley milieu in which he begins traveling, her star diminishes for him. He is swept away by the glamour of is writing partner’s sister-in-law, a gold-digger from way back. It is only last-minute revelations about her character that save him from "a fate worse than death" and restore him to his senses and to the little girl he truly loves. Without telling you too much, that’s the story.
The playwrights have a way with words that I won’t try to emulate here. The quirkiness of the American language in that period is half the fun; the other half is a superb cast under the eye of a director who knows how not to parody a period, but how to re-create it effectively. The two authors cleverly drew their characters from living models, and even the big hit song that Fred creates in Act One, also called "June Moon," came from the pens of the playwrights: the sheet music cover reads "Words and Music overheard by Ring Lardner and George S. Kaufman" (on the inside page that is changed to "Eavesdropped by...").
Spencer Moses, tall, lanky, boyish, is a wonderful Fred. He handles the upstate educated language of the character with a naturalness that makes its awkward phrasings as real as possible. He has a charm that lends itself perfectly to such a period-placed fellow and his constant enthusiasm gives him license to use phrases such as "I get dizzy if I climb a ladder" when someone suggests they go for a treat to the St. Regis Roof, a nightclub. Moses handles such things with simplicity and honesty and it works just the way author Kaufman expected it would.
Clearly Moses’ equal in this sort of playing is Larissa Goldberg as Edna. Unseen between the prologue on the train and the middle of the second act, she brings her ingenue qualities back into the play at just the right moment. Fred is caught by a temptress and Edna doesn’t know about it, and her enthusiasm for him is just the right note at the right moment. Goldberg also embodies her character. Hearing about Eileen, the "other woman," Edna remarks in a sweet and not sarcastic manner, "Oh, Fred, you want to be careful! Because you take a woman like she, that’s close to 40 or more" and Goldberg makes it a warning that has a classic sweetness. As she plays this young woman, Goldberg simply begs to be hugged without saying a word. It’s a lovely performance.
Paul Sears, the composer, is played with finesse and a period physicality by Brit Whittle. His wife, Lucille, is nicely portrayed by Carol Halstead and her sister Eileen — no connection to any other sister Eileen — is put on the map by Mary Bacon. All three have a loose sophistication that begs laughter in their baser moments.
Mark Alhadeff is a funny Maxie, a piano-playing song-plugger with a collection of wisecracks that are guaranteed to get at least a hearty snicker. His tendency to imitate Groucho Marx was a bit overdone at times, but he carries off the character nicely otherwise. Teresa Stephenson plays a wonderful Goldie, the music publisher’s secretary. Erin Timony Bump was a bit overboard as Miss Rixey.
In a very nice bit in Act Two, Curran Connor plays an amusing Window Cleaner and Ian Lowe plays Benny, the songwriter, with enthusiasm, grand comic timing and constant stop and go foot pattern that gets the laugh every time.
Nicely directed with an understanding of the Kaufman style by Jesse Berger, this show takes a while to get going into the comedy it naturally becomes. The sweetness of the romance established in the opening scene makes the comedy a bit more difficult, but an indulgent audience will get the jokes in time to make this an enjoyable performance.
David Barber’s sets are wonderfully right for the play as are the costumes provided by Sara Jean Tosetti, particularly the red dress worn by Lucille in the Third Act and all of Edna costumes. Josh Bradford has done a fine job lighting this play.
The Kaufman project, a goal of artistic director, Carl Forsman, is off to a grand new beginning with this production and promises more wonderful light comedy in the future. Treat yourself to a taste of 1929, just before the stock market crashed, and sing along with the songwriters: "Sweet night bird, winging aloft, singing a soft love tune..."

"June Moon" plays at the Dorset Theatre Festival, 104 Cheney Road, Dorset, Vt., through Aug. 30. For performance schedules and tickets, call the box office at 802-867-5777 or visit dorsettheatrefestival.org.

"Home"

2008-08-16T20:54:28Z

“Home” by David Storey, directed by Joseph Hardy. At Williamstown Theatre Festival.

What do you expect the elderly, confined to a home, to talk about? That’s the crux of the issue here in David Storey’s 38-year-old play.
Two elderly gentlemen, Harry and Jack, meet in the garden of the complex in which they dwell, sit and talk incessantly, for more than half an hour, about almost nothing as they seemingly only half listen to each other. Non sequiturs fly, topics change and alter, disconnection seems to be the only thing they have in common. Ultimately they get up and leave, old friends, it would seem, out for a morning stroll. They are well-dressed — dapper actually — in that particular way that Englishmen seem to be able to pull off at age 75.
They are followed by two women named Marjorie and Kathleen, one with a noticeable limp, who take their place at the lawn furniture table and begin their conversation. Almost as disjointed as that of the men, but not quite, not ever quite, they discuss sexual libido and other subjects not usually on the table for women of a certain age. When the men join them, the conversation becomes both stilted and flirtatious. They go off for lunch. End of Act One.
Williamstown Theatre Festival is ending its very interesting summer season under Nicholas Martin’s new regime with this absurd piece of British theater. They have hired four brilliant actors to portray these somewhat peculiar, somewhat boring people, and brilliance combined with boring produces some brilliantly dull moments. Even so, you cannot help pay attention to what’s being said in this almost exclusively "talk" play because you are sure there’s something important about to be revealed. Ultimately, there it is.

]]> In the second act, with Alfred, another odd character — seemingly younger than the others — we discover that this home actually houses people whose behavior has placed them into a protective custody situation. Their home with its beautiful, high wall, is a modest form of imprisonment establishment where their behavior is watched and assessed. The elderly are symbols of a society going to Hell in a handbasket, and this place may well be that basket. End of Act Two.
Philip Goodwin plays Harry. He is a distinguished gent, possibly a banker, whose vague responses to most things seem to be coming for a lack of interest in his surroundings and his fellows. As played by Goodwin, it also seems quite possible that mood-altering drugs might well be in place. Harry has a reputation in this place, an odd set of relationships with desperate women. Goodwin’s Harry seems not to be the type, but that cold remove he plays so well may be a blind behind which his baser nature lurks.
Jack is played by Richard Easton. Here is a man whose bluster and fortitude are never in question. He is always anxious for the next event, the next feat, the next display of his abilities. Easton does bluster better than anyone. He does it so well that you might believe there is a character standing there in front of you. He makes more fully realized a man whose history is never revealed and that takes art.
C.J. Wilson is the odd man out, Alfred, whose physical feats of strength provide some of the minimal genuine comedy in this play. From his appearance and his manner, it would seem that he is more an employee in this place, and not a resident, but even that is never made clear by the author, the director or the actors. He is a first-name character, not well-dressed, and that would imply the earlier assumption. Yet, as the second act progresses and Alfred interacts with the others, Wilson’s talents bring him closer and closer to reflecting a slightly younger incarnation of Jack. This melding of the visions makes Alfred, in Wilson’s hands, into the most interesting of people. It also brings to mind questions about the other four that have heretofore not been voiced, in particular: How long have these people been in this place and what brought them here in the first place?
Dana Ivey’s Marjorie is a grumpy, frumpy, doom-and-gloom control freak. She is funniest when she sits back in her chair and pompously begins a new topic of conversation. Her mouth curls downward and her eyes flash. She redefines the word "gorgon" and the only thing missing are knitting needles and a long, colorless, piece of knit-goods without a purpose. Ivey is so funny at times that the play seems to become only about her, but she is a handsomely giving performer who always brings the focus of attention back around to the others.
Clearly her match, and sometimes with less to work with, Roberta Maxwell infuses Kathleen with a femininity that is simply hilarious. She simpers and limps in the oddest way. She giggles at anything sexually suggestive and with that magical sound increases the imagery that so embarrasses her. She is the chief flirt in the quartet, and not even Alfred escapes her charms. Maxwell’s performance almost tips the balance of understanding to the reality that is slowly revealed in the second half of the play, but there is an honesty in her playing that keeps us at bay for a long, long while.
Director Joseph Hardy manipulates and moves his people as best he can in the successful setting provided by Tobin Ost. In this play about relationships, he creates visually a series of pairings that delude and confuse us. His placement of Harry and Jack, for instance, in Act One where there is no action once Jack joins Harry at table, provides us with a considerable amount of information that later proves false. It is the cleverness, Hardy employs in making something out of nothing, or nothing out of something else, that keeps the play as interesting as it is in this production.
Alejo Vietti has given the characters their clothing, and each of them is visually defined by what they carry on their backs. Rui Rita has provided the appropriate lighting, and his afternoon sky that darkens with the play’s own darkening is brilliantly colorful where the play is brilliantly colorless. It is an excellent achievement.
This is an oddment, a British play about nothing but social judgement. It is a hard play to like, but with the likes of Eastman, Ivey, Maxwell and Goodwin, hard not to enjoy. Just be prepared to listen to interminable chats about very little of importance or interest and be glad you’re visiting, and not living at, the "Home."

Home plays at the Williamstown Theatre Festival through August 24. For ticket information, visit wtfestival.org.

"Tilted House"

2008-08-16T20:43:38Z

“Tilted House” by Susan Eve Haar. Directed by Linsay Firman. At Chester Theatre Company.

When a play throws around grandiose imagery in the mouths of folks who should know better, you know you’re in trouble. Clay, a youngish author, a Scots novelist with a sexy hankering for another man’s wife, tells her that when he sees her he becomes "composed entirely of yearnings." That happens in scene one after he enters her bedroom, barefoot, through her window, drink in hand.What follows is the usual seduction scene in which she shows little interest in him and then they are discovered by her husband, a man who hopes to become Clay’s editor.
Clearly there are a lot of "yearnings" at work here, especially when we can see that the wife isn’t particularly interested in the husband. What follows for two acts is a lot of literary, and literate, chatter.
Even when passions rear their ugly heads, they are referred to by the participants in passion’s play in the following manner: "Your body feels like an alternative universe," she says after sex. Later in the second act, she tells him that he has an "inability to adapt to the new." After two acts of this play, so do I, I fear.

]]> Not that the story isn’t compelling. It is. Not that the people and their motives aren’t of interest. They are. It is just that the playwright gets in the way of the story she is telling by making all of her characters speak in an artificial manner that only serves to get between them and the audience. One man in front of me at the intermission said, "After this play, I may have to get a divorce." I disagree with that theory entirely. After this play, I may have to find an alternative universe where this play does not exist.
The production at the Chester Theatre Company is actually lovely to look at. Tony Andrea’s set depicting several spaces at a beach house on Fire Island, and a nearby motel, are glorious, a triumph of design. Kara D. Midlam’s costumes present each of the players at their most appropriate. The atmospheric lighting designed by Jill Nagle is just about right for every scene. Tom Shread bathes the theater in beach sounds and music and adds appreciably to the world created by the director.
The cast is superb. Michael Milligan, even with his high receding hairline, makes an excellent romantic swain for the beautiful and throaty Annie played to perfection by Ylfa Edelstein. In both cases they are to be commended for keeping a straight face while uttering their most ridiculous lines. She has a particularly difficult time with it because she has to say hers to both men and listen to Milligan utter his gormless speeches.
Playing opposite these two stalwarts are the Slezaks, Victor and Alex. Victor Slezak is Robert, husband to Annie, craver of the newest achievement of author Clay. He has some of the most difficult lines to pull off with his character’s emotions quivering under constant changes and indecisive moments. How he pulls it off is almost worth the price of admission. As Henry, son of Robert and Annie, is Alex Slezak, Victor’s own son — a fledgling first-grader. Alex is almost as good an actor as his father, with his emotions out front and honest.
This fine company of players has to dart in and out of scenes, some so short they feel intrusive, and somehow make the whole thing work. The writing works against them and the director has seemingly done all she can do to hold the piece together.
One issue that this play deals with, and one that is at the core of the emotional tale it tells, is Synesthesia, a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another. For example, the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color. Sense impressions are a major part of Clay’s makeup, of his work, possibly of his peculiarities of expression. This manifestation, a personal flaw in his makeup, becomes a crux issue in Act Two and it almost redeems the writing.
Sadly, nothing could. The play’s basic problem is not that easily solved. The playwright needs to get over the possibilities in language and find a form of speech that makes sense for people to utter and to listen to without screaming, holding the throat and dropping to floor in hysterical fits of laughter.

Tilted House plays at the Chester Theater Company through Aug. 24. Tickets are $24.50-$29.50. For schedules and tickets call the box office at 413-354-7771 or find them online at chestertheatre.org.

"Private Lives"

2008-08-13T14:33:24Z

“Private Lives” by Noel Coward. Directed by Julianne Boyd. At Barrington Stage Company.

The course of true love in the world of sophisticated ladies and gentlemen never runs smooth. At least that was the belief of the author Noel Coward. In his 1930s hit play “Private Lives” he put onto the stage (currently Barrington Stage) a prime example: Amanda and Elyot have been in love for eight years, three of them married and five divorced. Completely certain that they have moved on, each has remarried, Elyot to the somewhat simpering, and definitely simpler Sybil and Amanda to the earnest and overbearing Victor.
On night number, one of each of their honeymoons has placed them side by side in a resort hotel in France that provides adjoining balconies. No balcony scene since the one in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” has ever been this sophisticated, subtle and romantic. The course of true love, following this first act, becomes a rampage of hot emotions, cool behavior and more water over the falls than even a Hollywood director can imagine.
It is also very funny.

]]> Coward’s characters, written to be played by himself and his best friend, Gertrude Lawrence, are the embodiment of Coward and Lawrence themselves had they ever been inclined to marry one another. In the second act when she brings up the “other” men in her life, he is hysterically appalled even while confessing that he has been on the loose and fancy free himself. He invokes the 20th-century double-standard directly and she upbraids him for it. Their tendency to argue is so great that they have created a word to use to halt their battles and regain their composures. We are talking sophisticated here.
On stage in Pittsfield, Barrington Stage Company is ending its summer mainstage season with this classic. The five-character comedy has been cast with five actors who can play the nuances and subtleties right alongside the broader comedy. Artistic Director Julianne Boyd has directed the play with broad strokes and period poses and the whole enterprise comes off as a comedy delight.
Amanda Prynne is portrayed by Gretchen Egolf, last seen here as the Nazi official in “A Picasso.” Her restraint in that role is also seen here, but she breaks it constantly with highly unusual physical comedy. She has a smile that is unrestrained and a voice that summons fantasies. She wears clothes beautifully, dances like a demon-possessed flapper, and plays both the fool and the fakir with equal strength and ability. In essence, she is magical in this role, far better than most of the well-known beauties who have played in recent memory, including Joan Collins and Elizabeth Taylor, or funny women like Elaine Stritch. Egolf is probably the best Amanda I’ve seen in many years.
Christopher Innvar is taken over by Elyot Chase. This actor, whom I have not always enjoyed in the past, seems to have lost himself in this role and the Elyot that emerges in his playing is both a charmer and a cad. He allows himself to be gentle and kind, then permits himself to be bitter and mean-spirited. He goads his women into explosions then calms them with a look, a hand, a supportive gesture. He is sensual and sexual with them, is easily flustered and completely at their mercy for a moment before reaching down into some reserve of frustration and coming back in control once again. His quirks and his unusual characteristics combine with Elyot’s perfectly. Together, Innvar and Egolf are not just the motor that drives this play, they are the chassis on the highway as well: drivers and driven.
Their spouses, at least at the altars on the trains, are played by Rebecca Brooksher and Mark H. Dold. She takes on the least likeable role in the play, one who inspires a Coward line oft-quoted: “Don’t quibble, Sybil.” She cries, she banters, she cries, she diddles, she cries. The almost perfect performance of Brooksher is a delight. It is only in her second-act entrance that there is an unreal note in her playing. It may be that she, the actress, doesn’t shock easily, but for the moment to be as truly funny as it should be her character needs to express everything in a look. This is not easy and at every other moment in the play her Sybil was just fine, but here, at this telling moment, there is only blank expression and nothing of humor.
Dold, on the other hand, plays this particular moment for all it is worth. His Victor is a handsome ass. He is over-the-top in his exuberance with his new wife and deliciously so. He plays Victor as a victor, one who has won a difficult battle — perhaps against the Goths — in capturing this incredible wife, Amanda. There is something so indelicate in his playing that; though he doesn’t rub his hands together when he looks at her, you know that in his mind he is doing that and twirling his moustache at the same time. Dold plays this sort of character with relish. That shows in his voice and his face and his stance. He is delightfully funny throughout the play and his final explosion in Act Three (or here Act Two, Scene Two) is worth the wait.
The fifth wheel in this trackless dynamo is Louise, the French maid. As played by Tandy Cronyn, she is not the extra baggage but the moral center of the piece. Played entirely in French, she comes in, does her work, expresses her instinctive Catholic reactions and disappears. The role is far too small for an actress of Cronyn’s capabilities, but a lesser performance in this panoply of silly passions would make the role extraneous. Cronyn needs a better showcase than the bit parts this company has afforded her in the past, and Louise is not it. Give her a leading part, please. Let this wonderful talent shine for more than three minutes.
Boyd does some of her finest work with this play. She has found tiny moments in which her leads can shine. She has played with the physical comedy and toyed with the verbal. She knows when to let her players play and when to tell them to hold back. She had altered the rhythms of the playwright’s dialogue and given some new meaning to otherwise over-exposed conversation. One of the best things she has done in her new theater in Pittsfield, Boyd’s “Private Lives” is a reclamation of her place as a stage director for the present and future. Not since her production of “Follies” has she found such a richness in the details. It’s great to see her back at the top of her form.
The physical production is Karl Eigsti’s personal triumph. The first act, so completely described in the Coward play, is realized well. The Paris apartment is right out of a Paramount film of the period with high ceilings, floor to ceiling windows, doors that open on a hallway that cannot accommodate the doors and people simultaneously and furniture that provided more than enough room for the sexcapades on display. Elizabeth Flauto’s costumes work wonderfully, in particular her second act lounging clothes for Amanda and Elyot. Scott Pinkney has lit the production beautifully.
Whether or not you think “Private Lives” interests you, you owe it to yourself to experience one of the best productions of this sophisticated comedy. Sophistication is not a readily available commodity any longer and a dose of it now and then, especially when it is this enjoyable, is like a tonic to the soul.

“Private Lives” plays at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfi8eld through Aug. 24. Tickets are $36-$56. For schedules or to purchase tickets, call 413-236-8888 or visit barringtonstageco.org.

"Les Miserables"

2008-08-13T14:27:14Z

"Les Miserables,” book by Alain Boubil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on a novel by Victor Hugo, lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, music by Claude-Michel Schönberg. Directed by Tim Fort. At the Weston Playhouse.

Jean Valjean is falsely convicted of a minor crime, spends 19 years in prison, moves on to avoid the public censure afforded ex-convicts and is pursued by a policeman with a vengeance-factor second to none. Along the way in life, Valjean steals some silver from a priest who exonerates him, then becomes the successful farmer/merchant/mayor of a small town, adopts an orphan child, becomes involved in the 1832 student revolution in Paris, saves the life of a young man and becomes the instrument of another man’s suicide.
It’s quite a career and certainly worthy of a song. Authors Boubil, Schonberg and Kretzmer go one better. They have made him the hero of a three hour, through composed, completely sung Broadway opera. That show is now gracing the main stage of the Weston Playhouse in Weston, Vt.

]]> To play this hero, a theatrical company needs a man who can be believable for all of the character’s attributes, including phenomenal physical strength, who can also be attractive but not overpoweringly so, and can sing in a high tessitura with ease and sustain notes no man should be forced to encounter. Weston has a very good choice on stage in the person of Roger Seyer. Seyer can float the high notes, as he does in “Bring Him Home,” but not in full voice it seems, yet there they are. He can carry another man through the sewer sets of the second act and believably lift — off-stage — a heavy carriage off of another man. He plays the fortitude, the honesty and the fear of a man constantly in pursuit of personal freedom with aplomb. In all respects, he is the hero of this sung story.
The three women whose presence affects his own are Fantine, played with an ear-chilling brilliance by Jennifer Zimmerman, her child Cosette played as a young woman by Suzanna Neeley Bridges and as a child by Zoe Perra, and Eponine, a waif played with chilling clarity by Marissa McGowan. Perra and Bridges each exhibit qualities that amplify their character, and Bridges is very beautiful in her love scenes. McGowan nearly brings down the house with her final song “On My Own,” which has been an enduring hit tune from this show since its premiere in 1980.
As Marius, the man loved by both young women, Jonathan Root seems ideal. Handsome with a lyrical tenor voice, he carried forward all of the emotional quests in this play with honesty. His friend Enjolras, a rabble-rouse revolutionary, is played with handsome appeal and vocal strengths by Matt Stokes. In the first act finale, an octet with chorus, Stokes leads his sidekicks in the famous walk-front routine, a martial moment in the show, with so much hip reality that he becomes a visual tyrant in the making. It was soul-stirring.
James Abrams gave life and reality to the youngster Gavroche and Andy Jobe, in the chorus, sang with a rich and new voice that should be put to greater use in some other show, soon.
Joseph Anthony Foronda played Javert, the policeman with an ugly fortitude that worked most of the time, but not all of the time. His suicide, choreographed by Susan Hagan and directed by Tim Fort, was a beautiful fall into the Seine. The Master of the House and his wife, two reprehensible comic figures, were well played by Allen Kendall and Karen Elliott.
This has never been a favorite show of mine, I must admit. The tunes are lovely, but the recitative — that sung conversational part of the show — is dull, dull, dull. There’s nothing anyone can do about it, so there’s no longer any reason to carp about it. After all, the show ran for 19 years on Broadway. It’s just that bad writing of this sort makes a show less enthralling, I think. In this production, with singer/actors who can do the work well, it seemed a bit less annoying but having long sentences sung on a single note is still just monotone and threatens to be monotonous.
A good-sized company graced the not overly-large stage in Weston on sets that were remarkably agile and flexible, designed brilliantly by Howard Jones. Karen Ann Ledger gave the clothing of the period another shade other than black, beige and gray and found a life in the characters wearing them that had been sorely lacking in New York. Jack Mehler provided the landscape with lighting that gave both place and time a season to wear. I cannot imagine this show looking any better than it did on the Weston stage.
Robert Meffe, the conductor and the man responsible for the musical reduction from the original orchestrations, does a fine job, but the miking of the orchestra often drowned out the ensemble singers in their solos. A special bravo to the wigs and makeup.
“Les Miz,” as it is known, is a show for people who have the capacity and endurance for it. I had a good time at this production, the best time I’ve ever had at it. I came away singing three or four of the numbers which is something I always pray for with a musical. I was moved to tears by the ending(s) within the show.
All in all, this is a production worth investigating whether or not you liked the original. All the guns are fired upstage so all you risk is liking something a bit more than you planned on.

“Les Misérables” plays at the Weston Playhouse in Weston, Vt., through Aug. 23. Tickets range in price from $35-$55. For full schedule, visit westonplayhouse.org.

“Forever Plaid"

2008-08-10T04:12:21Z

“Forever Plaid” by Stuart Ross, with musical arrangements by James Raitt. Directed by Michael Marotta. At the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y.

When four young men, a close harmony quartet, are suddenly killed in a freak automobile accident — their car is hit by a school bus full of Catholic school girls (all virgins) on their way to see The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show (remember The Beatles? Remember the Ed Sullivan Show?) — the world is deprived of what they themselves describe as the next great "guy group," already a dying trend in the music business. Robbed by death of their big chance to perform in a decent venue, the boys are suddenly given a chance in 2008 to return to earth and sing once more for an audience of potential fans.
That’s us.
That’s the plot. Got it? Good. Now sit back and relax and enjoy one of the most enjoyable shows ever seen at the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, N.Y.

]]> It may help to know who Ed Sullivan was or what his show was like. It may help to know who The Beatles were and how their style of music affected the world of popular song. On the other hand, you may not need to know anything about any of this. Just know that this is the nostalgia slot of the summer season.
Director Michael Marotta gives us "Moments to Remember" filled with "Heart and Soul" as he loads "Sixteen Tons" of talent into this "Shangri-La" road to "Rags or Riches" for the Plaids. The songs are the songs of the 1950s, the popular tunes that still litter period movies and piled up LPs and 45s in our basements. In that era when "Love" was "a Many Splendored Thing" guys could still get together in the garage after school and work on the close harmonies that brought groups like The Four Aces and The Temptations and The Kingston Trio into prominence. The dreams were no different than those of the groups that followed, but the sounds were something else. Hearing those sounds, live and in person, again makes this 90-minute one-act musical so much more fun than the plot would seem to allow. Nostalgia isn’t everything, but boy, it helps.
The talent on the Columbia County stage is terrific. Four young men making their local debuts in this production, all of them professional enough to be seasoned Actors Equity members, give what could be called the performance of their lives as the revived quartet. Sparky and Jinx are stepbrothers; Frankie is the group’s lead-man; Smudge is the voice of reason and the only one wearing glasses.
Smudge also takes the low voice in the quartet harmonies and provides the bass tones for "Sixteen Tons." Smudge is played by Christopher Johnson who also solos on "Rags to Riches" and plays the inimitable Sunday night variety show host, Sullivan. He has a most wonderful comic sensibility, a sober-sided underplayed humor.
Frankie is played by the tallest in the group, Wade Elkins. His earnestness is the touchstone here and he plays it to the hilt. Vocally he takes the lead in many songs and solos more often than anyone other than Jinx. Elkins plays the honesty of this character without blinking. His performance helps to bind us to the bizarre reality of what is happening on stage.
Rick Desloge is Jinx and Hernando Umana is Sparky. Together and apart they have immense appeal. Sparky’s mother is married to Jinx’s dad and that is the link between them. Clearly they have enjoyed a friendship that is bound up more in their mutual love of the music they make than in the awkward family relationship that keeps them side by side. The friendship they feel is as glorious as the vocalism that they produce. Desloge is adorable — there is no other word for him. Every time he sings, every time he speaks to the audience or to his compatriots, there is a joy that bursts out of him, visible in his smile, audible in his voice. His body plays his emotions front and center. He is 90 percent pride and it’s extraordinary.
Umana is the most fun of the foursome. His face is perpetually in motion, his eyes expressive and his hands constantly doing something. The choreographed movement for each song seems to provide him with a reason for existing. When he sits in quiet conversation with his brother he becomes a different man. It is the music and camaraderie that gives him animation and life. The actor here knows how to make this work and make it real, even emotionally telling. Leading the vocal in "Perfidia" truly gives him a chance to shine as does his heartfelt tribute to Perry Como (does anyone remember him?).
Marotta is in his glory as a director with this show. The close harmony, the ’50s-style movement, the involvement of the on-stage music duo of piano and bass (Bravo Adam Jones and Ray Jung!) and even the audience participation — which cannot be pre-set and which provides the quartet with another period element that has been pervading the Berkshire region this summer since the opening night of "Spelling Bee." This director truly gets the special needs of this musical and he has been fortunate in casting four actors who are not only willing to do what is asked of them, but have seemingly responded to even the smallest, most meticulously directed moments.
On a simple set, in costumes that reek of the period — you can almost detect the mothballs (remember mothballs?)— with concert-style lighting that has a most wonderful theatricality, this show plays out its fantasy of last chance opportunities and songs you can sing in the parking lot with charm, grace, style and effect.
And is this the perfect lead-in to the final show of the Theater Barn's "Summer" season? We’ll know when “Grease” opens in a few weeks. For now, however, its guy group time and for someone like me who actually mourned the loss of this style of singing when I was growing up, it is the perfect opportunity to join Jinx and "Cry."

“Forever Plaid” plays at the Theater Barn on Route 20 in New Lebanon, N.Y., through Aug. 17. For tickets please call the box office at 518-794-8989.

“The Goatwoman of Corvis County"

2008-08-10T04:04:13Z

“The Goatwoman of Corvis County” by Christine Whitley. Directed by Robert Walsh. At Shakespeare & Company.

Charlotte Clark, the goatwoman of Corvis County — in the play of that name at the new Elayne P. Bernstein Theater at Shakespeare and Company — lives for philosophy. At least, if you asked her, she would tell you that certain qualities in life are the ones worth pursuing and if they are selfish qualities and if they are satisfying, then you are living up to your potential and that is philosophy.
The woman can talk. She can talk and charm and scatter thoughts to the four winds and fully anticipate those thoughts returning to her refreshed and refined. She is an Aristophanes woman, a Lysistrata fighting a losing battle to control her husband, or husbands, since she has had five of them by the time this play begins. Call her manipulative. She won’t care because she knows she is and she probably likes being called on it.
Do you understand by now that she is southern?

]]> She is married to Randy, an alpha male who is also controlling and manipulative. To make matters more complicated, her 16-year-old son, her only child and the offspring of her first husband — or at least born while she was married to her first husband — lives with them. He, David, is also controlling and manipulative and he is just 16 and we know what that means — trouble. He was living in Texas with his father, but he was a handful of trouble and got packed off to live with Mom. That’s what we know about him at the start of all this.
What we know about Charlotte is her rage and anger. "I am full of violence," she murmurs to her mirror at the top of the play and shouts again to no one in particular, but in the hearing of her present husband, in the second act. We already know this about her. We have been watching that violence build in her and we are prepared for its sudden outbursts. They don’t surprise us because we have been warned. Everyone has been warned.
This is a new play and one that has so much going for it — and so much going against it — that it is hard to keep the words under control. For longtime theater-goers, or even people who spent last summer in Williamstown, the title "Crimes of the Heart" will come to mind at some point. There are too many similarities here: A southern woman accused of a heinous crime flirts with her much younger lawyer while denying everything and lying about some of it. Sound familiar? There are strains of other southern epics from the above Beth Henley to the old-time southern crosses of Tennessee Williams and William Faulkner. Perhaps that is inevitable when a playwright turns on the accent and the charm and the plot. Perhaps it will always be that way. We have only this new play to talk about.
Charlotte has the power to heal goats that are ailing. Her mother has psychic connections with many people, including David Letterman. Her brother can read their mother’s mind and Charlotte claims to read her son’s mind, but she is only clever. Like David, her son, Charlotte has a "bulging I.Q." and it drives her nearly mad. Randy has a temper that he uses to control his wife, only she has her "room" and it is where she can release herself of his hold on her.
Playwright Christine Whitley has invested in her characters — all of them — considerable qualities and aspects that make each of them fascinating. She has plopped them down in the middle of a crisis or two and let them flounder as best they can. She has given them funny things to say and quirky things to do. She has thrown in that violence and spread it around. She has made love happen and she allows flirting to proceed. And, sadly, she has withheld all truths until the final 10 minutes of the play. In many instances, she hasn’t even hinted at things, hasn’t allowed us to find the truths in the actions and intentions of her people. Robbing us of information that would bring us into the play is not the best direction to take here. Slowly dropping hints of the realities behind these fantastic actions would allow us into the world she has created. We are left outside, almost eavesdroppers on the truth, and when we finally learn all the necessary secrets at the end of the second act, we are actually left at the end of the second act of what should be a three act play, for there is no resolution. In fact, there is only the supposition of the next scene, and the next after that one.
That is life, you say, and you are right. But this is not life. This is a play about people on the edge of crisis, and at the end that crisis has been exacerbated and a new one has been introduced. It is a most frustrating experience to have lived with these folks for a while, to have gotten involved and to be shown the door when something is about to happen. A good play with fascinating characters inhabiting is in need of a doctor to come in, take the play’s temperature and discover the cure.
The company is exemplary. Keira Naughton, making a local career playing odd, controlling women this season, is a fabulous Charlotte. She is sexy, naughty, haughty and beautiful, plain and ugly, mean and charming. Naughton knows how to maneuver her way through the abrupt and odd changes in mood and intent here. She can wind her way around the men in her life and around the inner aspects of her heart and mind with alacrity. Her angular face and slender body remain the focal points for our attention no matter who else is on stage with her. Her opening monologue in silence is as eloquent as anything else on the Shakespeare stages this summer. "Divorce is the key to being loose and free," she intones, and in doing so she, or her character, locks in one more piece of false evidence in Charlotte’s story. But when she says that line, and so many others like it, we don’t really care if there is truth or falsehood on her lips, we just enjoy it. Naughton brings to life the inner and outer woman in this play and her skill at doing so is absolutely flawless.
Her husband is played by Thomas Kee. There is that in his playing which hides so much about the character. We have no real sense of his place in society, his actual age, or even his level of intelligence and education. We only see the "alpha male" he is described as being by his wife. He moves with sensuality. He talks with an accent that cannot be instantly placed. He hides his expressive eyes behind his large moustache, a neat trick done without a physical quirk, but just through his facial expressions which always focus our attention chinward. This actor completely disappears into the role he is playing.
David is played by David Rosenblatt. His intensity is wonderful. His fight scene with Randy, uncredited and so attributable to the director, is dynamic and just realistic enough to be startling. He handles everything so well that in the final scene of this play (before the unwritten or at least unused Act Three) he becomes too much the focus of our attention.
John, the Nashville/Atlanta lawyer who comes to the aid of Charlotte is played nicely by Daniel Berger-Jones. This is a trap role, hard to play well enough to be innocuous. Berger-Jones is a good actor and he makes the innocence of the man highly visible, perhaps a shade too much so as it robs his scenes of much needed conflict as Charlotte flirts with him and he only talks about his girlfriend.
Walsh has done a fine job directing all of this. More work on the script — and who knows how much has already taken place here — would help, but he paints interesting pictures with his cast and no one could do more to draw attention to the right place in that awkward tell-all final scene with its flashback and its three principles engaged in ignoring one another. With the aid of a perfect and awful home environment designed by Susan Zeeman Rogers and ideal clothing by Govane Lohbauer, even Matthew Miller’s quirky lighting falls into place as the play takes us back and forth in time.
A new play to open a new theater, one which is still finding itself, is a wonderful risk to take, but Shakespeare and Company is up to the challenge. A beautiful and elegant lobby — somewhat reminiscent of a movie palace — leads to a gracefully designed intimate space containing 168 seats. I doubt there’s a bad one in the house. The company requires congratulations on this combination of play and space. To open a new performance venue in these hard times is an adventure, and so is the life and times of Charlotte Clark. Together, they bring an enhanced experience to those theater afficionados willing to jump into that adventure.
While not completely satisfying — even the theater’s seats are hard to take at moments — this show about a woman on the verge of truth is certainly worth a visit. Just don’t make reservations at the local motel and don’t expect to be invited to breakfast. You wouldn’t want to be there.

“The Goatwoman of Corvis County” plays at the new Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox through Aug. 31. Seating at this new space is open, first come first chosen. For information and tickets, call 413-637-3353.

“The Dishwashers”

2008-08-04T21:27:12Z

“The Dishwashers” by Morris Panych. Directed by Byam Stevens. At Chester Theatre Company.

An awful thing happens to me, the critic, when a play I’m watching calls up memories of other plays I’ve seen and I can’t get those images out of my head. More than 40 years ago, I saw Arnold Wesker’s play “The Kitchen,” and the new play at the Chester Theatre Company’s summer stage, which I saw one performance prior to opening night, reminds me too much of the earlier experience. Not that they are the same play. Not at all. Yet there is something in the new one that makes me think of the older one. Incessantly.
Wesker’s play is set in the basement of a restaurant. Panych’s play is set in that same basement, although his is a restricted space — only dishwashers allowed. Wesker introduces us to the denizens of the place, waiters and waitresses, cooks, apprentices, dishwashers, busboys and so on.
In Panych’s play there are only four characters, each one of them chained to the exact same work — washing up, making bright the crockery of this place. While Wesker’s play deals with the frustrations of romance, with both participants on stage, Panych uses the romance of one of his characters to strengthen that character’s need to restart his life on a different level.

]]> The plays aren’t the same. No principal elements coincide, and yet the drama of life, the microcosm presented in both plays, sets off reverberations I can’t avoid.
Both plays take on a world apart from our own, and in doing so, deal with the world we inhabit. Politics intrudes on the story line. Motivations drive participants to madness, and, in “The Dishwashers,” to death. Oh, and both are comedies — in their way.
Emmett comes to work in this place, so foreign to his nature and his background, after speculation drives him to penury. He is trained for his new station in life by Dressler, a career dishwasher and paired with a long-time worker named Moss. Moss is the oldest man in the room, practically a century of work behind him. He wins a prize somewhere along the line and it is a doozy — an enema. What he doesn’t know, because Dressler never tells him, is that he has been fired from the only job he has ever held. Dressler withholds this information, and when Emmett inadvertently blurts it out, Moss does the only thing he can think of doing — he dies.
The play continues to reveal Dressler’s world and Emmett’s need to change that world, until Emmett pulls himself together and returns to the world upstairs, to the elegant restaurant he patronized in better times. That world is where he belongs, he finds, and not the world below where the menial becomes the message.
Tim Donoghue plays Dressler and Jay Stratton plays Emmett in this production in the Pioneer Valley. Donoghue has a strong-arm technique to his acting that gives him the edge over his co-players in this work. He seems to be able to manipulate the moment to attract attention to himself. Perhaps this is inherent in the writing, but it would seem to be more the man than the character who attracts attention here. His voice and his mannerisms are just right for Dressler. His attention to the details of his character’s work, even when he tells conflicting stories about himself only minutes apart, make it all seem real and just a bit threatening.
Emmett is a tall weakling with a dark side that only comes out in brief spurts. This character refuses to be fully aware of the oddness of his situation until he can no longer avoid the issue. Stratton gives a strength to this odd reality. He plays with an honesty that is almost startling at times. When Emmett tries to organize the dishwashers, for example, Stratton alters his voice, its pitch darkening and lowering, becoming more assertive and male. In conflict with the man who won’t use his name because that would be a mark of respect that hasn’t been earned, Stratton’s Emmett continues undeterred by such minor slights. This determination, especially in an outfit provided by the restaurant that is completely unsuitable to him, is visible in both body language and facial gestures. This pairing of players is almost magical.
Moss is played by John Shuman. The actor’s style is as quirky as his character. His voice is jarring and his visage is alarming. Dressed in holiday hats he is a pitiful sight, a pitiable creature. Shuman reduces Moss to an almost animal state, a representative one, a less-than-human image. Even so, there is pity felt for the man he plays. Shuman allows us to feel, oddly, that Moss has value even when we know he does not.
Jeff Vatore, the fourth actor in the play, is a late arrival and brings a different look at the men who take on this life-work. He is very good, but his time is so short that he does not leave the depth of impression that his cohorts do.
Director Byam Stevens has done a remarkable job with this play. It is not a guaranteed audience pleaser and, indeed, one man did walk out during the first act, never to return. Immediately to his left, across the aisle, was an entire row of people roaring with laughter and in front of them sat a couple who continually shook their heads and laughed politely. This show, clearly, works on different levels for different folks. Stevens has given his cast the chance to present that rarity, the human scale running the gamut from A to Z in a four-character play in which little of importance ever happens. Stevens gives us the opportunity to understand each of these men through the tiny differences he helps them establish, things we can see as well as hear.
The cast is trapped in the basement washing room designed by Charles Corcoran, wearing the odd clothing created by Arthur Oliver. The images these men give us work to the advantage of the play even if we don’t quite believe that room or clothing exists in any real place. Like the people in Wesker’s play, the trappings of their limited success here are evident in the downstairs squalor of the upscale rooms above.
Is this any way to spend an evening? No two people will give you the same answer to that question, I am sure. So, am I glad I went to see this play? I am. Did I laugh? I did. Was I moved? Not clearly. Would I do this again? I’m just not sure. Is this helpful? Probably not, but it was the kind of interesting theater experience that prompted me to remember other evenings without weighing them against this one. It just made me remember, and I think that’s a good thing.

“The Dishwashers” plays at the Chester Theatre through Aug. 10. Tickets are $24.50-$29.50. For schedules and tickets call the box office at 413-354-7771 or visit chestertheatre.org.