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A CurtainUp Feature
A Look Back at the Berkshire Summer '08 Season
By Elyse Sommer The excess of rain, often accompanied by thunder and lightning (and occasionally, big snowy hail balls), threw something of a damper on outdoor activities and those who enjoy listening to the Tanglewood concerts, sitting on a lawn chair or stretched out on a blanket. Not surprisingly, the unusually wet summer drew more people than ever to partake of the abundance of theatrical fare. review continues below  The artistic directors of the various Berkshire area theaters once again put on their jugglers' hats to meet the tricky challenge of catering to summer theater goers' expectations. Thus, whatever your tastes-- something old, something new, something light and breezy or something substantial and challenging -- there was something to fit the bill. As usual, I was awed by the quality of the staging and the speed with which sets were mounted and dismantled to accommodate the short runs necessary to give people a reason to visit a venue as regularly as their favorite restaurant or golf course. Not surprisingly, the Berkshire Artistic Directors' decisions about what to include in their seasons brought the usual mix of thumbs up as well as thumbs down professional and word of mouth reviews. In looking back on the major organizations Curtainup covered, I'm glad my able critics kept the homefront in New York covered so that I could cover just about every play put on in the Berkshires-- as well as take in the pleasures of Tanglewood, Jacobs' Pillow and the Berkshire Opera Company. Following is a venue-by-venue look back at Summer '08. Williamstown Theatre Festival. (Reviews of all the shows mentioned can be found here While the hour's ride at $4 or so a gallon from Lenox, Stockbridge or Lee did prompt some South County folks to stick closer to home, the festival lobby leading to the two theaters was packed whenever I was there which was pretty much every week. Nicholas Martin's first season as the festival's artistic director, won well-deserved praises. Audiences who were disappointed in the mostly bare bones staging at the elegant and spacious Main Stage under Roger Rees's reign, were thrilled with the delightful revival of She Loves Me which got that theater's season off to a most enjoyable start. While the two shows that followed that followed didn't quite match the perfection of the opening production, they were worth seeing. And the final offering, David Storey's Home ( a 1970 revival), took me by surprise. I somehow expected this absurdist critique of British society to be dated but that turned out not to be the case given the current American experience. The play itself aside, this revival was blessed with a cast whose performances individually and together were a master class in what superb acting is all about. The Festival's smaller Nikos Stage was an all hit proposition, with three world premieres that are sure to have other lives in New York and elsewhere. Of the three (all contemporary and realistic), Broke-ology was the most moving; The Understudy was the funniest; and Not Waving, the most surprising in that it managed to give depth and meaning to a basically slight and obvious situation. Earlier in the season WTF visitors also had a chance to see two well acted and staged revivals: Christopher Durang's Beyond Therapy and Ronan Noone's The Atheist; the former was an even shorter than usual run so it could move on to Long Island. Those who missed Noone's solo play, will have a chance to catch up with it (with the same actor) during its Fall run at New York's Culture Center. Berkshire Theatre Festival. (Reviews of all the shows mentioned can be found here Berkshire Theatre Festival's Kate Maguire also gave her audiences a chance to see something new by scheduling a world premiere for both the main stage and the smaller Unicorn Theater. While neither The Book Club Play or Pageant Play pleased audiences and critics as much as the world premieres at Williamstown, Maguire's willingness to risk some boos is commendable. Her scheduling and casting at the Unicorn was particularly interesting in that she sandwiched the debuting Pageant Play in between Harold Pinter's The Caretaker and Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett to whom Pinter acknowledges owing a tremendous debt. The Caretaker was probably every BTF subscriber's favorite play, justly so as it had a truly superb cast. The Beckett play also had a fine cast and Anders Cato, a favorite BTF director, brought a new look and take to the eternally puzzling and fascinating Waiting For Godot. While Maguire's husband Erick Hill is a terrific director, I would have preferred to see someone like Jonathan Epstein (who did star (magnificently so) in The Caretaker as the title character of the Main Stage's handsomely mounted production of A Man For All Season. Unfortunately, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the high profile final play announced to conclude the Main Stage season became a no show when Richard Chamberlain cancelled. It's not easy finding a replacement so late in the summer season. With Private Lives scheduled to run at the same time at Barrington Stage, putting on an evening of two short Noel Coward plays may have seemed like a good idea which it might have been If only those late in Coward's career playlets were on a par with his more enduring and wittier works. Alas, while Song at Twilight is okay, Come Into My Garden, Maud is distinctly minor Coward. Barrington Stage (Reviews of all the shows mentioned can be found here Barrington Stage's investment in refurbishing one of Pittsfield's two old vaudeville houses, has done much to bring the city back to its prosperous General Electric days. The balcony is now operational and the state of the art sound system makes for a refreshing change from the hollow, overmiked sound typical of too many Broadway musicals. A lot of people missed seeing The 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee, when it ran at the gym used by BS during its days in a Sheffield High School. The show's eventual award winning Broadway run helped to finance the company's move to its own home, and since that Broadway run ended shortly before the summer, it was only fitting for Julianne Boyd to bring it back to launch this summer's main stage season. Was it a hit? You bet. The two other main stage events were a revival of Richard Greenberg's time-traveling The Violet Hour and Noel Coward's ever popular Private Lives. Perhaps if Greenberg had allowed BS to trim its too long and too talky first act, and the program notes had provided audiences with more insight into the role models for its characters, The Violet Hour would have gone over better than it did. Boyd herself directed Private Lives — delightfully so. Barrington stage favorite Christopher Innvar proved to be a dashing Elyot and Gretchen Egolf was even better as Amanda. Barrington Stage once again focused its Second Stage endeavors on its Musical Theatre Labs, with a full production of last year's showcase version of The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, a showcase (not open to review), and a new to the Lab production of a musical travelogue called See Rock City that was fully (if not very elaborately staged. I can't say anything bowled me over and struck me as having the promise of the terrific Burnt Part Boys from a few seasons ago. Shakespeare & Co. (Reviews of all the shows mentioned can be found here While the new theater on the company's spacious grounds is finally a reality, the bulk of the season still called on the company to juggle the three shows it ran all summer so that you might go in one day to see a set with slamming doors (The Ladies Man), and on other days, a set for Shakespeare's comic All's Well that Ends Well, or the more tragic Othello. While all three productions were worth seeing, it was John Douglas Thompson's magnificent portrayal of Othello that embedded itself in my memory. The season was capped with a new play to initiate the new Elayne B. Bernstein Theater. While the theater is a Wow! the play, The Goatwoman of Orvis by first-time playwright Christine Whitley, was well acted (especially by Keira Naughton) but left me looking forward to stronger fare in the future. Chester Theater.(Reviews of all the shows mentioned can be found here This modest organization located in the Chester Town Hall has become an increasingly popular destination, largely through word of mouth raves. This season's second play, Almost Maine, won the popularity contest with audiences. Rightly so. When I first saw this sweet little play in New York I predicted that it would do well in regional theaters. The Chester production had a cast to do the script justice. David Harrower's Blackbird was less lucky in its cast though the male lead deserved a medal for jumping in at the last minute. Morris Panych's The Dishwasher, a working class study of Sisyphean Hell, did itself in with an interminable stream of existential dialogue. Not to be outdone by its older and richer neighbors in Williamstown and Stockbridge, Chester finished its season with a world premiere. Alas and Alack, despite an adorable eight-year-old, Alex Slezak, making his debut with his dad, Victor Slezak, The Tilted House, proved to be disappointing with no help from its director. The Theater Barn in New Lebanon. While we didn't have time to cover all of this charming country theater's shows, the the one we did review was a winner—- a revival of Musical of Musicals . To sum up this sumup, rain or shine, summer '08 in the Berkshires once again offered enough live theater, music and dance to make an evening at home as rare as a big metropolis without smog and a cacophony of noises. |
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