Peter Bergman Theater Reviews

"The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield. Directed by Tony Pallone and Colleen Lovett. At the Ghent Playhouse.

"Act Two!" "Gesundheit!"
It's that kind of show.
No one has written as many quotable lines as playwright William Shakespeare and, when presented in the wrong way, none are funnier. What authors Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield did when creating this show -- which reduces the bulk of the author's oeuvre to a two-hour exercise -- was to provide a means of lightening the burden of such works as Titus Andronicus to a visual joke, the girl disguised as boy comedies to single entity, the historical dramas to one individual notion and the dramatic works to a face-off with time.
As originally played by its authors, and later by other groups of three, its manic changes and hysterically short-lived terrors resulted in hilarious confusions of identity and deliciously spouted aphorisms and marvelously inserted familiar quotes. Things look a bit different at the Ghent Playhouse where the company of three has been expanded to a company of five players, a sub-plot has been developed into a main theme (the playing of one actor over her own deep-seated resentments) and an audience involvement issue that brightens things up beyond one's expectations.

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Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:58 PM | Permalink

"Puss in Boots, or a Tale of Two Kitties." Written by Judy Staber and the PantoLoons. Directed by Tom Detwiler. At the Ghent Playhouse.

One thing we have all learned over the past decade is this: Columbia and Berkshire County audiences love their satire dearly, and the sillier it is, the better they like it. Therein lies a tale in itself and is why the annual appearance at the Ghent (N.Y.) Playhouse of the PantoLoons troupe is now a revered tradition, anticipated for months in advance, often a near sell-out and now and then on a waiting-list-only basis.
This group of gallant players, many in one form of drag or another, fracture the fairy tales beloved by young and old alike, adding everything from vague hints to direct hits on the political and social aspects of our world. The things that have an effect on our way of life, our manner of living, are on the list of possible targets for this group.
"Puss in Boots, or A Tale of Two Kitties" is just that kind of show.

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Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 9:21 PM | Permalink

"The Fantasticks." Book and lyrics by Tom Jones, music by Harvey Schmidt, loosely based on "The Romancers," a play by Edmond Rostand. Directed by Andrew Volkoff.

Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones wrote their first major musical for a summer theater at Barnard College in New York. It later opened off-Broadway at the Sullivan Street Theatre in 1960. It almost never has seen the sunset of an eternal long-run. Somewhere someone is always putting it back onto the stage.
It is an engaging piece, complete with hit songs like "Try to Remember," "Soon It's Gonna Rain" and "Plant a Radish." It transforms the traditional boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl concept into just the barest extension of that rudimentary plot by adding two scheming fathers, a bandit-for-hire and two ancient actors who quote Shakespeare and die effectively. There is also a wall, played by a Mute who also becomes a tree and a variety of weather, as needed.
Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield has extended its season into autumn by presenting the tiny musical on its large Main Stage for a short run. This sweet, expressionistic show - the "Urinetown" of its day - is bizarrely not dated. Its conceptual sensibility never has altered, and the reality of young love and the realizations that come to young lovers about themselves and one another have never changed. Neither has the popularity of this musical.
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Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 3:47 PM | Permalink

"Belles: A Play in Two Acts or 45 Phone Calls" by Mark Dunn. Directed by Nancy Wilder. At the Ghent Playhouse.

Comedy can be tragic when very little is amusing. Similarly, drama can be silly when everything is trivial. "Belles," a play by Mark Dunn that opens the 35th season of the Ghent Playhouse, is neither trivial nor tragic even though it is barely amusing and only a minor drama. It is, one might say, a mistake that this company has made, one of the few in my memory after 16 seasons of reviewing them, and that can be forgiven when you weigh the prior years and the bulk of their community opportunity. This company has nurtured actors -- Stephanie Tanaka comes to mind -- who bring little experience but a true conviction that acting is to be pursued. It has folded into its season a British holiday pantomime tradition, completely foreign to this region, and made it a hard-ticket item. It has brought national figures -- Serpico comes to mind -- into their seasons past and showcased them ensemble-style and made audiences nearly beg for more such appearances. This company has even taken technical theatricians under its wing and turned them back into the public eye as remarkable performers.
This opener for the new season provides at least four company debuts, including the director, and does what good community theater should do: bringing new blood onto the local stage and developing new audiences for the product they produce. It is just that this vehicle is inferior, the performances not up to snuff, and the direction sloppy and muddled. That is not a great result from a terrific intention.

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Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:47 PM | Permalink

Third by Wendy Wasserstein. Directed by Eric Peterson. At Oldcastle Theatre Company.

The influence of one state over all others. That's the topic of Wendy Wasserstein's final play, now ending the main stage season of the Oldcastle Theatre Company's 2009 season in Bennington, Vt. A bright and illuminating play, given a sterling and moving production, it is only on hand for a little bit more than a week. That's too short a time for this production.
Wasserstein died in 2005, just at the time this play opened at Lincoln Center for an all-too brief run. It seems that Oldcastle must cut short the life of this play in our region just as Wasserstein's life was cut short four years ago. The original production starred Dianne Wiesst, Charles Durning, Amy Aquino and Jason Ritter. Who would have thought a cast like that could be bettered, but Oldcastle may well have them beat. The quintet on stage at the Bennington Center for the Arts delivers every bit of influence that the script gives them with just a bit more in the visual department to help them deliver the playwright's message.

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Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:43 PM | Permalink

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

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

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Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 9:05 PM | Permalink

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

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

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Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:15 PM | Permalink