Peter Bergman Theater Reviews

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

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

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Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:58 PM | Permalink

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

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

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Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 10:27 PM | Permalink

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

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

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Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 11:50 AM | Permalink

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

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

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Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 3:43 PM | Permalink

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

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

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Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 7:55 PM | Permalink

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

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

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Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 9:33 PM | Permalink

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

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

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Posted by Rebecca Dravis at 8:30 AM | Permalink