Monthly Archives: July 2011

The Best of Enemies

By Mark St. Germain

Directed by Julianne Boyd

Cast: John Bedford Lloyd as C.P. Ellis; Aisha Hinds as Ann Atwater; Clifton Duncan as Bill Riddick; and Susan Wands as Mary Ellis

Reviewed by Lesley Ann Beck

[Pittsfield, Mass.]—In 1971, when C.P. Ellis, a Ku Klux Klan member, and Ann Atwater, an African-American community activist, were asked to work together to help integrate the Durham, North Carolina, public schools, it was doubtful the two could be civil to each other, but in an extraordinary turn of events, they became lifelong friends. Mark St. Germain’s riveting new play, at the Barrington Stage Company Mainstage now through August 6, tells the true story of this remarkable relationship in an excellent production notable for the superb performances of Aisha Hinds and John Bedford Lloyd as Atwater and Ellis, under the creative and insightful direction of Julianne Boyd.
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The Hound of the Baskervilles

By Steven Canny and John Nicholson

Directed by Tony Simotes

Cast: Jonathan Croy, Josh Aaron McCabe, Ryan Winkles

Reviewed by Lesley Ann Beck

[Lenox, Mass.]—The new Shakespeare & Company production of The Hound of the Baskervilles, a wacky adaptation by Steven Canny and John Nicholson of the classic Sherlock Holmes story, is laugh-out-loud funny from beginning to end. A deft directing job by Tony Simotes and terrific performances from Jonathan Croy, Josh Aaron McCabe, and Ryan Winkles had the audience howling with laughter. The Hound of the Baskervilles plays in Founders’ Theatre through September 4.

The three actors—aided and abetted by clever costumes, inventive props, an assortment of accents, and an amazing amount of energy—play sixteen roles in the side-splittingly funny production.
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Sylvia

By A.R. Gurney

Directed by Anders Cato

Cast: David Adkins as Greg; Walter Hudson as Tom/Phyllis/Leslie; Jurian Hughes as Kate; and Rachel Bay Jones as Sylvia

Reviewed by Lesley Ann Beck

[STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.]—In Sylvia, A. R. Gurney’s very funny play, Greg, a middle-aged businessman disenchanted with his job and somewhat adrift in life, finds a stray dog in the park—a dog named Sylvia who absolutely adores him, much to the consternation of his rather rigid wife Kate. The skilled cast, with spot-on direction by Anders Cato, tells the story of this unique threesome in an absolutely delightful production on the Main Stage at Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge; the show runs through July 30.
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pride@prejudice

By Daniel Elihu Kramer

Directed by Ron Bashford

Cast: Aubrey Saverino, Jay Stratton, Gisela Chipe, Colin Ryan, and Michele Tauber

Reviewed by Lesley Ann Beck

Jane Austen’s beloved novel Pride and Prejudice is given a number of twenty-first century twists in pride@prejudice by Daniel Elihu Kramer, now delightfully on stage at the Chester Theatre Company through July 17. Five accomplished and appealing actors play more than thirty roles: most of the characters are familiar from the novel, but this version also has bloggers, scholars, commentators, and Jane Austen herself appearing from time to time.

Die-hard Austen fans will not be disappointed; this new play includes all the twists and turns of her original storyline, and newcomers to the plot will easily follow the romantic adventures of the Bennett sisters, helped by the witty asides and notes on the book delivered throughout the play.
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Three Hotels

By Jon Robin Baitz

Directed by Robert Falls

Cast: Maura Tierney as Barbara Hoyle and Steven Weber as Kenneth Hoyle

Reviewed by Lesley Ann Beck

[WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.]—The Williamstown Theatre Festival Main Stage season opener, the Jon Robin Baitz drama Three Hotels, is a series of three illuminating monologues recounting the unraveling of a married couple’s outwardly successful life, superbly performed by Steven Weber and Maura Tierney under the sure-handed direction of Tony Award-winner Robert Falls. The show runs through July 24.

The play begins in an elegant hotel room in Tangier, Morocco; titled “The Halt & the Lame,” part one introduces us to Ken Hoyle, an upper-level executive for an international corporation that sells substandard baby formula in poor African countries, using manipulative and dishonest sales techniques. Hoyle is tasked with firing employees who are no longer useful, and he boasts that he’s very good at it. The trick, he says, is to do it quickly. “They go quietly when I do it,” he says. Weber’s portrayal is nuanced, beautifully calibrated, and persuasive: his Hoyle speaks directly, companionably, to the audience, explaining his job in a calm manner, even when he likens the firing process to “railroad tracks to the ovens.”
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Reviewed by Lesley Ann Beck

[STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.]—Michael Weller’s Moonchildren follows a group of college students through their last bittersweet year of school, all the more poignant for taking place in 1965 and 1966, in the shadow of the war in Vietnam. The Berkshire Theatre Festival production, featuring Karen Allen’s deft direction of a fine cast, runs in the Unicorn Theatre through July 16.

The entire play unfolds in the one large space that serves the roommates as living room, dining area, and kitchen. The apartment, from the dingy, faded-beyond-recognition wallpaper to the outdated (even for 1965) refrigerator to the worn beige settee draped in the ubiquitous Indian-print bedspread of the sixties, is eerily familiar; how many of us lived in very similar digs in our college years? Most, judging by the murmurs of recognition from the audience.
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