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Dan’s Diary: WTF Lights A Fire Under “The Torch-Bearers”
You might consider The Torch-Bearers at Williamstown Theatre Festival theater-for-theater’s sake. The play itself—a 1922 chestnut by George Kelly that has been “adapted” by director Dylan Baker—seems like an excuse for artistic director Nicky Martin to fill the Main Stage with a dozen accomplished actors (most of whom have Broadway credits.) The play is about a group of quasi-enlightened amateurs in Philadelphia in 1922, who are determined to put on a play but don’t really have the talent. The irony of watching Tony-award-winning actors playing actors who can’t act is a kind of meta-theater. The two best-known men on stage—Edward Herrmann and John Rubinstein—prove that fine actors, like fine wines, get better with age: They deliver their lines with snap and polish, and Rubinstein makes the last 15 minutes of the play rip. Philip Goodwin gives a delightful performance as one of the actors in the troupe with a light-in-his-loafers walk that is not only wry but also laugh-out-loud funny. While the effusive Andrea Martin, who plays the busybody prompter, got the loudest cheers when the cast took its bows, I thought Katherine McGrath was the glue that kept the show together in the unsympathetic role of Mrs. Pampinelli, the theater troupe’s imperious director. As one expects from WTF, the stagecraft is extraordinary with a set (by David Korins) that comes apart and transforms into another one magically before your eyes. In an era of one- and two-man shows, it’s a treat to see a stage full of actors who infuse fresh life and energy into a rather old-fashioned play.
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