Annette Miller was hoping to be proved right. When she heard that native son Finn Wittrock was starring in Candida at Berkshire Theatre Festival, she wanted to see if he had lived up to his potential. "When he was ten years old, he used to run lines with me at Shakespeare & Company," she said. "I always thought he had It." And he does. Wittrock more than holds his own with his seasoned co stars—Jayne Atkinson and Michel Gill— and manages to bring what feels like a Victorian period piece into the 21st century. He turns his character, the sensitive lovesick poet Eugene Marchbanks, into a figure that happily inhabits this George Bernard Shaw classic but might also wander very comfortably into something by, say, Sam Shepherd. With pretty-boy looks that could make him a teen heart throb, Wittrock is obviously devoted to the craft of acting and makes the most of every gesture and moment on stage. After Candida closes on July 5, he's off to the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC, where he will play Romeo in an all male Romeo and Juliet (which is how it was originally performed, after all.) Films and television are bound to tempt him, but the Berkshires are in his blood and one hopes he'll be back on a stage here again soon.
