Theater

Arts

Review: The Elephant Man at Williamstown

Bradley Cooper and Alessandro Nivola in"The Elephant Man." Any theatrical production of The Elephant Man, the Bernard Pomerance play about the hideously deformed neurofibromatosis-type-I-sufferer John (Joseph) Merrick, has a lot of memories to live up to, particularly the excellent 1980 film version starring John Hurt, Anthony Hopkins,

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Arts

Review: "All My Sons" at Barrington Stage

Barrington Stage Company founder Julianne Boyd always shines when she directs plays that engage your emotions and your intellect—the type of theater that incites a craving for a stiff drink and a serious conversation after the final curtain. With her carefully calibrated production of Arthur Miller's All

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Arts

Reviews: The Importance of Earnestness on Stage at WTF and Powerhouse Theater

Jennifer Westfeldt and Dominic Fumasa watching Greg Kinnear. The Power of Duff The first thing that came to mind after having read advance word about The Power of Duff, a new play by Stephen Belber (at Vassar's Powerhouse Theatre) about a local news anchor who “has a spiritual

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Arts

Performing At Cranwell Resort, The Capitol Steps Take the Money and Run Amok

It seems that every political headline (and these days, in particular, there are plenty of those) has the potential to make you laugh or cry. The Capitol Steps, now performing for the sixth-consecutive year at Cranwell Resort in Lenox, has the ability to make you do both, i.e. laugh

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Arts

Berkshire Fringe Founders Take the Plunge

If you want to produce and perform your own plays, the best advice might be: don’t start a theater festival. It may sound counterintuitive, but that’s the lesson learned by the three young founding artistic directors  of Berkshire Fringe: Peter Wise, 32; Sara Katzoff, 31; and Timothy Ryan

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Arts

The Imaginary Invalid at SummerScape: Is There a Doctor in the House?

Appropriately bilious, dyspectic, splenetic, and cast and staged with almost vertiginous comic invention, The Imaginary Invalid (Le Malade Imaginaire), adapted and directed by Erica Schmidt as part of Bard's SummerScape Festival at the Fisher Center, may not be “just what the doctor ordered.”  This production, and the play

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Arts

"A Chorus Line" Is Alive and Kicking at Berkshire Theatre Group's Revival

It’s always reassuring to see a completely bare backstage wall in any production of A Chorus Line. Basically, if you can’t get the nothingness right and demonstrate that you’re not hiding anything (with curtains, say, or  a completely darkened stage), or if you gussy it up with

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Arts

Reviews: Three Days of Theater Across the Rural Intelligence Universe

Amy Spanger, Tyne Daly, and Marylouise Burke in David Hyde Pierce's version of "The Importance of Being Earnest" at Williamstown Theatre Festival.The Importance of Being Earnest may be the most perfect comedy written in the English language, so it can withstand some directorial tinkering. In

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Arts

Who's on Second? Berkshire Actors Theater, with a Shanley Double-Header

There seems to be a pattern afoot in the nascent Pittsfield-based Berkshire Actors Theater. The company made its debut last summer with John Patrick Shanley’sFour Dogs and A Bone, and BAT’s sophomore season, which begins June 21, features a remount of that production, along with another Shanley favorite,

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Arts

Debra Jo Rupp Goes All the Way as Dr. Ruth

Preview performances of Mark St. Germain’s new play, Dr. Ruth, All the Way, get underway on June 19 at Barrington Stage Company. Debra Jo Rupp portrays the inimitable, diminutive Dr. Ruth Westheimer, who captured the attention of Reagan-era television viewers with her grandmotherly looks, chirpy Teutonic accent, and unflappable

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Arts

She Saw Hitler: Cassandra Speaks at Shakespeare & Company

Cassandra Speaks, the one woman show written in the mid 1990s for the actress Tod Randolph (above) by her friend Norman Plotkin about the journalist Dorothy Thompson,  manages to accomplish  a lot in one entertaining—indeed riveting—fell swoop, and in only about 90 minutes. Thompson, referred to in her

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Arts

Lungs at Barrington Stage

Brooke Bloom and Ryan King in Barrington Stage Company's production of Duncan Macmillan's Lungs, directed by Aaron Posner, the debut production at BSC's newly acquired theater space, the St. Germain Stage. We are in the midst of an extended period in theater, film, and

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