Formerly the Berkshire Review for the Arts. Performances, Exhibitions, Articles, and Interviews about the Arts from the Berkshires and Hudson Valley
In Williams Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, the Bard baits us at every moment. We all long for a sweet love-life. Finding this requires, in this play, a whole lot of passionate listening, and in Shakespeare and Company’s outdoor production in the Dell at the Mount, director Kelly Galvin gave it to us.
Music and words, words and music. In director Allyn Burrows’ Twelfth Night at Shakespeare and Company, words and music received full support from the text and from the melodies. One reason for this play’s greatness is a simple one—many characters, many situations. The first encouragement in this superb production is its near constant use of music. New music, old music, all used with joy. Also that occasional joy which comes from sadness.
With Shakespeare and Company’s Winter Studio Festival of Plays drawing to a belated conclusion, because of a fierce winter storm, and the press announcement of the 2019 season coming up, it seems a particularly opportune time to publish the Podcast of my interview with Artistic Director Allyn Burrows about the highly successful 2018 season.
The plays of August Strindberg that I know tend to reach their greatest intensity in the middle. His plays crave engagement. Energy is all. This was shown deftly, powerfully in Shakespeare and Company’s production of Creditors. Convincing performances were provided by Jonathan Epstein as Gustav, Ryan Winkles as Adolph, and Kristin Wold as Tekla. As Gustav, Mr. Epstein was the mover and shaker. He had been given the difficult task of showing a kind of hidden abuse in the guise of providing instruction in living to the young Adolph, Mr. Winkles.
The Tempest
I must say once more how much Nigel Gore’s Tempest at Shakespeare and Company has meant to me. He helped me to see what it really is. His loneliness dominated, and this was right. I will take this performance as a model of for my adventures on stage, and I thank him.
On Wednesday evening, Nigel Gore’s Prospero gave me The Tempest I have been waiting for. First, and not least, his performance was consistent. I have long waited for a performance that showed the profound loneliness of this character. A temperament carefully hidden makes it clear.
Shakespeare and Company, a presence in Lenox since its foundation in 1978 by Tina Packer and Kristen Linklater, has undergone some seismic challenges in recent years, and there has at times been some concern about its future, but it continues to soldier on with its richly and solidly matured education programs and performances that seem to only to get better and better. Now, following a brilliant season (2016) and looking forward to what promises to be another equally exciting program this summer, all the upheavals seem basically of academic interest, and I’ll let you wait until someone publishes a history of this company, which wears its laurels so lightly that some, I believe, underestimate just how important it is, not only for the history of Shakespeare performance in this country, but anywhere.
The Bookclub Play Karen Zacarias’s The Bookclub Play at Hubbard Hall was rather like a sporting event. There were jabs…
