Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August 2007 What a difference a director makes! Last summer Shakespeare & Company produced this same modern adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s 18th century comedy The Servant of Two Masters by Jeffrey Hatcher and Paolo Emilio Landi under Dan McCleary’s direction and I hailed it as the funniest…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August, 2007 Some old musicals are just that – old. But The Music Man is one of that handful of shows that is always fresh and fun. Written in the 1950’s but set in an amorphous and idealized 1912 (some of the topical references in the show…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August, 2007 Only recently has there been a trend to convert movie musicals into theatrical vehicles, usually with the view of reproducing, live on stage, the moments we all treasure on celluloid. Frankly, this rarely works well. This summer the Mac-Haydn has presented three movie-to-stage…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August 2007 I have been sad over the past few summers that Berkshire County has been engaging in sustained cultural exchanges with other nations that theatre is the least portable of the arts due to the inevitable language barriers. Fans of the visual arts, music,…
“In a thousand years man will sigh just the same, ‘Ah, how hard life is,’ and yet just as now he will be afraid of death and not want it.”– Anton Chekhov, The Three Sisters, translated by Constance Garnett Ventfort Hall, as it is struggling to become fully refurbished and functional…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August 2007 I cannot recall how many times I have seen The Fantasticks – once in summer stock when I was very young, at least once at the Sullivan Street Playhouse, and, memorably, once in Phippy Kaye’s living room when a group of 4th grade girls I…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August 2007 “War is a scienceWith rules to be appliedWhich good soldiers appreciateRecall and recapitulateBefore they go to decimateThe other side.”– Stephen Schwartz Last summer as I was driving around to many theatres, I listened to tapes of a BCC radio adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August 2007 Even theatre critics have their favorite shows, and it is no secret that Little Shop of Horrors is one of mine. My son Brandon and I make pilgrimages to see it whenever it is presented within reasonable driving distance. We have seen everything from an…
