Berkshire on Stage critic Barbara Waldinger writes from Sarasota, FL: “I wanted to let BoS readers know about a gorgeous production now playing at the AsoloRep in Sarasota in case any of them plan to travel south this month. It’s Lauren Gunderson’s Silent Sky, which runs through March 5th. Masterfully…
by Barbara Waldinger The Lion in Winter, James Goldman’s 1966 Broadway play, contains a unique mix of historical and contemporary elements. Though the year is 1183 and the place is Henry II’s castle in Chinon, France, it’s the story of a dysfunctional family, squabbling over which of his three sons…
by Barbara Waldinger In describing Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, director Margo Whitcomb refers to “the common and overused device of an older celebrity professor and a young female student.” What makes this play unique is that Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch has written it from the male point of…
by Barbara Waldinger The stage at Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn has been transformed into a beach where a middle-aged, English-speaking, long-married couple are suddenly confronted by a younger, non-human, English-speaking couple: two large lizards, who have come up out of the sea. Given that this play, Seascape, was written by…
by Barbara Waldinger Picture a musical consisting of seven of the nine Greek Muses, daughters of Zeus (supposedly the other two are in the band), two of whom are males, whose leader (Clio, the Muse of History) wears roller skates, changes her name, and speaks with a bizarre Australian accent…
by Barbara Waldinger Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, now being staged at Shakespeare & Company’s Tina Packer Playhouse, is known as a “problem play.” Neither tragedy nor comedy, it lives somewhere in between, which is probably why it is rarely produced. But this Lenox company ended up with more problems than…
by Barbara Waldinger In the age of Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein, how is a director embarking on a production of one of the many versions of the Don Juan story to approach the lasciviousness of the main character? Beginning in the Middle Ages, across multiple genres and cultures…
by Barbara Waldinger “Set during Eugene O’Neill’s classic Long Day’s Journey Into Night, failure, denial and passion roil as two Irish servants and an American chauffeur pass the day in the kitchen of the Tyrone family’s residence in 1912.” (Publicity blurb: Dorset Theatre Festival’s production of Thirst by Ronán Noone). …
