REVIEW: “The Cake” at Barrington Stage Company

by Barbara Walldinger Directions for a perfect production of The Cake:   start with a brilliant, sensitive and brave playwright (Bekah Brunstetter), add a director who understands the playwright’s message and translates it beautifully from page to stage (Jennifer Chambers), throw in a multi-talented actress who can embody the inner life…

REVIEW: “Typhoid Mary” at Barrington Stage

by Roseann Cane Typhoid fever, a life-threatening bacterial illness, is still fairly common throughout the world, with about 5,700 cases developing annually in the U.S. Today typhoid fever can be prevented and treated with antibiotics, but at the turn of the 20th Century, typhoid fever was often akin to a death…

Berkshire On Stage Critics Pick Their Favorites of the 2017 Season

The four critics who review for BerkshireOnStage.com – Gail M. Burns, Roseann Cane, Macey Levin, and Barbara Waldinger – have each listed their favorite regional theatre productions of the past calendar year. Because for the most part we all see and review different shows, there was no sense trying to…

REVIEW: “Hamlet” at Shakespeare & Company

Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, June 2009 In 2006, when this production of Hamlet, directed by Eleanor Holdridge and starring Jason Asprey with his real-life mother Tina Packer as Gertrude and his real-life step-father Dennis Krausnick as Polonius, was first presented at Shakespeare & Company, I was the only Berkshire area…

REVIEW: “All’s Well That Ends Well” at Shakespeare & Company

Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, June 2008 The morning after I saw Tina Packer’s production of All’s Well That Ends Well, I was sorting through my press kit and complaining to my younger son. The show was too long, my rear end fell asleep, the script is lousy, Packer had inserted…