Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July, 2008 I have come to really look forward to the annual mono-dramas produced in cooperation with Shakespeare & Company at Ventfort Hall each summer. The four I have seen – Morgan O-Yuki: Geisha of the Gilded Age, Dancing with the Czar and Fanny Kemble’s Lenox Address – each introduced me to a woman…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, June 2008 Last year, when Shakespeare & Company opened with a production of Tom Stoppard’s Rough Crossing, many of my colleagues proclaimed it a “laugh riot.” I didn’t, because it wasn’t. It was certainly good fun, but it was not hilarious. But this year’s season opener, The…
Reviewed by Deborah E. Burns, October 2007 Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; Phileas Fogg and his servant Passepartout; various kings and their fools: literature abounds with odd couples. Their oppositeness clarifies their differences, often in broad comic strokes, defining the visionary, head-in-the-clouds aristocrat against the loyal, practical, feet-on-the-ground servant. In…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, June, 2007 “I never knew before how rotten a fellow could be outside his regular business…Every man is a foolishness when he’s out of his right place.” – Edgar Smith Writers, even great writers, have styles and forms at which they excel and others in…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, October, 2006 This double bill, featuring a reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum and a stage adaptation of Edith Wharton’s Kerfol, is a modest little Halloween thrill. Shakespeare & Company has gone all out and decorated the lobby of the Founders’ Theatre with cobwebs…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August, 2006 I wanted to be sure to separate my reviews of Martha Mitchell Calling and No Background Music because I knew from the get-go that even though they are being performed as a double bill, they would be very different shows. I was right. Martha Mitchell Calling is a play, No…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, June, 2006 Enchanted April is a mediocre play based on a charming novel being given a far better production than it deserves at Shakespeare & Company. While this production is enjoyable and features fine performances in the leading roles by Diane Prusha and Tod Randolph, I…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July 2004. It is always a treat to see actress Annette Miller on the stage. And I don’t wonder at her choice of vehicles this time around – I can see the allure of playing the charming and eccentric Diana Vreeland, mid-20th century fashionista to…
