Boston Spotlight: June 2005
Boston being an academic town, you’d think that things would be winding down, but June’s curriculum is jam-packed. At Harvard, the American Repertory Theatre Company has accomplished the impossible and — thanks to visionary Hungarian director János Szász — pulled off a pared-down, revved-up Desire under the Elms (up through June 12) that’s absolutely riveting: Amelia Campbell is electric as the poverty-hardened usurper-wife grabbing for her main chance, and Riccardo Hernandez’s set, a hardscrabble landscape of gravel and rock, lends bleak gravitas. Next up, June 18 – July 17, is Gideon Lester’s adaptation of Kafka’s Amerika, directed by Dominique Serrand of the Theatre de la Jeune Lune, who created such a vivid Miser last summer. In this imaginary riff on the immigrant experience, drawn from Dickens and Benjamin Franklin among other sources (Kafka never made the journey himself), ART promises to reveal more of the mordant fantasist’s “playful side.” And on June 21- July 10, ART gives its giant black box at Zero Arrow Street over to the Portland, Oregon-based Imago Theatre for a family-friendly production of Frogz, featuring “comedic amphibians” and other wondrous creatures.
Meanwhile, at the Huntington (Boston University’s resident theatre), hot young director Daniel Goldstein has mounted a sparkling production of William Finn’s Falsettos, enhanced by David Korin’s snazzy ’70s-minimalist set and Sean Curran’s clever choreography (dancing Valiums! — or would that be Valia?). It plays through June 26 — as will Laughing Wild, Christopher Durang’s absurdist sendup of ’80s excess, opening under the Huntington’s aegis at the Boston Center for the Arts June 3. The big draw is the author himself, sharing the stage with multiple Tony Award-winning Debra Monk.
Also at the BCA, Speakeasy Stage’s Take Me Out has been such a big hit that it’s running an extra month, to July 2. And the hitters will be reinforced with hoopsters, when That Championship Season moves into a BCA black box June 2-26. In yet another BCA space is Duplex (through June 11), a homegrown musical by Peter Fernandez about the challenges facing fresh young twenty-something cohabitors.
The team of Bisantz and Gilbane premiere their new musical, Hollywood Insider (about the meteoric rise and tragically fishy death of a TV child star), at the Boston Playwrights Theatre June 16-18, as part of the Playwrights’ Platform 33rd Annual Festival of New Plays, which begins on June 9 — supplanting Shouting Theatre in a Crowded Fire (through June 5), director Wesley Savick’s compendium of antiestablishment texts by BU professor Howard Zinn. As a troupe of young actors attempt “tiny acts” of idealism, their journey spans the cultural landscape of game shows and avant-garde theatre.
It must be summer (at long last!) because Boston’s outdoor Publick Theatre, in Brighton on the Charles — bring bug spray — is starting up with The Comedy of Errors (June 21 – September 10) and Stoppard’s Arcadia (June 30 – September 4).
The burbs are busy, too. The Wellesley Summer Theatre runs Tina Howe’s Pride’s Crossing (an area premiere, June 1-18) in repertory with a new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (June 6-25). In the former, Alicia Kahn — a phenomenon in last year’s Jane Eyre and After Mrs. Rochester — plays Mabel Tidings Bigelow, the first woman to swim the English Channel; in the latter she’s Elizabeth Bennet, dallying with Derek Stone Nelson’s Mr. Darcy. Waltham’s Reagle Players have been importing notable names to share the stage with locals since 1969: the first of this summer’s offerings is Crazy for You with Kirby and Beverly Ward (June 16-24). The Stoneham Theatre is assaying that London perennial, Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap (June 2-19), with local fave Paula Plum as Mrs. Boyle. A dozen starry-eyed area teens get to collaborate with young pros in the North Shore Music Theatre’s Fame, through June 19: director Richard Stafford, who pulled off a peppy Swing! and ingratiating Cats, should quickly whip them into shape. The newly air-conditioned (yay!) Gloucester Stage Company kicks off its season with the Rodgers & Hammerstein revue (created by the Roundabout Theatre in 1993), A Grand Night for Singing; next up (June 30-July 17) is the Donald Margulies dramedy Dinner with Friends.
Out on Cape Cod, the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre follows up Robert Reich’s insider political romp Public Exposure (through June 18) with the New England premiere of Adriano Shaplin’s Pugilist Specialist (June 23 – July 16), which pits an idealistic female Marine, an explosives expert, against an Arab despot — and her own ruthless superiors. Then it’s inamorati mano a mano when Rick Lombardo of the New Repertory Theatre guest-directs a pair of Pinter plays, Ashes to Ashes and The Lover, June 26 – August 9 in a program entitled The Lovers. At Provincetown Rep, John Buffalo Mailer’s Crazy Eyes runs to June 12. On June 20, the Cape Playhouse in Dennis kicks off a promising 79th season with a new musical about Louis Armstrong, Ambassador Satch (June 20 – July 2), co-written and starring the amazing Andre de Shields.
Boston’s summer diaspora tends to split right down the middle: anyone not Cape-bound typically heads for the hills. The Berkshire Theatre’s 77th-season opener, in the Unicorn space, is that Tom Jones/Harvey Schmidt 1966 chestnut-duet I Do, I Do! (through June 25), a tribute to major funders Jane and Jack Fitzpatrick, who own the Red Lion Inn, Stockbridge’s social hub, and North Adam’s retro-trendy Porches, among other enterprises. The couple will be feted on opening night with a wedding cake and champagne. The main stage selection is Side by Side by Sondheim (June 21- July 9), featuring film star Jessica Walter, Broadway regular Michele Ragusa, and The Full Monty‘s Marcus Neville. The Barrington Stage Company has a well-deserved reputation for musical innovation (it’s where The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee debuted last summer), so Sondheim-heads will want to double-dip and see what artistic director Julianne Boyd makes of Follies, running June 23 – July 16. Cast members include Kim Crosby (the original Cinderella in Into the Woods), ghost-voice-to-the-stars Marni Nixon, and Donna McKechnie as Carlotta.
A quick glance around New England yields the following: In Rhode Island, Pawtucket’s Gamm Theatre offers the regional premiere of Amy Freed’s farce The Beard of Avon through June 19 — which is also the end date for Trinity Rep’s imported Ojibway comedy, The Buz’Gem Blues. In Connecticut, the 75-year-old Westport Country Playhouse is rebounding from a $17 million renovation with a benefit on June 5 featuring Christopher Plummer’s one-man literary sampler, A Word or Two, Before You Go (in the 1950s, the Playhouse was his stepping-stone to Broadway). The season starts in earnest June 16 – July 3 with Finian’s Rainbow; produced by the Irish Repertory Theatre and starring Milo O’Shea and Melissa Errico. Goodspeed Musicals has two shows up: Robert Lindsey Nassif’s The Flight of the Lawnchair Man at the Norma Terris Theatre in Chester through June 12, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at the Opera House in Essex through June 26. And the Hartford Stage Company has Elizabeth Ashley graduating from Maggie, three decades later, to Big Mama in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, through June 26.
Rounding out the strawhat circuit, the Peterborough Players in New Hampshire offer Tom Ziegler’s Grace and Glorie June 15-26 and, from June 29 to July 10, Peter Shaffer’s Lettice and Lovage, starring Mary Beth Hurt. And the summer’s just getting started: expect to rack up some serious mileage.
