#Juliana von Haubrich

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REVIEW: "Heisenberg" at Shakespeare & Company

REVIEW: “Heisenberg” at Shakespeare & Company

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REVIEW: "The Waverly Gallery" at Shakespeare & Company

REVIEW: “The Waverly Gallery” at Shakespeare & Company

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REVIEW: "Curve of Departure" at Chester Theatre Company

REVIEW: “Curve of Departure” at Chester Theatre Company

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by Macey Levin

  In a motel room in New Mexico a small group of relatives meet the night before they are to attend a funeral for another family member.  Rachel Bonds’ play Curve of Departure draws out the love these people have for each other as they touch upon sensitivities and apprehensions.  This funny and challenging production at the Chester Theatre Company in Chester, Massachusetts highlights the insight and intelligence of its cast.

  Rudy (Raye Birk,) a crotchety old man with failing memory and his daughter-in-law Linda (Ami Brabson) have come to New Mexico from New York to observe the funeral of Rudy’s son Cyrus, Linda’s ex-husband.  Due to his illness, Linda, a teacher, has cared for Rudy through his declining years.  Their affection for each other is obvious as he recognizes what she has done and is doing for him and how she, in turn, feels responsible for the old curmudgeon.  They are waiting for Felix (Paul Pontrelli), Linda’s son and Rudy’s grandson, to arrive from Los Angeles with his life-partner Jackson (Jose Espinosa).

  The three family members are not fond of Cyrus but have begrudgingly decided to attend the funeral.  He has been a disappointment to his father and late mother for abandoning Linda and Felix years before and entering into a new marriage.  Jackson, who is peripheral in this immediate situation, has a family problem of his own.  His drug-addicted sister with her abusive partner has a two-year old daughter that he is fostering with Felix.  A conflict between the two men arises when Jackson states he wants to adopt the child.  Felix, who has a lucrative profession, concerned about the costs of adoption and raising the baby, is apprehensive about his abilities to be a father given the negative role model presented by Cyrus.

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The conversations amongst the four reveal elements of their pasts subtly without over-acted epiphanies.  As they wend their way through fond and hurtful memories tempered by laughter, their fears and their love are palpable.  This is to the credit of the cast and director Keira Naughton.  She has effortlessly moved her actors into moments of apprehension and comfort while maintaining underlying tensions.  Rudy’s digestive problems produce both laughter and compassion; Linda’s concern for the men in her now-extended family is always evident as she advises and shepherds them to acceptance of their various relationships.  Felix, though he loves Jackson, is self-protective and Jackson finds the determination to follow his familial instincts by choosing adoption of his niece with or without Felix.  All of these problems and their solutions are within the context of family life.  Birk, Brabson, Espinosa and Pontrelli play their scenes and emotions with truth and understanding.

  Juliana von Haubrich’s set is redolent of a generic motel room with its two queen-size beds, rickety extra cot, television set, kitchenette and mini-refrigerator; the bland colors attempting to comport the guests.  The costumes designed by Stella Schwartz suggest the characters’ personalities and status.  Felix, for instance, is casually but nicely dressed while Jackson, who drifts from job to job, wears jeans with frayed holes at both knees.

  Matthew Adelson’s lighting, in addition to the occasional car lights that come through the windows, also has the light from the off stage bathroom evident as people enter and exit the facility.  The sound by David Wiggall creates the sounds associated with this familiar location as well as the morning bird calls of the awakening desert.

  In a moving monologue Rudy sums up life with simple profundity.  His lyrical thoughts create a play that is involved, comic and very human; it typifies the work this vital and vibrant theatre consistently offers.

  Curve of Departure by Rachel Bonds; Director: Keira Naughton; Cast: Raye Birk (Rudy) Ami Brabson (Linda) Jose Espinosa (Jackson) Paul Pontrelli (Felix); Scenic Design: Juliana von Haubrich; Costume Design: Stella Schwartz; Lighting Design: Matthew Adelson; Sound Design: David Wiggall; Stage Manager: Katy McGlaughlin; Assistant to the Director: Hunter J. Allen; Running time: 70 minutes; no intermission; From 8/8/19 to 8/18/19; Chester Theatre Company, 15 Middlefield Rd., Chester, Massachusetts; www.chestertheatre.org; 413-354-7770

REVIEW: “Curve of Departure” at Chester Theatre Company by Macey Levin In a motel room in New Mexico a small group of relatives meet the night before they are to attend a funeral for another family member. 

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Chester Theatre Company Presents The New England Premiere of "Curve of Departure"

Chester Theatre Company Presents The New England Premiere of “Curve of Departure”

Chester, MA – Chester Theatre Company (CTC) is proud to present Curve of Departure by Rachel Bonds in the historic Chester Town Hall, 15 Middlefield Road in Chester, MA, from August 8 – 18. The production is directed by Keira Naughton making her CTC debut. In a New Mexico motel room, three generations gather to lay to rest their past as they look forward to the opportunities and challenges of…

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by Macey Levin

  Kenneth Lonergan’s play The Waverly Gallery had its off-Broadway debut in 2000 and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize the following year. It dramatizes the story of Gladys Green who, over a two-year period, slips from mild senility to full-blown dementia. The original production and the recent revival, which brought Elaine May back to Broadway after a 50-year absence, obviously had an emotional effect on audiences and reviewers. The current offering at Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox, Massachusetts, however, is more labored than profound.

  Directed by Tina Packer, the founder and former artistic director of the company, the first act works fairly well. Gladys, a lawyer and activist when younger, is now the owner of a small unprofitable art gallery on Waverly Place off Washington Square in Manhattan. We meet Gladys (Annette Miller) and her grandson Daniel Reed (David Gow) at lunch. Her failing memory is obvious, but she is still in touch with reality. Their conversation is primarily expository and Gladys’s tics, repetition of comments and questions, and her search for memories, though comic, effectively foreshadow her slow decline.

  In addition to the main thematic thread, the play also focuses on the effect the disease has on Daniel, his mother Ellen Fine (Elizabeth Aspenlieder) and step-father Howard Fine (Michael F. Toomey.) Through a series of monologues directed to the audience, Daniel informs us of Gladys’s disintegration and the family’s angst. Don Bowman (David Bertoldi), an inept artist, shares Gladys’s delusional dreams. She allows him to live in the back room of the gallery as he prepares for a longed-for art show. It is soon revealed that the owner of the gallery’s property intends to take it over and turn it into a restaurant resulting in even more severe consternation.

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Though the subject matter is what is important in this play, the script is repetitive. Oftentimes characters comfort Gladys with the same expressions or repeatedly complain to each other about her behavior and/or needs. A number of dialogue sequences overlap preventing the audience from clearly understanding what is being said. These elements may be found in real life, but on a stage, especially with the number of times it occurs in this production, it is problematic. This may be the director’s choice. The set changes, eat up a lot of time. The cast, especially in the second act, occasionally over-acts; comforting embraces, for instance, are held for an extended amount of time as are occasional silences.

  Playwright Lonergan has based Gladys on his grandmother. Annette Miller’s performance as Gladys rings with truth as many of us can probably verify from personal experience. Her descent into the disease is skillfully portrayed and her pain is real. Daniel deals with his grandmother more often than the others and David Gow’s performance is very sensitively played; he is supportive and tender until, unable to withstand Gladys’s constant demands, he is finally engulfed by emotional turmoil. Aspenlieder and Toomey effectively portray the frustration and anger provoked by the helplessness they encounter. David Bertoldi’s inept artist Dan Bowman is the most compassionate of the people in Gladys’s life and he plays it with great sincerity. His inability to accurately assess his talent mirrors Gladys’s unreal expectations to find a job and live on her own.

  The set, basically black and white, designed by Juliana Von Haubrich is an open space with several chairs, a sofa, and a table that is taken offstage and reset several times. The upstage wall rotates to delineate different locations. As mentioned above the numerous scene changes take a goodly amount of time. The lighting by James W. Bilnoski is unobtrusive as is Brendan Boyle’s sound. There is a puzzling choice by costume designer Elizabeth Rocha. Gladys and Don change costumes as time goes on, while Daniel, Ellen and Howard wear the same costume from beginning to end.

  Director Packer has effectively mined the humor in the play to help contrast with the harrowing and heartbreaking situation the characters face, but it could be even more effective if the production were tighter.

  The Waverly Gallery by Kenneth Lonergan; Director: Tina Packer; Associate director: Michelle Joyner; Cast: Elizabeth Aspenlieder (Ellen Fine) David Bertoldi (Don Bowman) David Gow (Daniel Reed) Annette Miller (Gladys Green) Michael F. Toomey (Howard Fine); Set Designer: Juliana Von Haubrich; Lighting Designer: James W. Bilnoski; Costume Designer: Elizabeth Rocha; Sound Designer: Brendan Boyle; Stage Manager: J.P. Elins; Running Time: 2 hours; 45 minutes; one intermission; May 23 – July 14; Shakespeare & Company Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, Lenox, MA

REVIEW: “The Waverly Gallery” at Shakespeare & Company by Macey Levin Kenneth Lonergan’s play The Waverly Gallery had its off-Broadway debut in 2000 and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize the following year.

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Shakespeare & Company Opens its 2019 Season with "The Waverly Gallery"

Shakespeare & Company Opens its 2019 Season with “The Waverly Gallery”

Performances Run May 23 – July 14

“An exquisite blend of humor and sorrow.”—Broadway News

(Lenox, MA) – Shakespeare & Company‘s season opens Memorial Day Weekend with Pulitzer Prize finalist The Waverly Gallery by Kenneth Lonergan, directed by Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer. This powerful story sheds a heartrending and humorous light on the effects of senility on a family. Performances ru…

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Chester Theatre Company Announces Complete Casting for 30th Anniversary Season

Chester Theatre Company Announces Complete Casting for 30th Anniversary Season

Many Audience Favorites Returning to the Town Hall Theatre, Onstage and Off Chester, MA–Co-founded by Vincent Dowling and H. Newman Marsh in 1990 with the belief that every town should have a professional theatre, Chester Theatre Company (formerly The Miniature Theatre of Chester) prepares to celebrate its landmark 30th Season with four works, each a New England Premiere. Chester Theatre…

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LENOX, MA (March 7, 2019) — After the record breaking success of WAM Theatre’s fall 2018 production of ANN by Holland Taylor, WAM is thrilled to announce that Arena Stage in Washington, DC, and Dallas Theatre Center are presenting a new co-production of ANN in July and October of this year. WAM’s Artistic Director, Kristen van Ginhoven, will again direct the production, and Jayne Atkinson returns to star in the title role.

A one-woman tour-de-force, ANN is a hilarious and spirited portrait of Ann Richards, legendary Governor of Texas, that brings us face to face with Richards’ complex, colorful, and captivating character, with a personality bigger than the state she governed. Ticket sales for WAM’s 2018 co-production of ANN with Dorset Theatre Festival broke all box office records.

Jayne Atkinson will reprise her starring role as Texas Governor Ann Richards.

WAM Artistic Director Kristen van Ginhoven will direct once again at Arena Stage and Dallas Theatre Center.

“As a new citizen of this country, and as the Artistic Director of WAM, I cannot imagine a better way to contribute to the civic dialogue leading up to the 2020 election,” van Ginhoven said. “All of us at WAM are thrilled that our work at the intersection of arts and activism will have a life outside of the Berkshires where it will reach even larger audiences. And personally, I am delighted to be able to continue work on this play with Jayne at these two acclaimed regional theaters.”

“I am thrilled and proud to be continuing the journey – joining with Kristen to take ANN on the road and share the brilliance and humor of Ann Richards,” Atkinson added.

Molly Smith, Artistic Director of Arena Stage in Washington DC

Kevin Moriarty, Enloe/Rose Artistic Director of Dallas Theater Center

“ANN is a whip-smart play, perfect for the times we’re living in. Governor Ann Richards was so far ahead of her time, she was a rocket!” Molly Smith, Artistic Director of Arena Stage enthused. “We at Arena are excited about this co-production and bringing Jayne Atkinson’s fantastic portrayal of Governor Richards, along with Kristen van Ginhoven’s wonderful direction, to Washington DC.  There really is no better place for a play about a strong woman politician. We’re tossing rocks at that glass ceiling! And reminding our audiences of those who went before.”

“We are thrilled to welcome Kristen van Ginhoven to Dallas to direct ANN,” said Kevin Moriarty, Enloe/Rose Artistic Director of Dallas Theater Center. “Under Kristen’s leadership, and with Jayne Atkinson in the title role, audiences will love this inspiring and hilarious play that brings us face to face with the complex, colorful and captivating character of Ann Richards.”

The original design team will also return to design the co-production. WAM Associate Artist Juliana von Haubrich returns as scenic designer, Andi Lyons as lighting designer, M. L. Dogg as sound designer, Jess Goldstein as costume designer and Paul Huntley as wig designer.

The production will run July 11-August 11 at Arena Stage and in Dallas from October 15-November 10. Tickets and information can be found on those companies’ Websites: arenastage.org and dallastheatercenter.org

Back in the Berkshires, WAM is launching its 10th anniversary season this year.  There will be two Mainstage productions – the world premiere of Lady Randy by Anne Undeland, running April 18-May 5, and Pipeline by Dominique Morisseau, running October 25-November 9, presented in partnership with Multicultural BRIDGE. Two Fresh Takes Play Readings – Native Gardens by Karen Zacarías (May 4) and Paradise by Laura Maria Censabella (November 2) –  will correlate directly to each Mainstage production; and an expanded Education program will include a new Elder Ensemble for women 65 and older, along with the successful, established Teen Ensemble, both of which will debut their original devised theatre pieces at the WAM Gala in July.

For more information about WAM Theatre and the 2019 season, visit: https://www.wamtheatre.com/2019-season/

ABOUT ARENA STAGE

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater, under the leadership of Artistic Director Molly Smith and Executive Producer Edgar Dobie, is a national center dedicated to American voices and artists. Arena Stage produces plays of all that is passionate, profound, deep and dangerous in the American spirit, and presents diverse and ground-breaking work from some of the best artists around the country. Arena Stage is committed to commissioning and developing new plays and impacts the lives of over 10,000 students annually through its work in community engagement. Now in its seventh decade, Arena Stage serves a diverse annual audience of more than 300,000. Arenastage.org

ABOUT THE DALLAS THEATER CENTER

One of the leading regional theaters in the country, Dallas Theater Center (DTC) performs to an audience of more than 90,000 North Texas residents annually. Founded in 1959, DTC is now a resident company of the AT&T Performing Arts Center and presents its mainstage season at the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre in the Dallas Arts District. DTC also presents at its original home, the Kalita Humphreys Theater, the only freestanding theater designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright. DTC engages, entertains and inspires a diverse community by creating experiences that stimulate new ways of thinking and living by consistently producing plays, educational programs and community initiatives that are of the highest quality and reach the broadest possible constituency. Dallastheatercenter.org

WAM 10th Anniversary Sponsors

Our 2019 sponsors include Adams Community Bank, Annie Selke, Berkshire Gas, Berkshire Hand to Shoulder Center, Berkshire Magazine, Berkshire Sterile Manufacturing, Blue Q, Blue Spark Financial, Brabson Library & Educational Foundation, Canyon Ranch, Chez Nous, Custom Business Solutions, Dr, Jay Wise, DDS and Dr. Casey Jones, DMD, The Dylandale Foundation, Frankie’s Ristorante Italiano, Greylock Federal Credit Union, Guido’s Fresh Marketplace, Haven Cafe and Bakery, Health Professional Coaching, Heller & Robbins, Interprint, J.H. Maxymillian, Inc., Lee Bank, Maggie Barry, NEPR, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Only in My Dreams Events, Onyx Specialty Papers, OUTPOST, RB Design Co., The Rogovoy Report, The Rookwood Inn, Salisbury Bank, T Square Design Studio, Toole Insurance, and a. von schlegell & co.

WAM Theatre is also supported in part by grants from the Alford-Egremont Cultural Council, Cultural Council of Northern Berkshires, Hinsdale-Peru Cultural Council, Lenox Cultural Council, New Marlborough Cultural Council, Otis Cultural Council, Richmond Cultural Council, Sandisfield Cultural Council, Sheffield Cultural Council, West Stockbridge Cultural Council– local agencies that are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

LADY RANDY is sponsored in part by an anonymous donor and PIPELINE is sponsored in part by Carolyn Butler.

ABOUT WAM THEATRE

Based in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, WAM Theatre is celebrating its 10th anniversary of being a place Where Arts and Activism Meet. The company was co-founded in 2010 by director, actor, educator, and producer Kristen van Ginhoven. WAM’s vision is to create opportunity for women and girls through the mission of theatre as philanthropy.

Inspired by the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, WAM donates a portion of the proceeds from its theatrical events to organizations that benefit women and girls.

Since 2010, WAM Theatre has provided paid work to more than 200 theatre artists and donated more than $56,500 to fifteen local and global organizations taking action for women and girls in areas such as girls education, teen pregnancy prevention, sexual trafficking awareness, midwife training and more. In addition to the main stage productions and special events, WAM Theatre’s activities include a comprehensive educational outreach program and the Fresh Takes Play Reading Series. For more information, visit www.WAMTheatre.com

“ANN” Starring Jayne Atkinson to be Presented in Dallas & Washington, DC LENOX, MA (March 7, 2019) — After the record breaking success of WAM Theatre’s fall 2018 production of…

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by Roseann Cane

In 1927 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg posited what is often referred to as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: it is not possible to measure simultaneously the position and the velocity of an object, even in theory. Playwright Simon Stephens has said that this quantum theory seems to define the way in which people live: unless we are seen by or engaged with other people, we barely exist.

The setup of Stephens’s play Heisenberg is a familiar one: an extroverted, eccentric woman “meets cute” with an older, introverted, conventional man; they clash, sparks fly, and they walk into the sunset together. Stephens asks that we take this setup and examine it through the lens of the Uncertainty Principle, applying it to human relationships.

The couple in question, an American woman named Georgie Burns (Tamara Hickey) and an Englishman of Irish descent named Alex Priest (Malcolm Ingram), meet in a London railway station. The fortyish Georgie strikes up a conversation with 75-year-old Alex, who is sitting quietly on a nearby bench.

Hickey, all frantic gesticulation and shrieking verbalization, homes in on Ingram with such delirium that even a marginally sane person would flee into the night. She moves in sometimes sweeping, other times jerking fashion, arms and legs jutting in multiple directions, and lights on Ingram’s bench. Buttoned-up Ingram, though nonplussed, submits to her questions and the two have something of a conversation.

Almost exactly one year ago, I had the great pleasure of seeing Hickey play Ariel in the company’s Roman Garden production of The Tempest. Hers was one of my favorite performances of the entire season, and she was the main reason why I’d looked forward to seeing Heisenberg. It grieves me to say that her portrayal of Alex was so abrasive and unnatural that I squirmed throughout the very long, intermissionless 90-minute play. Alex, we learn, comes from New Jersey. Hickey’s relentless screeching in an accent that swayed between working-class New York and Boston, with an occasional dash of the Queen’s English thrown in for good measure, distracted mightily from everything else, including Ingram, in the play.

Ingram was well cast, and gave a sensitive, substantive performance, but he may as well have been in another play. I wish director Tina Packer had reined in Hickey, and given her more guidance. Because Hickey presented a caricature rather than a real human being, there was, for me, no transmission of feeling, and that’s deadly for a theater audience.

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Packer did a neat job of directing the transitions between each of the six scenes, where the actors managed to dress and undress on stage as well as to help move pieces of Juliana von Haubrich’s elegantly minimalist set. Charlotte Palmer-Lane’s costumes expertly intensified Georgie and Alex’s characters. I did find Amy Altadonna’s sound design rather peculiar at times; for example, during a scene where Alex is reminiscing about his 10-year-old sister, I was certain I’d heard a baby cooing and gurgling from somewhere in the audience, but when that cooing and gurgling emerged a second and third time, I realized it was a sound effect. It make no sense to me. Dan Kotlowitz’s lighting was beautifully designed and brilliantly enhanced the action.

Despite the familiar setup of Heisenberg, the subjects of human connection and isolation can’t be overexplored. While I wouldn’t call Stephens’s play masterly, I think there is so much potential for transformative poignance in the two characters he created, and I wish that potential had been mined in this production.

Heisenberg by Simon Stephens, directed by Tina Packer, runs August 11-September 2, 2018 in the Tina Packer Playhouse at Shakespeare & Company. Set Designer: Juliana von Haubrich. Lighting Designer: Dan Kotlowitz. Costume Designer: Charlotte Palmer-Lane. Sound Designer: Amy Altadonna. Stage Manager: Hope Rose Kelly. CAST: Tamara Hickey as Georgie and Malcolm Ingram as Alex.

Tickets for Heisenberg are available online at shakespeare.org, or by calling Shakespeare & Company’s box office at (413) 637-3353. The Tina Packer Playhouse is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible. Shakespeare & Company is located at 70 Kemble St. in Lenox, Massachusetts.

REVIEW: “Heisenberg” at Shakespeare & Company by Roseann Cane In 1927 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg posited what is often referred to as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: it is not possible to measure simultaneously the position and the velocity of an object, even in theory.

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“Quirky, lovely, funny, and powerful.” – Associated Press

(Lenox, MA) – Shakespeare & Company presents Heisenberg by Tony Award-winning playwright Simon Stephens (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time), directed by Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer. Featuring Company veterans Tamara Hickey and Malcolm Ingram, performances run in the Tina Packer Playhouse August 11 – September 2.

“They are, to say the least, an unlikely pair,” said director Tina Packer. “He’s a 75 year-old butcher, introverted, seemingly of Irish descent, but living in London. She’s a forty-something American, excessively extroverted, perhaps a social worker with a missing son. They meet on a park bench. By chance, they affect each other. They change each other’s lives. Simon Stephens is a master of what can’t be seen, but what is sensed, the effect of random events upon the lives of human beings or are they not random?”

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Tina Packer directs this intimate production starring Company veterans Tamara Hickey (Georgie) and Malcolm Ingram (Alex). The creative team includes Juliana von Haubrich (Set Design), Dan Kotlowitz (Lighting Design), Charlotte Palmer-Lane (Costume Design), Amy Altadonna (Sound Design), and Hope Rose Kelly (Stage Manager).

“A news story about a man I knew in my childhood haunted me,” said Playwright Simon Stephens. “He was a man in his eighties in my home town of Stockport and a younger woman had inveigled into his life, and he had given her his life savings. I wondered at the cruelty of that and how desperate the woman must have been. I got to wondering about what would happen if the two people affected one another. I became, at the same time, fascinated by the way in which Werner Heisenberg’s quantum theories seemed to define the way in which people lived. How, unless we are seen or engaged with, we barely exist. It struck me as a metaphor for loneliness and the volatility of being human.”

Tickets for Heisenberg are available online at shakespeare.org, or by calling Shakespeare & Company’s box office at (413) 637-3353. The Tina Packer Playhouse is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible. Shakespeare & Company is located at 70 Kemble St. in Lenox, Massachusetts. Heisenberg is generously sponsored by Eleanor Y. Lord and Margaret H. Wheeler.

The Company’s 2018 Summer Season also includes three Shakespeare playsMacbeth, As You Like It and Love’s Labor’s Lost,��as well as Creditors by August Strindberg, adapted by David Greig; Mothers and Sons by Tony Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally; and HIR by Pulitzer Prize finalist Taylor Mac.

AT A GLANCE Production: Heisenberg Playwright: Simon Stephens Director: Tina Packer Assistant to the Director:  Taylor Tranfaglia Set Designer: Juliana von Haubrich Lighting Designer: Dan Kotlowitz Costume Designer: Charlotte Palmer-Lane Sound Designer: Amy Altadonna Stage Manager: Hope Rose Kelly

CAST MEMBERS Tamara Hickey (Georgie) Malcolm Ingram (Alex)

SCHEDULE AUGUST Saturday, August 11 – 8:00 PM (preview) Sunday, August 12 – 8:00 PM (preview) Wednesday, August 15 – 8:00 PM (preview) Thursday, August 16 – 8:00 PM (preview) Friday, August 17 – 8:00 PM (opening) Saturday, August 18 – 8:00 PM Sunday, August 19 – 8:00 PM Wednesday, August 22 – 8:00 PM Thursday, August 23 – 2:00 PM Friday, August 24 – 8:00 PM Saturday, August 25 – 8:00 PM Sunday, August 26 – 2:00 PM Wednesday, August 29 – 8:00 PM Thursday, August 30 – 2:00 PM Friday, August 31 – 2:00 PM

SEPTEMBER Saturday, September 1 – 8:00 PM Sunday, September 2 – 8:00 PM (closing)

About Tina Packer (Founding Artistic Director; Director, Heisenberg), She has directed all of Shakespeare’s plays (some of them several times), acted in eight of them (never when directing) and taught the whole canon at over thirty colleges, including Harvard, M.I.T. and NYU. At Columbia, she taught in the M.B.A. program for four years, resulting in the publication of Power Plays: Shakespeare’s Lessons in Leadership and Management with Deming Professor John Whitney for Simon and Schuster. For Scholastic, she wrote Tales from Shakespeare, a children’s book and recipient of the Parent’s Gold Medal Award. Most recently Tina’s book Women of Will was published by Knopf and she has been performingWomen of Will with Nigel Gore in New York, Mexico, England, The Hague, China, and across the US. Acting credits include: Shirley Valentine, Molly Ivins, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Mother of the Maid, and Volumnia in Coriolanus. She’s the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees, including the Commonwealth Award.

About Simon Stephens (Playwright, Heisenberg) Simon Stephens’ plays have been translated into more than thirty languages and performed throughout the world for two decades. He has won many awards including two Olivier Awards and a Tony Award for Best New Play. He is an Artistic Associate at the Lyric Hammersmith and Associate Playwright at the Royal Court Theatre. He is a professor of Scriptwriting at Manchester Metropolitan University and a Fellow of Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

About Shakespeare & Company Located in the beautiful Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, Shakespeare & Company is one of the leading Shakespeare festivals of the world. Founded in 1978, the organization attracts over 40,000 patrons annually. The Company is also home to an internationally renowned Center for Actor Training and award-winning Education Program. More information is available at www.shakespeare.org.

Shakespeare & Company Presents Heisenberg, Directed by Tina Packer "Quirky, lovely, funny, and powerful." - Associated Press (Lenox, MA) – Shakespeare & Company presents Heisenberg…

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Lauren Gunderson is the most-produced living playwright this past year.  Her work has been seen in this part of the world at WAM Theatre (Emilie,) Shakespeare & Co. (The Taming,) and Aglet Theatre Company (Silent Sky.)  Chester Theatre Company in Chester MA is currently presenting her I and You, filled with laughter and poignancy.

Caroline (Lilli Hokama,) a high school senior in need of a liver transplant, is confined to her home, preferring to stay in her bedroom.  Having suffered through a series of illnesses her entire life, she is a fatalist and has willingly accepted that she will soon die.  She is paid a surprise visit by another student, Anthony (Paul Pontrelli,) whom she does not know, and who informs her that they are supposed to be working together on a project about the poet Walt Whitman for their American lit. class.  Due tomorrow.

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Their initial meeting is adversarial, she being contentious and rude, while he tries to be sociable and charming, but his main concern is to finish a triptych poster and to prepare oral presentations (which she will record.)  The assignment is to explore Whitman’s use of the pronouns “I” and “you” in his classic Leaves of Grass.  Paul reads excerpts from the book, and Caroline, being virtually ignorant of Whitman, reluctantly allows herself to be touched by his poetry.

Throughout the book, which is constructed of several poems he had written over many years, Whitman’s thoughts change as he grows older.  Though he extols the body and the material world in some works, he also praises the role of the mind or the spirit.  A perspective Anthony holds dear.

“Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.”

He is concerned with living the life one now has, something Caroline has unwillingly accepted.

“There was never any more inception than there is now,

Nor anymore youth or age than there is now,

And will never be any more perfection than there is now,

Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.”

And he muses over life and death, events that Caroline has pondered.

“Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born?

I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.”

As the day goes on Caroline and Paul slowly reveal their lives to each other… their beliefs,  family structures, the music they prefer, what the future holds for them.

Gunderson’s dialogue sounds prosaic, especially in this case where the central characters are teen-agers.  But the exchanges, as pedestrian as they may be, move the play and characters forward.   The banter between them is realistic and is typical  of what one would hear in a high school corridor, including the four-letter words.  But that, too, defines these two young people.

The actors are flawless. Pontrelli’s Anthony is charming with an ingratiating smile and winning personality.  Yet he is earnest in his need to complete the assignment and to make it easy for Caroline to participate, but she has built huge walls around her.  Hokoma’s Caroline fights to protect her solitude and to maintain her distance, trying not to allow Anthony or Whitman to touch her emotions or intellect.  Indeed, the poet is an unseen character.

The play has been directed by Kristin van Ginhoven, artistic director of WAM. The pace never flags as we are caught up in the adolescents’ evolving relationship.  She makes sure their conversations, which bounce between lightness and profundity, are examples of sharp timing and show growing emotional awareness.  Van Ginhoven moves her actors easily within the confines of Juliana von Haubrich’s typically cluttered teen-age bedroom.

Stella Giulietta Schwartz has the actors in contemporary dress… she in sweats, he in windbreaker and jeans.  Lighting by Lara Dubin and sound by Tom Shread add to the reality of the moment and the surprise ending that will leave you with an emotional jolt.

This is a beautifully written, affecting production.

I and You runs through July 9.  For tickets: 413-354-7771

Chester Theatre Company presents I and You by Lauren Gunderson; Directed by Kristen van Ginhoven; Cast: Lilli Hokama (Caroline), Paul Pontrelli (Anthony); Scene design: Juliana von Haubrich; Lighting design: Lara Dubin; Costume design: Stella Giulietta Schwartz; Sound design: Tom Shread; Stage Manager: Keri Schultz; Running Time: Ninety minutes; no intermission; Chester Theatre Company, Town Hall Theatre, Chester, MA; From 6/28/2017 – 7/19/2017

  Lauren Gunderson is the most-produced living playwright this past year.  Her work has been seen in this part of the world at WAM Theatre (