Barrington Stage Company, St. Germain Stage, Pittsfield, MA
through March 8, 2020
By Jarice Hanson
For the last nine years the annual theater extravaganza in the Berkshires has been kicked off by Barrington Stage Company’s “10 X 10 New Play Festival.” While these ten-minute plays are often fast-paced and favor comedy, this year’s festival may be one of Barrington’s best.
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| Cast of "Oy Vey Maria" Photo by Emma Rothenberg-Ware |
Since theater always shows us the funny side of the world in which we live, it’s not surprising that so many of the ten minute shows deal with the effects of living in a more technologized world. Gender issues and social change permeate a number of the plays, and the show concludes with an almost Borsht Belt treatment of the birth of Jesus. Situations veer from auditions for a five second play festival to Bob’s Discount Bungee Jump, to a serious and dramatically satisfying school Active Shooter drill.
The talented cast includes Doug Harris, Maya Loren Jackson, Peter Maclin, Keri Safran, Kenneth Tigar, and Peggy Pharr Wilson. Half of the plays are directed by Julianne Boyd, and the other half by Matthew Penn. The actors move sets on and off of the stage while lighting and music serve to signal transitions between plays, and while it was a little difficult to understand how the transitional music fit the tenor of the plays, the music keeps the mood light and the audience engaged.
The playwrights involved in this project have a wide range of backgrounds and theatrical experience; the number of awards they have collectively won boggles the mind. These are not first-time authors. Instead, they seem to be masters of the craft and the clever situations along with tight dialog. The writers know how to reach audiences with warmth and meaningful messages.
The “10 X 10 New Play Festival” also allows Barrington Stage Company to announce their summer seasons for both the St. Germain Stage, and the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage. This summer, expect to see two musicals (“South Pacific” and “Ain’t Misbehavin’”) on the mainstage along with two additional shows, and the St. Germain Stage will include five plays, one of which is a world-premiere co-conceived by Joshua Bergasse and Mark St. Germain, and a youth theater production of “The Supadupa Kid,” also a world-premiere. In short, look for a summer packed with song, dance, heavy drama, and lots of laughs at BSC.a
