Supporting the Arts in Western Massachusetts and Beyond

June 28, 2012

Madwoman of Chaillot

Old Deerfield Productions, Deerfield, MA
June 29 - July 8, 2012

"The Madwoman of Chaillot," the perfect play for now, the perfect play for Greenfield will take downtown by storm. The little city that took on the Big Box will be celebrated in Old Deerfield Productions’ "The Madwoman of Chaillot," a delightful, deliciously topical comedy for the whole family. Main Street and the Common will come to life with circus and street performers, while the Arts Block and Pushkin Gallery provide double stages for a multitudinous cast from around the Valley.

Directed by Chris Rohmann, the performance will unfold in multiple venues: outdoor preshow entertainment will move into the Arts Block CafĂ©, done up as the Parisian sidewalk bistro where Act One takes place. Then the play will move across the street to the Pushkin Gallery for Act Two’s thrilling climax in an underground crypt, performed amid an art installation by designer and artist Athan Vennell which completes the Steampunk design concept of this hilarious and timely classic.

At the core of Jean Giraudoux’s whimsical masterpiece are corrupt corporate executives who plot to destroy Paris to get at the oil they believe flows beneath the city streets. Countess Aurelia, the Madwoman of Chaillot, played by Linda McInerney, rallies her eccentric community to save itself, and the world. With downtown Greenfield dressed up as the City of Light, local luminaries in cameo roles, and a movable feast of fun and fantasy, it will be dazzlingly clear that “Nothing is ever so wrong in this world that a sensible woman can’t set it right in the course of an afternoon.”