WIT

Playhouse on Park, West Hartford CT
www.playhouseonpark.org
through May 8, 2016
by Barbara Stroup

Playhouse on Park continues its season in a serious play about death with “WIT.” Wearing a hospital gown throughout, Dr. Vivian Bearing hears her diagnosis, receives her treatments, and spends her final days in the sterile University Hospital Cancer Center. Dr. Bearing tells us the conclusion at the very beginning; it’s how she traverses those final days that give the audience dramatic stoicism, obsessiveness, some humor, and finally exceeding tenderness.

Photo by Meredith Atkinson

Dr. Bearing is a proud and solitary academician who cannot let go of her fascination with words, even as she receives her diagnosis of terminal illness. The audience listens as she parses her favorite poems by John Donne, as well as the medical terms favored by two very detached physicians. Much like her in affect, a former student played by Tim Hackney is her ‘research fellow.’ The intimacy of touch during a pelvic examination almost undoes him with nerves; but his lack of bedside manner is much like his teacher’s prior lack of warmth with her students.

Flashbacks reveal snippets of Dr. Bearing’s past as she declines, even during treatment with massive doses of experimental medication, and as she absorbs the verdict that nothing has helped. Elizabeth Lande in the title role acts this descent with poignancy, and her pain is primal and chilling. Warmth and kindness are exuded by Suzy, her nurse, played by Chuja Seo, and ease Dr. Bearing’s lonely passage into a morphine-induced silence. An especially caring moment has them laughing together, even after a discussion about signing a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order. The contrast between Suzy and the other medical staff could serve as a lesson for all hospital personnel.

Most poignant are the moments of a final bedside visit Dr. Bearing receives from a former professor, convincingly played by Waltrudis Buck. Without sighs, or head shakes or other ‘business,’ she gives Dr. Bearing exactly what she needs at the end, a monumental contrast with her medical professional “caretakers.” Writer Margaret Edson received a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize for this play, and the spare, tight production in West Hartford honors it well.

Beethoven & Brahms

Springfield Symphony, Springfield, MA

www.springfieldsymphony.org

April 9, 2016

by Michael J. Moran

The classical repertoire doesn’t get any more bread and butter than Beethoven and Brahms. In his “Rhodes’ Reflections” column in the program book, SSO Music Director Kevin Rhodes adds that while these two of the three B’s “go together so well,” the two works played at this concert – Beethoven’s “lightest symphony,” his eighth, and “the most massive” of all piano concertos, Brahms’ second -  also balance each other at opposite “end(s) of the scale.”

The Maestro goes on to observe that the symphony “doesn’t even bother…to indulge in a proper slow movement, opting instead for four light and relatively fast movements.” From the mock grandeur of the opening Allegro, the genial humor of the Allegretto, the boisterous swagger of the Menuetto, and the rollicking high spirits of the Allegro finale, the fleet and buoyant SSO performance, their first ever of this piece, got the evening off to a delightful start.

The “four monumental movements,” as Rhodes notes, of the Brahms concerto that followed intermission can make it sound more like a “symphony with piano obbligato” than a concerto. The piano part makes considerable demands on the soloist, but American pianist John Novacek, in his SSO debut, met them all with room to spare. His first notes were plush and full, reaching deep into the keys to produce the rich and resonant sound so characteristic of the mature Brahms. Novacek’s muscular technique, perhaps honed in his long experience playing ragtime music, insured that he could always be heard in louder passages. But he also excelled when a lighter touch was required, as in his magical account of the Andante.

The orchestra sounded just as luxurious and polished in the concerto as the soloist, with strings and brass working especially hard. Principal horn player Lauren Winter was lush and radiant in the horn solo that opens the work, and principal cellist Aristides Rivas was mesmerizing in the Andante’s opening and closing solo passages.

Mozart & Hartt

Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordsymphony.org

April 7-10, 2016

by Michael J. Moran

These concerts were first scheduled to feature a “dramatic concert staging” of Gluck’s complete opera “Orpheus and Eurydice,” but following the settlement of the HSO’s contract dispute earlier this year, they were “reprogrammed,” according to an orchestra press release, “to celebrate the HSO community – including its dedicated musicians and talented, emerging young musicians from the Hartt School Community Division.”

The program opened with Mozart’s 38th symphony, nicknamed “The Prague” after its 1787 premiere in that Czech city. One of the composer’s last four symphonies, its three-movement structure replaces the traditional minuet with an expansive Adagio introduction to the opening Allegro movement. A reduced-size HSO gave the piece a warm, affectionate reading.  

Next came Tchaikovsky’s rarely heard fourth suite for orchestra, known as “Mozartiana” because its four movements are his arrangements of Mozart originals. The standout movements are the third, a ravishing setting of the motet “Ave Verum Corpus,” and the brilliant closing set of variations that Mozart improvised on a Gluck aria. The performance by the full HSO was lively and dramatic.

After intermission, HSO concertmaster Leonid Sigal delivered a touching spoken tribute to his longtime predecessor in that role, Bernard Lurie, who had died a week earlier. Sigal then played the violin solo in a moving account by the orchestra of the lovely “Meditation” from Massenet’s opera “Thais” in Lurie’s memory.

Yeh-Chi Wang

More Mozart followed with a smaller HSO, his 1774 concerto for bassoon and orchestra, written in his early maturity at age 18. HSO principal bassoonist Yeh-Chi Wang was a treat to watch as he made his quirky but distinctive instrument sing, capturing the surprisingly wide range of moods in the concerto’s three short movements with unfailing grace, precision, and beauty.

Almost half the HSO players were then replaced by teenage members of the Connecticut Youth Orchestra from the Hartt School in the five-movement first suite that Bizet derived from his 1873 incidental music to Daudet’s play “L’Arlesienne.” Some of the young musicians even sat in for first chair HSO members, and the spirited but cohesive reading of this colorful score by the combined forces closed the concert on a festive note.

Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years

Hartford Stage, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordstage.org

through March 15, 2015

by Bernadette Johnson

Pull up a chair and set a spell. We’ve been invited into the Mount Vernon, NY, home of black centenarian sisters Sadie and Bessie Delany, and we are about to be entertained, engaged and enthralled by the wit, wisdom and joie de vivre of these inseparable spinsters. The year is 1993. Sadie is 103 years old, and Bessie is 101.

The second and third of ten siblings born to an education-loving former slave, the Delany sisters are a far cry from stereotypical. Both college graduates, Sadie, with a Master’s Degree in education, has distinguished herself as a teacher in New York City’s schools, and Bessie, a Columbia University Dental School graduate, was the second black woman to become a licensed dentist in New York State.

The sisters’ tales of family are interwoven with American history, in particular as it impacted their lives and the lives of black families in what was a century of struggle — racial segregation in the Jim Crow era, prejudice, the Civil Rights movement, the stock market crash, the Great Depression, two world wars, Rosa Parks, Montgomery and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Having lived so long together, the sisters complement each other seamlessly, often speaking in unison. However, they are far from carbon copies. Olivia Cole is soft-spoken Sadie. She is the quiet, gracious one, seeking peaceful resolution in times of conflict, whereas Brenda Pressley’s Bessie is outspoken and opinionated, spunky and feisty. She doesn’t hesitate to express her true feelings, and her one-liners generate much laughter. Their warmhearted give-and-take reflects their singular bond.

Under the masterful direction of Jade King Carroll, Cole and Pressley don’t miss a beat as they move about the set, even prepare an elaborate meal to celebrate their deceased father’s birthday. From the outset, they shift gears casually as the memories tumble forth and Delany family photos are projected above the back wall.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Alexis Distler’s set is a third “grandmotherly” character. The sisters’ Mount Vernon home is an inviting three-room single set with a charm and history of its own.

Seven Shorts

Meet Lucy Stone

The Dining Room

Theatre Guild of Simsbury, Simsbury Methodist Church, Simsbury, CT

www.theatreguildsimsbury.org

Through April 10, 2016

by Stuart W. Gamble

A.R. Gurney’s plays have been staples of the theatre for over 30 years (“Love Letters,” “Sylvia,” etc.), which makes the latest local incarnation of his cleverly written “The Dining Room” seem familiar. Simsbury Theatre Guild immediately immerses its audience in the world of upper class W.A.S.P. society full of neuroses and humor, heavy on the scotch and soda.

For those not familiar with the dramatic structure of this comedy/drama, the action revolves around various families at the dining room table in a home somewhere in the suburbs. If the table could talk, it would reveal much about the denizens of this house. But since it can’t, the theatergoers are given brief glimpses into the lives of some 50 characters played quite convincingly by only 15 actors.

Act I is weaker than the second, but a couple of scenes standout, one of which takes place at the breakfast table of a very uptight family. Father (Steve O’Brien ) cannot tolerate a single seed in his freshly squeezed orange juice and controls and contradicts every word and action of his impressionable young son (Nick Parisi). Both actors mine hilarity that anyone who has been a parent or child (all of us) can understand. At the same time, the play introduces the privileged world of the noblesse obliged with its tennis courts, private schools, and accompanying prejudices.

Act II takes off with funnier and more poignant moments. Perhaps the best of these is the show-stopping eleventh hour scene in which an outrageously pompous clan ( Nick Parisi, Virginia Wolf, Donna Sennott, and Steve O’Brien) and their faithful Irish maid Bertha (Penny Carroll) react in hilarious fashion when the uncle’s “bachelor attachments” (homosexual) are called into question at the country club besmirching the family’s honor. Played at such a frantic, farcical pace, the direction is aptly able to make earlier, less funny moments seem better than they are.

Although overall well-cast, a half-dozen of the actors bear special mention: Melissa Veale in dual roles of picture-perfect mothers and a rebellious teen; Penelope Kokines as two very troubled adulterous alcoholics; Nick Parisi in a hilarious turn as father of the dishonored family; and Phillip Godeck, who becomes a variety of sleazy characters.

Top acting honors belong to Steve O’Brien and Virginia Wolf. O’Brien stages each of his characters with such distinction that it seems as if different actors are playing each one. The same goes for Wolf, who relishes her roles with perfectly timed comedy.

Credit belongs to Director Rosemarie Beskind, whose deft hand takes care that none of the scenes or characters outstay their welcome. Beskind understands that in order to capture and maintain the audience’s attention, the action must move, and fortunately, it does.

Often, backstage crew members are forgotten in reviews. That said, kudos to costumer Tracy Weed and set designer Dian Pomeranz’s. Every prop is perfectly places, even the finger bowls.