Review: Shakespeare & Company, “August Wilson’s Fences”

Shakespeare & Company, Lenox, MA

www.shakespeare.org

through August 27, 2023

by Shera Cohen

Photo Courtesy of Shakespeare & Co.

Are fences built to keep people out or to keep people in? This is the theme throughout “August Wilson’s Fences”. 

The perimeter of the set is a dirty, white, old, and rickety fence. The fence needs fixing; so do the people who live in the home. While there are attempts to repair the wooden slats, nothing changes. So, too, for the extended African-American family living in the house. The year is 1957.

Troy Maxson, a physically large man with a resounding voice, is at the center of the play’s conflict. The world revolves around him, yet he hates his life and regrets what could have been. Actor “ranney” (Troy) has a workout, appearing in nearly every scene. The audience’s feelings for Troy are mixed as the character goes from average Joe to boisterous wannabe envisioning himself, or at the very least his son, as the next Jackie Robinson at bat. “ranney” is a superb actor, squeezing out every varied emotion from Troy in his place in this world. “ranney” is also expressive in his silence.

His wife Rose doesn’t have a lot to do in Act I, except as a sounding board for the rants of her husband and other men in the back yard. Rose is on the periphery of life and even her own home. Characters need to constantly remind Troy that his wife is a “good woman”. 

However, Ella Joyce gives her all in a 180-degree turnaround as Rose in Act II. She’s no porch-sitting, middle-aged, Black woman preparing a meal. Joyce explodes, pulling out Rose’s every emotion necessary to face reality and/or to get the hell out of her situation if she can.

The actors in supporting roles make each character necessary. The play would not be complete without all in their relationship to the others.

 

“Fences” isn’t merely a slice of life theatre piece. There is a plot and execution. To say more would be a spoiler. Director Christopher V. Edwards, calls the play, “…about the scaling down gigantic dreams to fit humble lives.” Edwards and his set designer [not credited in the program] have created a not-so-nice neighborhood, with a glowing red backdrop to the mundane house. Maybe possibilities of something better are to come? Maybe not.

Preview: Shakespeare & Company, "Golda's Balcony"

Shakespeare & Company, Lenox, MA

www.shakespeare.org

through August 23, 2023

The World Premiere of Golda’s Balcony, written by William Gibson and featuring the Elliot Norton Award-winning Annette Miller, was produced at Shakespeare & Company in May 2002 and went on to become the longest-running one-woman play in Broadway history. The inspiring story of Golda Meir – Russian immigrant, American school teacher, and fourth Prime Minister of Israel – returns to the Berkshires this year in a searingly topical production, staged at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre for a limited run of 12 performances. 

Photo courtesy of Shakespeare & Co.

In the title role long-standing Shakespeare & Company actor Annette Miller has performed on
Broadway, Off-Broadway, in Boston, regional theatres, and in film and television. She was acclaimed by The Wall Street Journal as best actor of the 2020 season in regional theatre for her performance as Gladys Green in The Waverly Gallery. She has received numerous theatre awards in MA and throughout the country.

Miller originated the role of Golda Meir before it went to Broadway for which she received both Boston’s Elliot Norton Best Actor Award and the Independent Reviewers of New England Best Actor Award.

The actor's credits also include television and film. She is currently an Affiliate Scholar at Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center where she wrote and continues to perform for organizations and colleges.

When is an Artist a Genius? A Tribute to John Williams at Tanglewood

Tanglewood, Lenox, MA

www.bso.org/profiles/john-williams

August 5, 2023

by Shera Cohen

Photo Credit: BSO.org

If I was asked to define the work of composer/conductor John Williams in a single word, I would quickly answer, “genius”. Whether this is Webster’s definition or not, I really don’t care for the purposes of this article. I doubt that many would disagree with my description of this amazingly talented man.

On the evening of August 5, 2023, I was among the thousands charmed by the skills of John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra. Adding the magnificent grounds and ambiance of Tanglewood, a clear sky, and 75-degree weather made for the proverbial perfect day. My usual Tanglewood excursion includes dousing myself in bug spray. For some reason, I forgot this part of my regime; surprisingly the site seemed mosquito-free.

Tanglewood hosts Mr. Williams annually, or with the luck of precise scheduling, twice each summer. To date, I have been lucky enough to attend most of these glorious concerts, even the year that I broke my leg. If John Williams can stand to conduct the Boston Pops hour-long Act II of “Film Night” then walk across the stage and back countless times – each time earning more accolades than the last – then I can hobble on the grass with or without broken body parts. Yes, this 91-year-old man is a genius.

David Newman, an accomplished composer and conductor himself, lead the BSO in the first part of the evening’s program, all the while praising the talents of Mr. Williams. 

The program offered the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artists and Vocal Program Chorus the unforgettable opportunity to sing some of Williams’ scores from the Olympics Anthems as well as “Star Wars”. I can only imagine how the members of these youth choruses will feel about this moment 50-years from now.

Although I hadn’t picked up a program book until the concert’s end, it was obvious that the Suite from “Far and Away” was imbedded with an Irish lilt, “Superman” focused on the Love Theme for a softer section rather than the “up in the air…it’s Superman” segment.

My favorite music piece was “The Cowboys Overture,” not movie music, but television. The fast-paced rousing segments brought back memories of good westerns which I’d seen as a child, as well as the theme of “The Marlboro Man”.

This concert focused on the lesser-known works by Williams rather than Indiana Jones I – 5. The second part of the concert was heavy with “Star Wars”. Accompanying those onstage, was a superbly edited montage of Olympian to Williams’ “Call of the Champions,” which I hadn’t realized was yet another display of genius.

If I am not wrong, “The Theme from Shindler’s List” is included at each Film Night. Mr. Williams’ music is not all pomp, circumstance, marches, and continuously embellished themes. Elita Kang’s violin set a serious, melancholy tone. Sometimes, it is amazing that the man who brought us the “crushing” music of Indie, Luke, ET, Superman, et al, can compose the softness and sadness of “Shindler’s List”.

In his own words, “Writing a tune is like sculpting. You get four or five notes, you take one out and move one around, and you do a bit more and eventually, in that rock there is a statue, we have to go find it”.

I have never met Mr. Williams. Although he once sat six rows in front of me, I doubt that that counts. His stance onstage, his appreciation of the audience implies to me that he is a humble man, just doing his job – the job of a genius.

REVIEW: Great Barrington Public Theater, "Just Another Day"

McConnell Theater Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, MA

www.greatbarringtonpublictheater.org

through August 13, 2023

by C. L. Blacke

After a one week delay, "Just Another Day" finally makes its world premiere at Great Barrington Public Theater in partnership with Shadowland Stages in Ellenville, NY. A poignant and powerful new play, it was written by and stars Dan Lauria, a name that audiences may find familiar.

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Lauria has appeared in over seventy television programs, fifty professional stage productions,
twenty Movies-of-the-Week, and countless films, but he is perhaps best known for his role as Jack Arnold in the Emmy-winning television series, The Wonder Years. He is also the co-creator of the Durango Play Festival for the development of new plays and writes children’s books with his godson.

Jodi Long, who plays opposite Lauria in this production, brings her own accolades to the stage. She debuted on Broadway at age seven, won the audience award at the LA Asian Pacific Festival for her documentary Long Story Short, and won an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress as “Mrs. Basil E” in Netflix’s Dash & Lily (being the first Asian-American to win an Emmy in any Acting category).

With the cast of two, plus an ominous offstage character called The Bell Ringer, "Just Another Day" was inspired by Lauria’s personal experience with the aging and memory loss of a dear friend. What makes his play different, though, is that it isn’t told from an outsider’s perspective witnessing a friend’s decline but from two people in their seventies facing it together.

The unnamed man (Lauria) and woman (Long) meet at a park bench every day and find common ground through their love of old movies (His Girl Friday, It’s A Wonderful Life, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre). He, a comic and she, his muse, begin to create their own comedy even as they try to remember who they—and each other—are.

The man is crass and tells bawdy jokes. The woman values love and the beauty of language. They both trade barbs and japes—his with witty one-liners and hers with an acerbic lexicon rivaled only by Noah Webster himself. There are moments of laugh-out-loud humor and profound sadness, moments of helpless desperation, and moments of absolute hope as the characters continue to create anew each day. But beneath it all, there is also a current of love that not even age or memory loss can deny.

Masterfully directed by James Glossman, "Just Another Day" brings dignity to the process of growing old and reminds us of Lauria’s wisdom: "As long as we create, we are not lost." 

REVIEW: Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra: "Festival of Contemporary Music & More"

Tanglewood, Lenox, MA 

www.bso.org/tanglewood

July 23 & 31, 2023 

by Michael J. Moran 

TMC conducting fellows Armand Birk, from Canada, and Agata Zajac, from Poland, shared conducting duties at these concerts with BSO guest conductor Xian Zhang (July 23) and TMC Head of Conducting Stefan Asbury (July 31). The latter was also the closing event in the TMC’s 2023 Festival of Contemporary Music and featured music by all four co-curators of this year’s Festival: Reena Esmail; Gabriela Lena Frank; Tebogo Monnakgotla; and Anna Thorvaldsdottir. 

To open the first concert, Zajac directed a fiery account of Richard Strauss’s 1889 tone poem “Don Juan,” from an exhilarating start to a more measured and somber conclusion. She brought visionary clarity to the Festival performance she led of Thorvaldsdottir’s 2018 “Metacosmos,” an alternately mystical and rhythmic exploration of “falling into a black hole – the unknown,” in the composer’s words, which also evoked the timeless landscape of her native Iceland. 

Photo by Hilary Scott

Birks conducted similarly challenging works for voices and orchestra in both concerts with flair
and sensitivity. On July 23, Frank’s Latin-flavored 2010 cycle “La centinela y la paloma” (“The Keeper and the Dove”) about the death of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, with Spanish texts by Cuban-American playwright Nilo Cruz, showcased TCM sopranos Bridget Esler and Yvonne Trobe, both fearlessly dramatic in the two songs each sang. On July 31, Monnakgotla’s evocative 2018 cycle “Un Clin d’oeil” (A Wink of an Eye”) presented TCM baritones Rolfe Dauz and Kevin Douglas Jasaitis, each vibrantly expressive in French texts by Madagascar poet Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo. 

Zhang, music director of the New Jersey Symphony, closed the first concert with an electrifying rendition of Sergei Prokofiev’s rarely heard but richly rewarding 1948 sixth symphony. Asbury opened the later concert with a lush reading of Esmail’s 2021 “RE/member,” which began with a short video of TMC oboist Elias Medina playing alone, later replayed over his live performance with the TMCO in post-pandemic reunion after separation. Asbury ended the concert with a rollicking account of Frank’s 2017 “Walkabout: Concerto for Orchestra,” whose four widely varied movements reflect the Peruvian part of her multiethnic heritage and which the TMCO played with contagious joy.

 

Remaining TMCO concerts in Ozawa Hall at 8pm will pair TMC conducting fellows with BSO guest conductors Dima Slobodeniouk (August 7) and Dame Jane Glover (August 14).

 

Tanglewood Rehearsals: Almost as Good as the Real Thing

by Shera Cohen

www.bso.org

reprinted from "In the Spotlight," 2009

Photo Credit: www.bso.org

The sounds of symphonic music compete with the squawking of crows. It's the Boston
Symphony Orchestra vs. the feathered creatures. Fierce battle ensues. While the birds hold their own periodically, the BSO always wins out. Such are Saturdays each summer at Tanglewood.

Nearly every Saturday in July and August, the musicians of the BSO enter the huge Koussevitzky Music Shed, and music lovers either sit in the shed or on the pristinely mowed lawn for open rehearsals. Starting at 10:30am and ending at various times - whenever the conductor feels that the orchestra is rehearsed to his/her satisfaction (approximately between 12pm-1:30pm) - hundreds of patrons enjoy these quasi-concerts. Usually, the music is that of the upcoming Sunday afternoon program. Tanglewood's program book lists the composers, pieces, conductors, and guest artists. Audiences know in advance what and who they will hear.

Many visitors arrive at 7am to get the "best" seat. But "best" is in the mind of the listener, and for many their folding chairs on the manicured lawn is the best seat in the house. Most of the time, a half-hour talk about the music or composer starts off the morning's program. Rehearsals do start exactly at 10:30am. The dress is casual with the musicians in shorts and t-shirts. The same applies for the crowd. It's not unusual to see rows of people donned in Tanglewood shirts, caps, and sweatshirts.

Symphony rehearsals are extremely popular. Some may think that by attending a rehearsal there is no need to go to the finished product. In fact, the experience is the opposite. Listening to a rehearsal, with its frequent or not-so-frequent stops and starts for the conductor's corrections and comments, makes the ultimate performance clearer in appreciation and understanding of the work.

It is wonderful to see kids, all ages and by the hundreds, usually on the lawn, enjoying the music of Bach, Mozart, Ravel, et al. Sometimes the sounds that they hear are only background to their chatting with siblings or playing video games. That doesn't matter. They are there, soaking it all in, even subliminally. It is likely that these kids will be our future generation of symphony goers and patrons, remembering their wonderful trips to Tanglewood.

REVIEW: Boston Symphony Orchestra: "Reid/Paganini/Prokofiev"

Tanglewood, Lenox, MA 

www.bso.org/tanglewood

July 30, 2023 

by Michael J. Moran 

For the final concert of her tenure as BSO Assistant Conductor, Anna Rakitina led an appealingly eclectic program of music across three centuries by composers from three different cultures, including her own Ukrainian-Russian heritage, in the Koussevitzky Music Shed on a glorious summer afternoon. 

She opened with Tennessee native Ellen Reid’s 2019 piece “When the World as You’ve
Known It Doesn’t Exist.” While commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, Reid says it’s “about unabashedly presenting my artistic voice.” The colorful score moves from “disembodied questioning…through waves of blazing anger…toward something close to acceptance.” Rakitina directed a hauntingly forceful account of the ten-minute showpiece, with sopranos Eliza Bagg, Martha Cluver, and Sonja Dutoit Tengblad adding eerie wordless vocal tones. 

Photo by Hilary Scott

Internationally acclaimed violinist and frequent Tanglewood guest Joshua Bell next soloed in a brilliant reading of Italian superstar violinist-composer Nicolo Paganini’s 1816 first violin concerto, one of the most technically challenging in the repertoire. Its three grandly orchestrated movements are full of virtuoso tricks, all of which Bell dispatched with aplomb. The astoundingly difficult cadenza, or solo passage, near the end of the first movement, which Bell wrote himself and Paganini usually improvised, stopped the performance with a standing ovation. Rakitina and the orchestra supported Bell’s dazzling showmanship in the opening “Allegro maestoso” and the “Rondo: Allegro spiritoso” finale and his serene lyricism in the central “Adagio” with equal flair. 

The concert ended with a thrilling 40-minute suite of ten excerpts from Sergei Prokofiev’s 1935 ballet “Romeo and Juliet,” among the most inspired and heartfelt music the Ukrainian-born Russian composer ever wrote. Drawn from all three orchestral suites prepared by Prokofiev, the order of Rakitina’s selections followed the action of Shakespeare’s play. Sumptuous playing of deep conviction by all sections of the large ensemble revealed the music’s many contrasting moods, like: dark, violent foreboding in “Montagues and Capulets;” ecstatic fervor in the “Balcony Scene;” and boundless compassion in the closing “Death of Juliet.”  

 

The strong rapport Rakitina has clearly built over the past few years with BSO musicians and audiences, her imaginative programming skills, and her engaging stage presence would make this rising international star a welcome guest conductor in future BSO/Tanglewood seasons.