"The Sound Inside," "The Royal Family of Broadway" and "The Closet" all had their out-of-town premieres, but will their be life beyond the Berkshires for them?
In the weeks after the Tony Awards, the New York theater community’s attention turns north, particularly to the Berkshires, where the annual Williamstown Theatre Festival and invaluable companies like the Barrington Stage Company and Berkshire Theatre Group have long been incubators for major new work. Among the productions that have originated in these theaters in recent years are last year’s Pulitzer-winner “Cost of Living,” and the Broadway revivals of “Fool for Love,” “On the Town” and “Children of a Lesser God.”
The highest-profile of this year’s offerings was “The Royal Family of Broadway,” a world premiere musical that concluded its run at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Ma. last weekend — but which seems almost certain to turn up in New York soon. A long-in-the-works adaptation of the 1927 George Kaufman-Edna Ferber play “The Royal Family” — an arch satire of a family of actors, said to be based on the Barrymores — this musical features a splendid cast led by Harriet Harris (“Frasier”) as the family matriarch and a strong score by William Finn (“Falsettos” and “25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” the latter of which also originated at this theater).
The source material, at this point nearly a century old, occasionally shows its age; the overly hectic plot is really just an excuse to lovingly poke fun at the oversized egos of theater folk. (Rachel Sheinkin, who also collaborated with Finn on “Spelling Bee,” wrote the adaptation.)
But in numbers like “Stupid Things I Won’t Do” and “”Gloriously Imperfect,” Finn taps into surprising depths of feeling as he anatomizes the mindset of those for whom a life lived outside of the spotlight is hardly worth living at all. With a bit more fine-tuning from director John Rando — the groan-inducing second act opener, for instance, needs to be lost and never spoken of again — “The Royal Family of Broadway” should enjoy a long life on Broadway and beyond.
Williamstown Theatre Festival
Forty-five minutes north of Pittsfield, at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, two more world premieres were on offer: “The Sound Inside” by Adam Rapp (“Red Light Winter”), and “The Closet” by Douglas Carter Beane (“The Little Dog Laughed.”) The former, which also concluded its run last weekend, is a modestly-scaled, two-character drama whose power sneaks up on you and finally knocks you sideways.
Will Hochman and Mary Louise Parker star in Adam Rapp’s new play “The Sound Inside,” which recently had its world premiere at the Williamstown Theatre Festival (Photo by Carolyn Brown) Mary Louise Parker, of “Weeds” fame, plays a fiftyish, never-married Yale University writing professor, recently diagnosed with cancer, who strikes up a friendship with her troubled young student (Will Hochman). The teacher hasn’t been able to write for years; the student is working on a novella that has significant potential. The relationship that develops between them never goes quite where you’d expect
This is a play very much concerned with storytelling, and how it can be a palliative to the damaged soul. It, too, could use some tweaking (the literary references pile up like cars in bad traffic), but for the most part it’s a tremendous effort — mysterious, moody and affecting. (The director is David Cromer, who recently won the Tony for “The Band’s Visit.”) And when it makes it to New York, here’s hoping the stupendous Parker comes along with it. Her performance is a spellbinding instance of an actor on a mostly bare stage who conjures an entire life out of words.
Matthew Broderick and Brooks Ashmanskas star in “The Closet,” a new comedy that had its world premiere this month at the Williamstown Theatre Festival (Photo by Carolyn Brown) Less successful, but nonetheless endearing, is “The Closet,” starring Matthew Broderick as a straight-laced, down-on-his-luck office clerk in Scranton, Pa., whose chance meeting with a gay man (the excellent Brooks Ashmanskas) results in him having to pretend that he’s gay himself in order to keep his job. Don’t ask. No, really, don’t ask — because the more you explain it, the less sense it makes.
In effect, you either go with the silly premise or you don’t, which was also the case for the 2001 French film, directed by Francis Verber, upon which Beane based the play. Time hasn’t exactly been kind to the fundamental premise of the movie, which connects being gay with all sorts of silly-swishy-show-tunes-loving behavior. But Beane is very smart about the ways in which buzzwords like “inclusivity” and “tolerance” can occasionally twist office places into knots, and director Mark Brokaw has assembled a solid cast, which also includes Jessica Hecht and the very funny Ann Harada. The show continues through July 14.
Barrington Stage Company, 30 Union St, Pittsfield, Ma. The 2018 season continues through October 21 and also includes “West Side Story,” “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” and “The Glass Menagerie,” among others. www.barringtonstageco.org
Williamstown Theatre Festival, 1000 Main St, Williamstown, Ma. The 2018 continues through August 19, and also includes the world premiere musical “Lempicka” and “The Member of the Wedding,” among others. https://wtfestival.org
Christopher Kelly may be reached at ckelly@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chriskelly74. Find NJ.com/Entertainment on Facebook.