5.29.11
This is an Archival Site
There is now a new Rogovoy Report home
5.18.11
Weekend Preview May 19-24
Bob Dylan tributes, Deborah Voigt, Tom Paxton, Bill Kirchen, John Kirk and Trish Miller
5.18.11
Celebrating Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday in Style
Paying tribute to the greatest rock songwriter ever
5.17.11
FILM REVIEW: In a Better World and Of Gods and Men
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.17.11
'LIKE' The Rogovoy Report on Facebook
Click 'LIKE' to Receive Facebook feeds from The Rogovoy Report
5.12.11
Deborah Voigt Headlines Mahaiwe Gala
Opera star to sing arias, show tunes on Saturday, May 21
5.15.11
Famed Spiritual Teacher to Speak on Nonviolence
Mother Maya in free talk at Sruti Yoga in Great Barrington, Mass., on Friday May 20 at 7pm
5.12.11
Special Effects Wizard to Be Honored by Film Festival
Doug Trumbull to be Feted by BIFF
5.11.11
Weekend Preview May 12-16
Cultural Highlights of the Berkshire Weekend
6.4.09
Talk about a small world
Elaine and I grew up together, but only just recently met....
5.8.11
Berkshire Living to Cease Publication
A Farewell from Publisher Michael Zivyak
5.8.11
twiGs Branches Out
Lenox boutique launches new e-tail site
5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
|
[THEATER REVIEW] LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION! AT BTF
7.1.07
BERKSHIRE THEATRE FESTIVAL
Love! Valour! Compassion!
by Terrence McNally
Directed by Anders Cato
running through July 7, 2007
review by SETH ROGOVOY, editor-in-chief and critic-at-large, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
(Stockbridge, Mass., June 22, 2007) -- Terrence McNally's Love! Valour! Compassion! is being given a terrific production at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, with a cast of incredibly talented actors who do credit to McNally's witty script and tender, emotional story involving eight men in a series of visits to a country house in Dutchess County over a period of time during an AIDS-scarred era in the mid-1990s.
The production itself may be better than the play, which is somewhat stilted and bogged down by cliche and specificity that doesn't transcend its scenario. While the actors are all valiant in their portrayals of gay men attempting to find or perpetuate their loving relationships, they're forced to do so in a premise that is more disease-of-the-week TV docudrama than innovative theatricality.
That being said, the three-plus-hour play is full of tenderness and laughs, when it's not hectoring the audience through McNally's thinly veiled screeds placed in the mouths of some of his characters. The play was apparently written to be performed as a stripped-down, minimalist work, and this production is loyal to that bit of stage direction -- there is very little set to speak of, and minimal stagecraft other than acting.
Perhaps, however, if this play is to continue to be meaningful to audiences beyond those directly touched by its scenario, it's time for a version that is more overtly theatrical, using the complete tool kit of theater to make this premise more transcendent. One merely has to refer to the excellent rendition of The Glass Menagerie being performed over at BTF's Unicorn Theatre for comparison of another drama steeped in a very specific time and locale but one that through the magic of theater continues to speak to a wide range of theatergoers across time and space.
Seth,
You're absolutely right about "Love! Valour! Compassion!" and "A Glass Menagerie." Terrence McNally is no Tennessee Williams!
7/2/2007
|
...sites that work