Theatre reviews

Mother Courage and her Children at Shakespeare & Co. Aug. 2, 2013 performance reviewed by Frances Benn Hall Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children now playing at Tina Packer’s Shakespeare and Co. theatre under the insightful direction of Tony Simotes, is one of the greatest plays of the 20th century. The play is set in […]

Brecht’s Mother Courage at Shakespeare & Co. Aug. 2, 2013 performance reviewed by Ann St. Clair When the lights go up on an allusively radical, nearly-bare stage (designed by Patrick Brennan) at the Tina Packer Playhouse at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, we are plunged into Bertold Brecht’s concept of war as a complex, completely […]

Review of Heroes at Shakespeare & Co. June 23, 2013 matinee performance reviewed by Frances Benn Hall Heroes, the translation by Tom Stoppard of Le Vent Des Peupliers by Gérald Sibleyras, was enough to lure me to a matinee at Shakespeare and Company’s Bernstein theatre on a rainy afternoon. I knew nothing about the play […]

Review of The Liar, at Shakespeare & Co. Feb. 9, 2013 performance reviewed by Ann St. Clair. Christmas is past, but Shakespeare & Co. has given us an early Valentine, The Liar, a sparkling, hilarious adaptation by David Ives of Pierre Corneille’s only comedy. It is brilliantly directed by Kevin Coleman, whose thirty years of […]

Satchmo at the Waldorf at Shakespeare and Co. August 25, 2012 matinee performance reviewed by Frances Benn Hall Terry Teachout’s Satchmo at the Waldorf at Shakespeare and Co. is a STUNNING production, one of the most exciting new plays to have premiered in a challenging Berkshire summer season. Starring John Douglas Thompson, the play begins […]

The Tempest at Shakespeare and Company July 28, 2012 Matinee reviewed by Frances Benn Hall It is with joy that one can cheer Olympia Dukakis’ and Tony Simotes’ version of The Tempest now playing at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox. They have taken risks that could have been disastrous. These included not least the changing […]

Review of A Thousand Clowns at Berkshire Theatre Festival July 21, 2012 performance reviewed by Frances Benn Hall Rarely can one say of a play that includes a cast of six that each character is perfectly cast and that zany as each role was, tore through the antics on stage with such brio that one […]

The Importance of Being Earnest June 30, 2012 matinee reviewed by Frances Benn Hall Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest now playing at Williamstown Theatre Festival is a smashing success. Director David Hyde Pierce’s weaving the joys of Wilde’s one-liners with the accents of Damon Runyan’s mobsters in a delightful English setting (where in […]