Looking back on the 100-plus theater productions I’ve seen this year, I’ve noticed how many of them fall into pairs of various kinds. In my next column I’ll be handing out awards for the year’s best—and worst—productions and performances. But first, let’s take a look at some of those double whammies.
Two plays with military themes came to the Academy of Music on successive weekends in September. The Draft, by Peter Snoad, gathered stories from local author/activist Tom Weiner’s book of Vietnam-era narratives into a collage of young Americans who were drafted into the war, or evaded it in voluntary exile, or resisted it in U.S. streets, courts and jails. Soldier’s Heart followed a woman marine into Iraq and sexual assault, and then home into post-traumatic crisis.
I found The Draft the more compelling of the pair, partly because I was there back then, with my own Selective Service story, but mostly for its mosaic of human responses when faced with life-changing decisions, well-acted by a Boston-based ensemble. Soldier’s Heart, with a strong cast directed by Robert Freedman, suffered from Tammy Ryan’s rather flat, formulaic script, more a slide show on PTSD than a fleshed-out human drama.
Emily Dickinson’s legendary status in these parts is celebrated in the museum that was her Amherst home. This year, two exhilarating productions took the poet and the house as their starting point for imaginative explorations. In Theatre Truck’s Emily Dickinson Project, eight “Emilies” representing multiple aspects of the poet gave their visitors a high-spirited tour of the Main Street homestead. John Bechtold’s Before You Became Improbable took its audience on an immersive journey through the town’s streets and byways, accompanied by an earphone soundtrack and 20 ghostly guides.
An Iliad is a one-actor epic that conflates the Trojan War saga with reflections on all wars. Shakespeare & Company staged it with Michael F. Toomey as the ageless Poet compelled to recount the archetypal story forever. And Pauline Productions presented Valley favorite Jeannine Haas in the role, giving a provocative female twist to the traditionally male theme. Both actors also performed their own double whammies this year, Toomey interrupting his Iliad run to star at UMass in Endurance, a portrait of twin crises at the South Pole and Hartford, and Haas leading another Pauline production, 4000 Miles.
Two amateur productions of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams’ tale of sexual shame and longing in the crucible of a dynastic succession, demonstrated what a director’s touch can do for a play—or undo it. Jared Culverhouse, a grad student in the UMass theater program, gave the steamy classic a headlong but unnuanced pace, and his cast, led by the talented Ivy Croteau as Maggie the Cat, were too often limited to one-note riffs on their complex characters.
Ashfield Community Theater’s staging, directed by Toby Bercovici—herself an MFA graduate of UMass—was terrifically clean and clear. Every member of her large cast stood out in relief within the ensemble, with Myka Plunkett, as Maggie, playing every note in that desperate woman’s range. (Plunkett also gets the year’s Busiest Actor award, appearing as well in Iris at the Majestic Theater, Seminar at New Century Theatre and the lead in Soldier’s Heart, plus Frances Bacon in PaintBox Theatre’s Three Little Pigs.)
Next time: The 2015 shows that have most delighted and annoyed me.
Chris Rohmann is at StageStruck@crocker.com and valleyadvocate.com/author/chris-rohmann
