When a critic sees a show, the next day they will write a review which will either laud or excoriate the performance.
But there are days when even the most persnickety pundit just wants to have fun. People are very much like that too. After a tough day at work, or struggling with a home project, there comes a time to unwind and if you have been having moments like that lately, this is the show to see. Seeing The Hound of the Baskervilles, you will literally laugh your cares away during the course of its performance.
Josh Aaron McCabe, Jonathan Croy, and Ryan Winkles in Hound of the Baskervilles. Photos by Kevin Sprague.
Opening night there were a lot of young people in the audience, and their clear enjoyment of every minute further prompted the three principal members of the cast, Jonathan Croy, Josh Aaron McCabe and Ryan Winkles into misbehaving, adding unscripted lines, bits of business and audience interaction in an effort to crack each other up. They succeeded, egged on by an audience they seemed to encourage bad behavior on stage. In short, it is simply a wonderful, whacky and witty evening of theatre. As it rushed along I thought it resembled the autobahn of comedy – there was simply no speed limit, no rules to enforce, just floor the accelerator and see how funny a show can be.
Director Tony Simotes has reason to celebrate his accomplishment. Kevin Sprague photos.
This is not the first time Shakespeare & Company has undertaken this marvelously creative spoof written by Steven Canny and John Nicholson. No sir. It was presented in the Fall of 2009, one of the first productions in the newly opened Bernstein Theatre. You can blame it on Tina Packer, too.
Tina Packer saw the zany Steve Canny and John Nicholson adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story while it was in the West End (London’s Broadway). She found it similar in some ways to the similarly condensed Compleat Works of Shakespeare which Artistic Director Tony Simotes and actor Jonathan Croy did earlier at S&Co. She clearly saw it as a natural fit for the company, though beyond that Packer insists that “I have absolutely nothing to do with this production.”
Perhaps that is because this is one she has left for the “boys.” Led by the indomitable Tony Simotes, artistic director of Shakespeare and Company, Simotes directed the first iteration back in 2009 and returned to re-direct The Hound of the Baskervilles for the Founder’s Theatre stage. In between this fearless and feisty guy battled a financial crisis for the company, and a health crisis for himself – throat cancer – both successfully.
The fun never stops. Kevin Sprague photos.
You have to wonder if these sorts of calamities work to enhance the ability to see what is really important and not, and to unleash the ability to laugh at the trivial, the pretentious and the ridiculousness of the human condition. Clearly laughter is the best medicine, and it has been lovingly infused throughout this ridiculously funny Hound of the Baskervilles. In the parlance of old vaudeville, it “knocks ‘em dead”.
In his director’s notes, Simotes notes that just three actors portray the entire landscape of characters that inhabit London’s city streets, as well as the colorful moorland folk of the Grimpen Mire. Every bit as important as the three actors is this show’s hard working crew who make the lightning fast costume and scenic changes possible. You can see them with the cast in the top photo above. They shared the curtain calls, and they certainly deserved to take their own well earned bow with the actors. They are an interlocking artistic team of Navy Seals, and their mission was to be sure the complex undertaking went like clockwork. Their precision and attention to detail was essential to that mission. One misstep, or a two second delay and the whole show could have come to a screeching halt.
The costumes were alternately tweedy authentic and crazy wonderful, as befits this show, and Govane Lohbauer must be applauded for their cleverness. More than at the Bernstein, the sound design was an essential part of the success of this show with its howling hounds, environmental cues and atmospheric sounds that seemed to come from everywhere. Brilliant. Bloody brilliant.
Mayhem, madness and mirth take over the Founder's Theatre stage. Kevin Sprague photos.
The complexity of designing lights for such a fast moving show can only be partially appreciated by onlookers, but here they had Broadway level precision, and happened so smoothly that only when I took time out from the comedy to watch the various cues did I see how many presets must have been used. The credit goes to Stephen Ball. There are many other designers and technical people to credit, and their names are below, remember them well. This is the show that found them all at the top of their game.
Having already declared Sylvia at the Berkshire Theatre Group the best comedy of the season, I have to dip into my phrase bag for the perfect descriptive for this show. Suffice to say that the Hound is back, bigger, better and funnier than ever before, there’s more merriment on the moor than ever before.
Be sure to bring the kids, especially teens, to this show. They may resist going to anything adults like, or with Shakespeare in its name, but in the end they will laugh and talk about it for months afterwards. If you do, please note that there are a few lines and actions that are double entendre, though that is nothing new in comedy, and certainly not unlike what is seen on television every day.
And it should be noted that the production was sponsored by George and Roberta Berry, and Dr. Gerald and Roberta Friedman. Thank you for this great gift to the Berkshire’s cultural life.
Even the audience gets into the act.
Shakespeare & Company presents The Hound of the Baskervilles by Steven Canny and John Nicholson, Directed by Tony Simotes, Sets by Jim Youngerman, Costumes by Giovane Lohbauer, Lights by Stephen Ball, Composer ALexander Sovronsky, Sound by Michael Pfeiffer, Choreography by Kristin Wold, Assistant Stage Managers Diane Healy and Sean Gray, Stage Manager Hope Rose Kelly. July 21 – September 4, 2011. Two hours with one intermission. At the Founder’s Theatre, Lenox, MA. www.shakespeare.org
This sounds like a must-see, but I’ve never seen a bad/even mediocre play or performance at Shakespeare & Co. Diane