WTF’s 50 years: a personal recollection

By Ralph HammannPrint Story | Email Story
Editor’s note: This is the second of a three-part series. The series had originally been slated for two parts, but the enormity of the material covered made that impossible. The first part covered the Williamstown Theatre Festival under the direction of the late Nikos Psacharopoulos. This part reflects on the years under Peter Hunt. It was 1989, the 35th anniversary season of the WTF, and three men stepped forward to lead the festival. Peter Hunt and Austin Pendleton became the artistic directors, while George Morfogen became the executive director. It was as it should be; the three were longtime colleagues who had spent many years contributing to the WTF’s growth. The long-term contributions of Hunt and Pendleton, in particular, are quite apparent. I shall never forget the opening night of that Main Stage season. The stage we were so accustomed to seeing filled with spectacular scenery (especially for the first show) was virtually bare. Hugh Landwehr had designed a minimalist set for Stephen Vincent Benet’s civil war romance, “John Brown’s Body.” Hunt walked out onto this expanse with virtually the whole of the Adams Memorial Theatre’s stage visible. He then delivered a most simple, eloquent and heartfelt tribute to his mentor, Nikos. He gestured to the stage, noting that every year Nikos struggled with the question of how to fill it. I wish I could remember the rest of what he said, but there was more poignancy in his than any other tribute I’d heard. Much of it lay in the sweet dignity of the bareness of the stage. It was as if Hunt was saying that for the time being they weren’t going to compete with Nikos’ elaborate visions. Rather, memories of those were allowed to fill in the open canvas on stage. What followed was both epic (a chorus of 29) and intimate (three actors and two soloists). Laurie Kennedy, Robert Lansing and Christopher Reeve held the stage under Hunt’s astute direction, and Hunt also designed lighting that suggested an ineffable spiritual quality. Clearly he was paying his respects in the most subtle and appropriate ways he knew. The theater was in good hands. It’s easy to forget that lovely poem with music, which opened the 35th season in light of the flashier events that preceded and followed it. One should not. The next event of special memory was among the finest plays the Other Stage ever hosted: David Stevens’ “The Sum of Us,” directed by Kevin Dowling. It would have been quite sufficient had it only been responsible for bringing Richard Venture (of “The Price”) back to the WTF. But it also gave us Tony Goldwyn and a fresh, uncloying and undidactic look at homosexuality. Venture played an Australian father whose acceptance of his son’s gay lifestyle was warmly inspiring and, for the son, amusingly exasperating. A work of great originality, it was less a play about being gay than a play about larger issues of communication and transcendent love. Pendleton’s subsequent production of “Henry IV” is remembered by many for the great hole that designer Jack Chandler cut into the center of the stage. Creating navigational hazards, the pit was certainly something of a focal point, but my memory of the production has more to do with its reach. As Nikos had done with “The Legend of Oedipus,” Pendleton was attempting to frame “Henry” by what came before and after it. The result may have been problematic in places, but the concept was rich, and there were many performances to savor, notably Daniel Davis’ King Henry IV, Conrad L. Osborne’s Earl of Northumberland, Jamey Sheridan’s Hotspur, Louis Zorich’s Falstaff and Molly Regan’s Mistress Quickly. Tennessee Williams’ “The Rose Tattoo” offered the great pleasure of Marisa Tomei in her vital WTF debut on Hugh Landwehr’s equally rich set, while Gerald Freedman’s production of Brecht’s “Mother Courage” offered the talented Zorich family (Louis, Christina and Olympia Dukakis) joined by their extended family of Pendleton and Morfogen. Despite their performers’ pedigrees, neither production matched director Arvin Brown’s expert direction of Peter Nichols’ “Passion,” in which Venture returned to head a strong cast of seasoned WTF alumni. On the Other Stage, Tom Brennan directed the true Williams’ hit of the summer when the superbly cast Daniel Davis and Carrie Nye played F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald in the tender “Clothes for a Summer Hotel.” Exuding classiness, the duo gradually stripped away the Fitzgeralds’ public façade to reveal the painful truths of their delicately balanced relationship with each other and reality. The Other Stage season ended with another powerhouse duet when Ruth Nelson and E.G. Marshall appeared in “Autumn Elegy.” A legend of American stage and screen, Marshall played a 76-year-old man who faced the prospect of life without his beloved wife. Playing against the dignified image that so many associated with him, Marshall was remarkable, expressing a range of emotions and allowing us to glimpse his vulnerability. Having kept the WTF alive, the troika dissolved and was replaced by the appropriate choice of Hunt as artistic director. He opened the 1990 season on a light note with Stephen Sondheim’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.” I remember sniffing that it was too frivolous a note to begin a season that in Nikos’ time had opened with more serious and epic productions, but I was wrong, and Hunt gave the audience the laughter it needed. And he returned musicals to the WTF stage, a lasting contribution. For me, the season took off after it got a disappointing “Harvey” out of its system (actually it was Edward Herrmann and Sada Thompson who needed disgorging), and Paul Weidner remounted “Marat/Sade” with a cast that included a perversely enjoyable Alvin Epstein as de Sade and a magisterial Conrad L. Osborne as the head of the asylum. Proving to be far more than a beautiful star, Rebecca DeMornay was riveting as the sleepwalking Charlotte Corday, and the image of her looking frighteningly possessed as she raised a knife to Marat still lingers. The highlight of Other Stage was Jenny Sullivan’s sensitive treatment of Jane Anderson’s drama “The Baby Dance.” Stephanie Zimbalist, Richard Lineback and John Bennett Perry were a strong ensemble, but it was Linda Purl who proved to be a most welcome member of the WTF as a woman preparing to sell her newborn baby to a childless couple. Purl brought a raw, conflicted energy to her role and created one of the most remarkably believable stage pregnancies. There was never any thought that she was wearing mere padding — Purl actually created two lives on stage. The other two plays on the Other Stage represented its nadir. At any rate, they have insinuated themselves into my memory. “The Carthaginians” was director Rosey Hay’s worst effort and featured good actors trapped in a senseless play that tested one’s endurance. But Hay’s “No Orchids for Miss Blandish” was so horrible that it was enjoyable in the manner of an Ed Wood cult film. Two performances were stunning: Molly Regan as a supremely sadistic villain and Margaret Klenck, proving her accomplished work in “Golden Boy” could survive an awful script. The worst/best moment was the sight of Tom Tammi not knowing what to do when a bomb effect failed to happen. After several tense seconds, he yelled “BOOM!” and collapsed in barely constrained laughter. The Main Stage gave us a flawlessly cast production of Eugene O’Neill’s “A Moon for the Misbegotten.” Christine Lahti was born to play Josie Hogan, as was Pat Hingle to play her gruff billy goat of a father. Hingle looked as if he had popped out of the rugged landscape like a hunk of outcropping rock. Jamey Sheridan was also ideally cast as Jim Tyrone. It was, however, Hunt who offered the biggest surprise and treat with his revival of the lost play, “Death Takes a Holiday.” The play had been consigned to the ranks of bad melodrama until Hunt bravely challenged the odds and delivered a romantic fantasy that personified Death as a charming young man in search of what made people shun him. Hunt asked his cast to treat the potentially ripe lines as if Shakespeare wrote them, and he achieved an amazing suspension of disbelief. And what a cast! As Death, Christopher Reeve truly came into his own on stage as an actor. As the fey young woman who becomes his paramour, Calista Flockhart was a winsome love poem come to life. The stunning supporting cast included George Morfogen, Blythe Danner, Maria Tucci and John Franklyn-Robbins. And Hugh Landwehr’s set and Arden Fingerhut’s lights were pure enchantment, suggesting an Italian castle in which time stood still and the supernatural co-existed with and fertilized the natural. A supreme achievement in every respect. Hunt opened 1991 with the musical, “1776,” for which he had won the Tony Award. With Hunt directing and designing lights, it was a rousing success with a bedrock cast that included Rex Everhart, James Judy, Terrence Mann, Conrad L. Osborne (one of the great stage voices), Tom Tammi (recovered from “Miss Blandish”), Nick Wyman and Jane Krakowski (in her WTF debut). It was, however, Don Perkins who commanded the stage and won our hearts and respect as he literally became John Adams. The image of Perkins’ Adams cutting Mann’s towering John Dickenson down to size was joyful, and Hunt’s staging of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is a moment of theater history that brought a lump to even the most established cynic’s throat. It was followed by another bit of Americana, William Inge’s “Picnic.” The sturdy production was unexceptional but for one inspired and, as it would turn out, prescient piece of casting. Young Gwyneth Paltrow was a marvel in her first major role on the Main Stage. The charisma that would eventually be internationally acknowledged was in full evidence as Paltrow inhabited the stage with complete ease and smile-inducing innocence as the tomboy Millie Owens. There was much in her of Danner, her real life mother, with whom she starred. Establishing himself as an earnest developer of new work, Hunt brought Austin Pendleton’s complexly satisfying “Booth is Back” to the Other Stage, where it was worked by Arvin Brown into a production that then filled the Main Stage the same season. A dark portrait of one of the first families of American theater, the Booths, it had the texture of a Eugene O’Neill drama and also detailed a monumental change in the history of acting in America. It was presided over by none other than the appropriately histrionic Frank Langella, as Junius Booth, in a very welcome return to Williamstown. I will always remember James Whitmore’s iconic sunset entrance as lawyer Henry Drummond in Hunt’s thrilling production of “Inherit the Wind.” Crusty and compassionate, Whitmore compelled our attention with even the smallest gesture of his fluid hands. The production marked the beginning of one of the most satisfying collaborations of the more recent WTF history, that between Hunt and Whitmore, one of our country’s genuine theater treasures (and one who has been far too long absent from Williamstown). Hunt’s seasons were well chosen and provided a satisfying balance of dramas, but this one showed a penchant for exploring a particular theme through several of the more prominent productions. The American hero emerged that year and was quite evident in Jane Anderson’s fantasia on the space shuttle Challenger tragedy, “Defying Gravity.” Having developed it on the Other Stage under Jenny Sullivan’s direction, Hunt moved it to the Main Stage to share the moving story of renewal with a wider, deeply appreciative audience. In perhaps her finest role at the WTF, Kate Burton literally took to the air as the first teacher in space. The entire production was magic and art of the highest order. Fascism seemed the theme in three of 1992’s most significant and memorable plays. The season began with Hunt’s third sojourn with “The Threepenny Opera.” It had his least effective Macheath, but Hunt surrounded him with such dynamos as Betty Buckley, Laurent Giroux, Perkins, Linda Purl, Osborne and Regan (the definitive Mrs. Peachum) that one was willing to be forgiving. Buckley’s rendition of “Pirate Jenny” was transfixing; it was if she dared the audience to drop their focus for even an instant. And Regan just dared one to breathe. Whitmore returned as the protagonist in Friedrich Durrenmatt’s frightening look at greedy, bullied humanity, “The Visit.” Opposite Audra Lindley’s whiskey-voiced antagonist, Whitmore created a portrait of a flawed man who held universal pull as he was gradually constricted and choked by the encroaching evil — just try not empathizing with Whitmore. Hunt directed with a sense of mounting dread and made Durrenmatt’s bizarre elements seem inevitable on the chilling expressionistic sets of Landwehr that were transformed into hell by Fingerhut. Ambitious and resonant, the effect was heightened by the matter-of-fact evil projected by Osborne, Perkins, Regan and Arija Barekis. The third thematic play was “2,” another lacerating look at the evil in everyone. It took the stage by storm, largely due to the William Duff-Griffin’s towering performance of Hermann Goering (Hilter’s second in command). Duff-Griffin repulsed and then seduced us as Goering turned the tables on his accusers and pointed to man’s history of cruelty to man. Laurie Kennedy lent solid support as his wife. The other standout was Ferenc Molnar’s romantic comedy, “The Guardsman.” As the title character, Christopher Reeve gave his best stage performance and was a master of quick wit rolling off a dexterous tongue. Reeve’s expert comic timing and elegant presence were matched by the beautiful Anne Twomey, who graced Peter Harrison’s rich sets under Rui Rita’s complimentary lights and Michael Bloom’s stylish direction. 1993 opened with a good-looking “The Madwoman of Chaillot” but with the exception of Elizabeth Franz’ and Molly Regan’s madwomen, the play’s chief delights were the men, particularly Daniel Davis’ Ragpicker and the trio of villains played with nasty complacency by Osborne, Duff-Griffin and Byron Jennings. “Nora” followed it with Michael York and Linda Purl, who was richly self-liberating as the title character in this adaptation of “A Doll’s House.” The season’s highlight was to prove a lasting inspiration at the festival. Hunt had already established himself as a savvy excavator of buried gems, but with Elmer Rice’s “Counsellor-At-Law,” he raised the stakes to the large-cast plays of the ’30s and ’40s that were impossible to produce elsewhere due to their size. In his new study of The American Dream, Hunt drove his cast through a lightening-paced show with overlapping dialogue reminiscent of films of the period like “His Girl Friday.” Working with a black, white and grey scheme, Hunt and Peter Harrison (sets) created striking visuals in a New York skyscraper after the stock market crash. Robert Lupone and Kate Burton headed the vast cast. On the Other Stage, Jenny Sullivan directed the world premiere of “Dirt,” which was most notable for Whitmore’s agonized performance of a farmer’s decent into old age. The lasting image: Whitmore bespattered with mud as his character reconnected with the only constant in his life, the land. The rather subdued season culminated in the memorably abysmal “Forplay,” constructed by and starring Elaine May and Gene Saks. Stephen Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music” looked wonderful (and Amy Biga looked and sounded likewise), but James Noone’s multiple settings for “The Mask of Moriarty,” the second play of the 1994 season, set some kind of new bar for audacious scenic undertakings on the Main Stage. The world premiere of Hugh Leonard’s Sherlock Holmes play, directed by John Tillinger, featured the sublime trio of Paxton Whitehead, David Schramm and Richard Venture as, respectively, Holmes, Watson and Inspector Lestrade. It was also pure fun. “Our Town” followed with the perfect casting of Whitmore as the Stage Manager and Flockhart as Emily. Director Hunt collaborated with Rui Rita to create gorgeous skyscapes and painstakingly filled out a dream cast. Fully convincing as New Englanders were Regan, Perkins, Kennedy, James Judy, John Bennett Perry and Sam Trammell in Thornton Wilder’s American classic that was overdue for a revival. Michael Greif’s direction of “The Sea Gull” was an unforgettable shambles, but besides the wayward antics of Christopher Walken and Reg Rogers, the production did feature Danner, Cherry Jones and Paltrow, who was arresting in her third lead role on the main stage. The Other Stage was disappointing save for Gordon Edelstein’s brave production of Michael Henry Brown’s provoking new play about Lincoln ‘Stepin Fetchit’ Perry’s place in early Hollywood. The strong cast featured Betty K. Bynum and Don Mayo. “Horse Heavens,” also on that stage, was only memorable for truthful performances by Pamela Reed and Audra Lindley. Hunt closed the season with a clever device that forced me back to the theater for several evenings when he presented A.R. Gurney’s “Love Letters” with a rotating cast of all-stars who were daily primed by director John Tillinger. Thus, one could see duets made up of a who’s who that included Karen Allen, Richard Benjamin, Jane Curtin, Julie Hagerty, Anne Jackson, James Naughton, Audra Lindley, Christopher Reeve, Mary Tyler Moore, Richard Thomas, Paula Prentice, Elaine Stritch, Maria Tucci, Eli Wallach and James Whitmore. I had the pleasure of seeing Naughton and Tucci, Reeve and Hagerty and Whitmore and Lindley. George Morfogen was a delight playing five roles in “Time of My Life,” which opened the 1995 season, and David Schramm similarly held the stage in “Sweet Bird of Youth.” Both plays looked great, but the season didn’t take off until Paul Weidner’s splendid production of “All the Way Home, ”Tad Mosel’s adaptation of James Agee’s “A Death in the Family.” Linda Purl was at her most powerful, while Richard Lineback and Kim Hunter gave unflinching support. Although he didn’t direct, one could feel Hunt’s presence in his continuing search for peculiarly American heroes and his lighting design. Hunt’s impressionistic lighting for this moving show was so sensitively wrought as to inspire a second stream of tears. What would regrettably be Hunt’s final season as artistic director ended with a triumph. His second great rediscovery of a large-cast, forgotten play was Emmet Lavery’s drama about Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and his wife, Fanny Dixwell Holmes, played with spine by Lindley. This new look at a real American hero was a labor of love that bore its efforts seamlessly. Condignly cast as Henry Adams, Owen Wister and Mr. Justice Brandeis were John Fiedler, Perkins and Morfogen. Of course it was Whitmore’s Holmes who was magnificent. And it was the last time we saw him on the WTF stage. Hunt’s legacy of five or six years, if you count the year of the troika as I do, was to uphold the standards of his mentor, Nikos, and to introduce his own penchant for discovering forgotten plays and presenting thematic seasons that excitingly explored such themes as the American Dream, Fascism and the American Hero. Moreover, he held the family together while introducing exciting new talent and a number of acclaimed stars. Such Equity actors who made their WTF debuts during Hunt’s time were Calista Flockhart, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marisa Tomei, Robert Lansing, Don Mayo, Rebecca De Mornay, Anthony Edwards, Rex Everhart, Pat Hingle, Richard Lineback, Linda Purl, Lee Wilkof, Justine Bateman, Ed Begley Jr., Megan Gallagher, Joanna Going, James Judy, Jane Krakowski, Audra Lindley, Terrence Mann, Don Perkins, Tom Poston, James Whitmore, Treat Williams, Nick Wyman, Betty Buckley, William Duff-Griffin, Laurent Giroux, Hal Holbrook, Felicity Huffman, Norman Lloyd, Judge Reinhold, Maxwell Caulfield, Garret Dillahunt, Robert Foxworth, Elizabeth Franz, Byron Jennings, Elaine May, Victor Slezak, Julie Warner, E.G. Marshall, Christine Lahti, Margaret Klenck, Jamey Sheridan, Robert LuPone, Isa Thomas, Patrick Boll, John Franklyn-Robbins, John Cullum, Kim Hunter, John Fiedler, Cherry Jones, Richard Benjamin, Jane Curtin, Anne Jackson, Paula Prentice, Elaine Stritch, Eli Wallach, Betty Bynum and David Schramm. And it was Hunt who brought such luminaries as Blythe Danner, Ann Reinking and Raul Julia aboard during Nikos’ time (after his Broadway success with 1776, he actually became one of Nikos’ chief recruiters). The up-and-coming writers, directors, designers and stage managers Hunt introduced included Jane Anderson, Romulus Linney, Michael Henry Brown, Lisa Loomer, David Stevens, John Tillinger, Joanne Woodward, Michael Greif, Irene Lewis, Gerald Freedman, Arvin Brown, Kevin Dowling, Paul Weidner, Jenny Sullivan, John Badham, Neel Keller, Michael Bloom, Gordon Edelstein, Rui Rita and Michael Ritchie. Add this to the 20-some of my favorite productions that took place during his six-year watch, and one discerns quite a record of accomplishment. Ralph Hammann is The Advocate’s chief theater critic.
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Senior Golf Series Returns in September

Community submission
PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- The Berkshire County Fall Senior Golf series returns in September with events on five consecutive Wednesdays starting Sept. 18.
 
It is the 22nd year of the series, which is a fund-raiser for junior golf in the county, and it is open to players aged 50 and up.
 
The series will feature two divisions for each event based on the combined ages of the playing partners.
 
Golfers play from the white tees (or equivalent) with participants 70 and over or who have a handicap of more than 9 able to play from the forward tees.
 
Gross and net prices will be available in each division.
 
The cost is $55 per event and includes a round of golf, food and prizes. Carts are available for an additional fee.
 
Golfers should call the pro shop at the course for that week's event no sooner than two weeks before the event to register.
 
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