Magnificent 'Summer, 1976' Bows Out Berkshire Theatre Group's 2026 Season
STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. — "Summer, 1976" is proof that David Auburn is a talented playwright. The author of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony-winning "Proof" offers a memory play that says much about female friendship and the bonds that strengthen, or weaken, over time.
The play is simple: A simple cast (two actors), a simple set (two chairs, a glass-topped table, an overhead light, a door leading nowhere). There are no theatrics. The set is so small, so intimate, that the cast is brought this close to the audience, making them women we want to know.
The work, however, is not simple. Two neighboring women from Columbus, Ohio, become fast friends over the months of the title summer, though they have nothing in common except children roughly the same age, a babysitting co-op and an admiration for abstract artist Paul Klee.
Alice is a freestyle flighty wife of an ambitious young academic fighting for tenure, who spends time lying in the sun reading "Shogun"; Diana, a driven single mother teaches art at Ohio State and comes from family money. Arguments can be made that the story is facile and thin and that the characters fill in the blanks.
But filling in those blanks, sharing the memories and narrating their experiences rather than living them becomes welcome in the sharp writing of Auburn and the hands of such a talented cast. Alice and Diana tell their stories through alternating monologues, mostly sitting at the table and mostly talking to the audience. They share secrets and wishes, hopes and fantasies; even the significant differences in personality and viewpoints don't prevent them from forming a close bond. They impact each other in small but significant ways.
Years pass. The children are grown. Alice and Diana have lost touch with each other. They meet by accident, in front of Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art, where both have attended a Klee exhibit. Alice, still unsure of herself, needs to catch a cab by 1 p.m. to pick up her grandson; Diana has to get to the airport to hop a plane back home. Alice glances at her watch; maybe they have a minute to catch-up on their lives.
What emerges is reinvention and rejection, the story of two women yearning for friendship and expressions of vulnerability. It's such a connection, deep and intense, that still terrifies them. The loneliness still gnawing at them is palpable ... though I might have lost some of the potency through tears. Do we forget the memories or the people?
Under the clean direction of Isadora Wolfe, Kate Baldwin (as Alice) and Jennifer Van Dyck (as Diana) deliver sterling performances, making the intimacy between their very different characters fully believable.
The last production of Berkshire Theatre Group's 2026 season is a magnificent masterpiece.
"Summer, 1976" runs through Oct. 31, at the Unicorn Theatre. For tickets or more information, call 413-997-4444 or visit BerkshireTheatreGroup.com.
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