Barrington Stage. Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 2023

The Happiest Man on Earth Mark St. Germain (24 May-17 Jun.) 

Cabaret John Kander, Fred Ebb and Joe Masteroff (14 June-8 July) 

Tiny Father Mike Lew (27 June-22 July) 

Blues for an Alabama Sky Pearl Cleage (18 Jul. -5 Aug.)   

Faith Healer Brian Friel (6-28 Aug.) 

A New Brain William Finn and James Lapine (16 Aug.- 10 Sept.) 

English Sanaz Toossi (27 Sept.-15 Oct.) 

Artistic Director Alan Paul’s first season at BSC was a winning combination of compelling musicals, thoughtful plays, and worthy revivals. When we first saw Eddie Jaku (ably played by Kenneth Tigar) in the season’s opener, The Happiest Man on Earth, he was chatting with patrons at the St. Germain Stage and appeared to indeed be the titular character.  Only when he began his harrowing narrative did we understand that the price for such happiness. Based on Jaku’s memoir, effectively dramatized by St. Germain, Jaku relives his life as a Jew in Hitler’s Germany from his expulsion from school in his native Leipzig to barely surviving Auschwitz to his final rescue at war’s end in Belgium. This tight, 80-minute monologue took place on an appropriately stark set by James Noone, backed by a wall of horizontal boards evoking the boxcars that carried Jaku and thousands of other Jews to the death camps. Jaku’s final message that we must see ourselves as part of an extended human family is one that reverberates in our own troubled times.  

Troubled times indeed haunted an emotionally charged revival of Cabaret, the first production directed by Paul. The Kit Kat Club, the symbol of 1920s free-wheeling Berlin, never looked more dazzlingly decadent or shockingly contemporary. The first time we heard the stirring anthem “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” it was not sung by Hitler’s minions but by a quartet of trans and nonbinary performers, whose hopes for a better future would  soon be dashed. At the center of this growing conflict is the Emcee, brilliantly embodied by Nik Alexander, who alternated between the svelte seducer and the play’s conscience. Paul skillfully blended some of the club scenes with the book relationship scenes, perhaps no more effectively than when American Cliff (Dan Amboyer), an unwitting courier for the Nazi cause, was seen in transit as the company sang “Money,” the prime motive for his actions. Krysta Rodriguez was a tortured Sally Bowles who turned the title number into a gut-wrenching anthem of despair. 

Tiny Father, a co-world premiere with the Chautauqua Theater Company, written by Mike Lew, takes place in a neonatal intensive care unit rendered in every stainless steel detail by scenic designer Wilson Chin. Daniel, compellingly played by Andy Lucien, is the hapless Black father who is overwhelmed by the premature birth of a daughter he initially had no intention of letting into his life. As the intermission-less production progresses, the tiny baby grows, and so does the ‘tiny father,’ thanks in large part to the help of Caroline, the compassionate yet by-the-book nurse (Jennifer Ikeda). Once Daniel resolves his issues with fatherhood, the play loses some steam as a less convincing conflict arises over care and the possible prejudice between father and caregiver. However, the ending, where Daniel finally recognizes his debt to Caroline, is a fitting conclusion for a beautifully uplifting play.  

Race also plays a role in Blues for an Alabama Sky, the fine revival of Pearl Cleage’s 1995 play. The drama is set in 1930 Manhattan, where the Harlem Renaissance is in full flower and the dreams of ordinary Blacks are built on the success of such giants as poet Langston Hughes and entertainer Josephine Baker, the toast of Paris. Brandon Alvion was pure kinetic comic energy as Guy, the not-so-closeted gay costume designer, whose dream of working for Baker in France is finally realized. Yet his triumph results in tragedy for two of his closest friends and his antagonist, a transplanted Alabamian. Tsilala Brock was the struggling singer who chose Guy and Paris over a more stable life with country boy Leland, an earthy and empathetic DeLeon Dallas. Funny, engrossing, and ultimately heartbreaking, Blues captures the aspirations and struggles of Black America today as well as any contemporary play.  

Another revival, Brian Friel’s Faith Healer, is a remarkable quartet of monologues for three characters that deal with the mysteries of faith, friendship, and guilt. Christopher Innvar was mesmerizing as Frank Hardy, the titular character who bears the weight of his work and its consequences for others. Gretchen Egolf played his long-suffering wife, Grace, a chain-smoking neurotic who claims, “I’m one of his fictions, too.” Finally, there is Frank’s manager, Teddy, whom Mark H. Dold brought to life with a much-needed comic flair. In the end, when Frank shuffled off, overcoat buttoned tightly, into a netherworld of his own making, we were left to wonder what was truth and what was fiction and which is more important to humanity’s survival. 

BSC’s second musical of the season was a sparkling revival of William Finn and James Lapine’s A New Brain. Songwriter Gordon Schwinn (a lovable nebbish Adam Chanler-Berat) is frustrated writing songs for a TV kiddie show when he suffers what might be a brain hemorrhage or stroke. The catchy, propulsive tunes and heartfelt lyrics made for a gloriously entertaining 95 minutes, although, at times one wished the composer had plumbed deeper into his characters and their conflicts, especially in the relationship of Gordon and his boyfriend Roger, a powerhouse-voiced Darrell Purcell, Jr. Other memorable members of the energetic cast were Mary Testa as Gordon’s mother and Andy Grotelueschen as the delightful Mr. Bungee, the kiddie show star, who is alternatively Gordon’s froggy nemesis and his gentle mentor.  

BSC’s season ender, English, is appropriately about immigrants and the language they leave behind when they come to America. The four Iranian students learning English before they leave their homeland, like their teacher Marjan (Nazanin Nour), are wrestling with an uncertain future. The only male member, Omid (Babak Tafti), actually has American citizenship but stays in Iran to connect with a culture and people he fears he is losing. This sense of cultural loss permeated the play just like the bright fluorescent lights by lighting designer Masha Tsimring that glared down on Afsoon Pajoufar’s boxed-in classroom that left no place to hide. Playwright Toossi portrayed the contentious Elham, who, like other characters in the play, is both “understood and misunderstood.” Shortly after this production was announced, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. 

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