My Own Take: The New Williamstown Theater Festival: The Hills Are Alive

“Spirit of the People.” All photos on this blog entry by Maria Baranova.

The show: Well, actually quite a few shows on my recent visit to the Massachusetts Berkshires and the Williamstown Theatre Festival: Tennessee Williams’ “Camino Real;” Another show one might call “Tennessee Williams on Ice” but it was officially called “ The Gig: After Moise and the World of Reason,” (I didn't get the significance of “The Gig,” oh well); and the world premiere (though not open for review) of “Spirit of the People,” Jeremy O. Harris’ first new play since his remarkable and provocative “Slave Play.”

What makes it special?: Playwright, producer and the festival’s new artistic director Jeremy O. Harris. This looks like a great “Hail, Mary pass” that just may pay off (fingers crossed) for the troubled summer festival which imploded several years. That disaster was when the public spotlight was shone on the theater’s private, dirty, little, not-so-secret in 2021 of using its use of apprentice labor under not the greatest of conditions or supervision. (Paid apprentices — but here’s the thing: The apprentices paid the theater, not the other way around, for their labor and stage work.) A post-pandemic environment didn’t help either. Then the appropriately initialed WTF pasted together the slimmest of seasons for a few summers.

Now Harris, a BMOC when he was at the Yale School of Drama and an artistic force of nature when he began his professional life in NYC, is the new artistic director. You could imagine people widening their eyes and leaning forward at the news. That’s a good sign — and a lot to carry forward in the answering of “What will Jeremy do?”

The other thing going for the festival is that the managing director is Kit Ingui, a superlative manager, keeping Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven steady during turbulent times.

So the announcement of a new summer season in 2025 looked promising, or at least intriguing.

But here’s the thing: The Berkshires, and especially Williamstown Theatre Festival, wasn't exactly known for its diversity on stage — or off — with lots of Chekov, Ibsen and Coward and the like — with new works too — but the chestnuts and the stars were always the draw. When I was at the festival a few weeks ago I saw just a handful of non-white audience members — not counting Harris. Change takes time.

But what it does have is an educated, intelligent, upscale theater-loving crowd (with many folks vacationing from NYC). So buzzy new works by a hot theater impresario/playwright/actor/producer/red carpet star received a lot of attention and when he announced that his first season would celebrate (or be inspired) by Tennessee Williams, well, that was a familiar theater name in which folks might be more receptive. Harris’s strategy is that these shows would be cutting edge theater artists’ takes on Williams.

So how did that work out?: Pretty well if your taste was veers towards provocative or risk-taking theater, and is forgiving in the under-rehearsed-ness of it all.. And to be honest, the three shows I saw made up just part of the festival’s larger menu (albeit these shows were the major new and large productions).

So Harris’ new play?: I really cant comment on it other that it is ambitious, sprawling, dealing with some powerful ideas, and evokes many themes, images and settings in which Tennessee Williams fans would identify. It features gay travelers, mescal makers, expatriates, sex, ecology, and spiritualism, among others.

However, the festival suffers from giving the shows less than needed time for rehearsals (and writing) so I imagine the production improved as the run went on. But let me put it another way: It made me want to see what Harris does with his play from here. (I can also say it had an impressive list of young stage actors including Ato Blankson-Wood, James Cusanti-Moyer, and Brandon and Tonatiuh.

How about Camino Real?: Can you believe the festival has produced this very challenging and surreal Williams work four times in its history? My guess is the army of apprentices came in handy for this large-cast and not often produced play and made this play possible.

Director Dustin Wills has done a masterful and mystical job of creating a allegorical dreamscape in which the audience could enter, supported with a magnificent setting by Kate Noll and Wills, costumes by Oana Bottom, lighting by Barbara Samuels, and music by Dan Schlosberg. (Obie-winner Wills was also smart in personally introducing the production to the audience before the 1953 play began, urging everyone to let go of traditional narrative expectations and just enter this strange and wondrous Williams world and let its poetry, and grace take you to a strange world that houses both the high life and the low.

It was a production that could have been one of my favorite Williams evenings in a long time, but it was miscast in several major roles. Fortunately, it has in its lead as the idealistic boxer Kilroy who finds himself in this netherworld a terrific Nicholas Alexander Chavez. (You might remember him as Lyle Menendez in TV’s “Monsters” mini-series.). Also splendid were Frankie J. Alverez as Don Quixote and other roles; Ato Blankson-Wood as Lord Byron; a well-spoken Vin Knight as Gutman and Henry Stram as Lord Mulligan.

One could perhaps understand the initial idea of casting Pamela Anderson, who was great in the film “The Last Showgirl”, to play yet another faded beauty: Marguerite (aka Camille). But the stage chops just weren’t there and when she had to deliver some of Williams most exquisite poetic lines, they simply couldn't be heard. (That was a problem with “Spirit of the People,” too.) The upstage direction didn't help her in another key scene.

Tony Danza was first announced to presumably play another faded lover in this Williams work, Casanova, but Bruce McKenzie performed the part for the run and perhaps because of limited time did not measure up to the elegant philosophical gravitas of the role.

But I was very glad I saw the show. It looked amazing, had several outstanding performances — I cant wait to see what Chavez does next on stage and on film — and the show came close to being an inspired production, but fell short in several key measures. (One quibble though: Having Kilroy scratch out some graffiti in a back wall — twice — and whose writing was indecipherable to the audience — was it white chalk on a white wall ? — well, that was a head-scratching piece of staging. )

And the ice show?: Fantastic. In this site-specific work, audiences sat in several rows along each long side of an ice rink in North Adams. The audience was then given headphones and the voice of Jeremy O. Harris came on reading passages from Williams’ strange novella “Moise and the World of Reason,” a lyrical piece of writing that was interpreted in a dreamy, dynamic and abstract choreography ( by Will Davis and Douglas Webster) for five incredible male skaters representing six queer friends and lovers from the past, presumably from the disco era. The extraordinary performers were: the charismatic. Danil Berdnikov, Dan Donigan (also known as Milk from “RuPaul's Drag Race” and fabulous in gold lime in one scene); Benjamin Guthrie, Isaac Alan Lindy and Rohene Ward.

And other shows?: There was the opera “Vanessa;” Monica Bill Barnes and narrator Robbie Saenz de Viteri in “Many Happy Returns,” “The Things Around Us” and late-night comedy.

And looking into the future: : Certainly Dustin Wills has emerge as an exciting new director (Yale School of Drama grad, too). I would love to see the show again in New York, slightly recast. It will also be interesting to see where “Spirit of the People” goes from there and one hopes that Harris focuses on his laptop. As for the ice show, please, please, please let it have more productions, hopefully in New York City — and perhaps even Yale’s “Whale” rink.

Thoughts on leaving the parking lot?: Well worth the trip from New Haven (or New York City). I only wish I had time to strop by Barrington Stage and Berkshire Theatre Festival, as well as one of my favorite under-the-radar theaters in the Berkshires (or its edge): Chester Theatre Company (not too far beyond Jacob’s Pillow.)

Info: WTFerstival.org, chestertheatre.org