This week, WGBH News' Arts Editor Jared Bowen reviews two limited engagement plays in Massachusetts and gives us his take on the documentary “Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love.”
“A Raisin in the Sun,” presented by Williamstown Theatre Festival through July 13
Williamstown Theatre Festival celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Broadway opening of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” with a powerful new production directed by Obie Award-winner Robert O’Hara. The classic American play tells the story of the Youngers, a working class African-American family in 1950s Chicago who are torn on how to spend the money they receive from a life insurance policy. It has the potential to afford them great opportunity outside the chokehold that son Walter Lee (Francois Battiste) believes grips the family. But destructive forces inside and outside of their home threaten to derail their dreams. “This play has carried weight since it was written,” says actor S. Epatha Merkerson, who plays Lena Younger in this production. “That weight is not unusual to any immigrant family that comes to this country, that wants a better life for their children, for their families. And that’s where the play has its universality.”
“With an extraordinarily gifted cast who pull us deep into the DNA of the Younger family,” says Jared, “this production is so deeply resonant, it’s transcendent, and I suspect it will also be a seminal production of this magisterial work.”
“Tea at Five,” presented at Huntington Avenue Theatre through Jul 14
One legend plays another in “Tea at Five” at Huntington Avenue Theatre. Academy Award-winner Faye Dunaway returns to the stage as the legendary Katherine Hepburn in a new version of Matthew Lombardo’s original play. Director John Tillinger directs a Tony Award-winning team in this production based on Hepburn’s storied life and career. “The allure is seeing the frequently incomparable Faye Dunaway on stage,” says Jared. “Unfortunately the channel from Dunaway to Hepburn is tenuous.”
“Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love,” premiering this Friday, July 12 at Landmark Kendall Square, Coolidge Corner Theatre and West Newton 9 Cinema
Filmmaker Nick Broomfield brings the deeply personal romance of Leonard Cohen and his muse Marianne Ihlen to life in “Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love.” Starting on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s, the documentary follows Leonard – then an unknown writer – as he and Ihlen find each other in Hydra’s artists' haven before Leonard’s music career took off and eclipsed their relationship. A romantic but tragic tale of enduring love, Jared describes the film as “a fascinating portrait of a relationship but also of artistry, for its beauty and its myriad monstrosities.”
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