Berkshires, Summer 2024—“Pipe Dream” at Berkshire Theatre Group, Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood

Pipe Dream

Music by Richard Rodgers, book & lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Directed by Kat Yen, choreography by Isadora Wolfe

Performances through August 31, 2024

Unicorn Theatre, 6 East Street, Stockbridge, Massachusetts

berkshiretheatregroup.org

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Performances through August 31, 2024

Tanglewood, Lenox, Massachusetts

tanglewood.org

Ah, summer in the Berkshires—beautiful weather (usually!), bucolic landscapes, great museums, concerts and theater. It’s pretty much been an annual tradition for us for three decades. This summer, we saw the wonderful Mad magazine exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge and the Clark Art Institute’s revelatory exhibition of Caribbean artist Guillaume Lethière, along with a couple concerts at Tanglewood and a Rodgers & Hammerstein revival at the Berkshire Theatre Group.

Joe Joseph and Noa Luz Barenblat in Pipe Dream (photo: Caelan Carlough)

Pipe Dream, one of R&H’s more bizarre items—based on John Steinbeck’s novels Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday—is set among the populace of seaside Monterey, California, and centers around Doc, a marine biologist, and Suzy, a new gal who becomes a prostitute in the local brothel. They fall in love, but take awhile to admit it. The show hasn’t been on Broadway since its disastrous 1955 premiere; it was last in New York in a beautifully sung 2012 Encores revival with Laura Osnes, Will Chase and Leslie Uggams that nevertheless could do nothing with the dramatically diffuse romance.

The tunes are there, of course, but several sound like outtakes or discarded versions of other, better-known R&H tunes, like Suzy’s first number, “Everybody’s Got a Home But Me,” which is similar to “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” And a large ensemble—there are more than a dozen singing roles—dilutes any emotional or dramatic impact, since we keep bouncing around among Monterey’s many outcasts, male and female.

Since the Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge is a tiny jewel box, director Kat Yen and choreographer Isadora Wolfe seem hamstrung about what they can accomplish. Jimmy Stubbs’ movable sets help, although a pivotal scene between Doc and Suzy in an abandoned boiler is nearly impossible to see from all the seats. 

The six-piece ensemble, led by pianist and music director Jacob Kerzner, acquits itself well, although we lose the sumptuous orchestral sound Rodgers’ tunes need. Noa Luz Barenblat’s Suzy, though a bit standoffish, has a gleaming singing voice (although the incandescent Laura Osnes at Encores was pitch perfect in the role). The rest of the accomplished cast is led by Joe Joseph’s Doc and Sharone Sayregh’s madam Fauna. Too bad it might be a pipe dream to hope for a perfect Pipe Dream production.

Leila Josefowicz (standing, left) playing Stravinsky's Violin Concerto (photo: Hilary Scott)

Tanglewood has been the go-to summer destination for outdoor classical performances for decades; the Boston Symphony Orchestra has made its summer home there since 1936. Spending a day on the grounds is to immerse oneself in the history of outdoor music making, even if our first performance was indoors, in the Linde Center for Music and Learning, which opened in 2019, and where several Tanglewood Music Center Fellows—students who come from around the world every summer to perform and study—played a lovely chamber recital.

Music by Debussy (sonata for flute, viola and harp) and Ravel (piano trio) bookended Jessie Montgomery’s new Concerto Grosso, which the composer—who spoke before the performance—described as “a contemporary take on the baroque dynamic of solo against ripeno” in a program note. The Fellows played with enthusiasm and precision, bringing out Debussy’s elegance, Montgomery’s spontaneity and Ravel’s ravishment.

Our Tanglewood evening culminated with a marvelous BSO concert in the venerable Koussevitzky Music Shed. Finnish conductor Dalia Stasevska led an adventurous summer program, opening with fellow Finn Jean Sibelius’ Canzonetta, in an arrangement by Igor Stravinsky for clarinets, horns, harp and double bass. Then came Stravinsky’s own Violin Concerto, a rare enough appearance on any program, which was played with exuberance by the brilliant Leila Josefowicz, who didn't need a score: she was so focused that she nearly bumped into the BSO violinists behind her—they pulled their music stand back to give her more room.

After intermission, Stasevska corralled her forces for a nimble reading of Sibelius’ brooding Symphony No. 5, whose rousing finale left the audience sated.