An Astronomical Event
A WORLD PREMIERE UNITES THEATRICAL LUMINARIES
By Haas Regen
Photo By Gregory Cherin
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies’s new work, Lunar Eclipse, has just two characters: a farmer and his wife, probably in their late-60s or early-70s, living somewhere in the nation’s heartland (possibly Kentucky) who come together to watch the night sky but end up contemplating fundamental mysteries of life, love, loss, and the perpetual flow of time. The world premiere, starring Reed Birney and Karen Allen, will take place at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox on September 15.
Reed Birney and Karen Allen star in the world premiere of Donald Margulies’ Lunar Eclipse at Shakespeare & Company.
“You could have knocked me over with a feather when Donald said he had a new piece and he’d like Shakespeare & Company to consider producing it,” says Allyn Burrows, the company’s artistic director. “He suggested Reed Birney, and what he didn’t know is that Reed is an old friend of mine. I took over for him in the role of Dr. Sweet in the Barrow Street Theatre production of Bug [by Tracy Letts] in New York years ago. I’m thrilled he can make it work to be in this production. It represents something of a full circle.”
Birney has been well-respected for his work in theater, film, and television for almost 50 years. The Tony® and Drama Desk Award winner last appeared in the Berkshires in 2019 with his son, Ephraim, in Joseph Dougherty’s Chester Bailey at Barrington Stage Company. Margulies said he heard Birney’s voice swimming inside his head while writing Lunar Eclipse.
“I’ve just marveled at Reed’s career over the years, but we’ve never worked together,” Margulies admits. “We’re almost exactly the same age, and we’ve known one another in the way that theater people know each other. We both had curly hair and glasses and were of similar stature. It was like we were each other’s police sketch! I’m delighted that we get to do this together. This whole thing has come together in a kind of serendipitous way.”
After Birney read the play’s first draft, he wrote Margulies back immediately. “I said I will go anywhere to do this play,” Birney says. “I think it’s a real masterpiece.”
Burrows then recommended Allen—local legend, director, and actress—to round out the two-hander. This event will mark her long-awaited return to Shakespeare & Company. It’s also her first-ever world premiere for a Berkshire-based theater. Veteran actor and director James Warwick will helm the production.
“This project has got such a strong set of ingredients,” says Warwick. “I hope it will be irresistible to those who really love theater and new work.”
Allen jokes that she has a hard time saying “yes” to theater—but, like Birney, she felt compelled to do Lunar Eclipse after reading through the script. “If I’m going to get out on stage six, seven, eight times a week, I have to be passionate about it,” she says. “And I don’t feel that way entirely with things I might do for television or film. With a play, I’ve got to be there— heart and soul. I’ve got to want to inhabit that person day, after day, after day, after day, and build that character, find those relationships.”
Although the audience won’t hear the characters’ names said aloud, they’re called “George” and “Em.” For avid theatergoers, these names conjure images of Thornton Wilder’s iconic play Our Town.
“That was part of the emotional foundation of the play for me. It was a starting place,” Margulies says. “I did it mostly for my own homage to Wilder, as a kind of touchstone and as a reminder to myself of the paradigm for who these people are.
It’s me, the writer, imagining what would or could have happened if Emily and George got to grow old together. But it’s not literally Emily and George; it’s an Emily and a George. They’re universal archetypes—distinctly American, I think.”
“It’s not officially Our Town,” Birney notes. “It’s a tip of the hat. But if there was ever an Emily Webb who got to grow up, it’s Karen Allen. I mean, who doesn’t love Karen Allen?”
Margulies, whose play Time Stands Still was produced at Shakespeare & Company in 2019, came to the Berkshires in 1997 to bring Broken Sleep: Three Plays to the Williamstown Theatre Festival. “I came of age in regional theater,” Margulies affirms. “Not simply the Berkshires, but at the Geffen Playhouse and the Actors Theatre of Louisville. I mean, yes, I’ve been produced a great deal in New York, largely at Manhattan Theater Club, the Roundabout, and Primary Stages, but the building blocks of my career were in regional theater. So it’s great to get back to my roots.”
Earlier this season, Barrington Stage Company produced two world premiere plays: Mark St. Germain’s The Happiest Man on Earth, a mono-drama based on Eddie Jaku’s memoir, and tiny father by Mike Lew. By popular demand, St. Germain’s play will be revived from September 22 to October 8. Meanwhile, Berkshire Theatre Group offered two premieres as well: The Smile of Her, written and performed by Christine Lahti; and the musical On Cedar Street, adapted from Kent Haruf’s novel Our Souls at Night, with music by Lucy Simon & Carmel Dean, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, and book by Emily Mann. Great Barrington Public Theater continued its mission to showcase top-tier local talent with three new plays, including Just Another Day, written by and starring esteemed TV actor Dan Lauria and co-starring Emmy®-winner Jodi Long.
Allen anticipates that productions like these will help generate an audience for continuous, uninterrupted theater, identifying this moment as “an important transitional period.”
“There used to be this assumption that somehow this area couldn’t sustain 12 months of theater. That’s not true; people are desperate for it,” Allen insists. “It’s the pull-on-your-winter-boots-and-get-out-there crowd. They love their museums, their music, their dance, their theater—but they also get the countryside, the beautiful countryside, and this sort of feeling of the Berkshires and its four seasons.”
“There is an energy in the Berkshires and Western Massachusetts that’s unlike anywhere in the states that I’ve experienced, even the rest of New England,” adds Birney. “With any new play, especially one by a master like Donald, there can be a certain amount of energy spent on what The Next Step is. Like any parent with his child, you want the play to thrive and go on to more successes. But for myself, I couldn’t be more content than with this production—a gorgeous play in an idyllic setting with a perfect acting partner. That is plenty for me.”
Throughout the 90-minute Lunar Eclipse, a full moon is progressively darkened by the earth’s shadow, serving as a fitting analogy for individuals of a certain age concerned about dementia. George and Em meditate on the gradual clouding or dimming of memory over time and the importance of focusing on positive rather than negative memories that
have defined their marriage. Indeed, obscured memories— whether buried willfully or forgotten entirely by the effects of aging—begin to take center stage in their dialogue.
“At a certain point, it becomes a thread in all our lives,” Allen says. “I just love how Donald has created these characters. One is clearly preoccupied and concerned about [memory loss] and almost afraid to broach the subject. But we’re all like this. We’re all going through this. I’m familiar with the territory of dementia because I spent quite a few years with my mother and my sister as they both progressed through it. I’m 71, and I have to say, all of my friends worry about it; we laugh about it. At what point should you be concerned? It’s an important question for anyone struggling with the disease—or someone trying to care for them.”
“He’s an old guy, but is he older than I am?” wonders Birney. “I don’t know. Maybe. He feels older. He’s also a farmer and he’s worked hard and he’s had a rough life. It has taken its toll. I am excited about playing this part and finding this guy in me. Honestly, it’s an incredible gift from Donald to get to do it.”
“This feels like the play I should be writing right now,” Margulies observes. “Your friends are beginning to get sick and die—your contemporaries, not their parents. We’ve already buried our parents. All of the fears and concerns and obsessions and observations and ruminations of a late-60s guy reflecting on a long marriage and raising a child, loving dogs, and this connection that I have to farming through my beloved father-in-law, with whom I had a remarkably affectionate relationship. I don’t think I could have written it without having known him.”
“I think the timing of this, socially, is extraordinary,” says Warwick. “The global pandemic put the microscope on families and long-term relationships in a way that has exerted enormous pressure. I couldn’t have done this play 20 years ago. I didn’t have the insight, and I didn’t have the self-knowledge, either. One of the things about getting older and learning more and understanding more about yourself and your life is how much value authenticity has.”
For each of the seven stages of the eclipse, set designer John Musall has included a revolving stage into the overall set design that will move almost imperceptibly. To complement these gradual turns, Musall will paint by hand a dark blue back wall at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, replete with stars and traces of light. James McNamara will then add his lighting design skills to create a celestial journey from the first penumbra to the dawning of a new day.
“I wanted very fine artists to deal with the design of this beautiful play, and that’s what I’ve got,” Warwick says. “It’s a rather minimalist approach to serve the story and its characters. I wanted the shifts in the eclipse to be so subtle that the audience may not even notice the first transition or two. Each eclipse stage has a slightly different tone and mood, almost as if the temperature is adjusting. I feel it’s a constantly evolving play, both in character arc and storyline—it’s a delicately sensual play, too.”
To conceive the sound design, Warwick looked carefully through Margulies’s script, which he says contains “an entire audio sound score.” He then asked his designer, Nathan Leigh, to listen to Joseph Haydn’s symphonic trilogy, “Morning,” “Noon,” and “Night.”
“I really enjoy exploring sound elements in my productions and discussing ideas for music and ambient sound early on in the preparation process. The designer can then start putting pieces together for me to listen to,” Warwick adds enthusiastically. “Nathan listened to Haydn’s symphonies and has adapted a sort of folky, polished, Americanized version of what I think is one of the most evocative pieces of music ever written.”
Warwick acknowledges that the local volunteers have made Shakespeare & Company so successful over the years. Many of them, like George and Em, are late-middle-aged or older. “Do you know how many volunteers we have here?” Warwick asks. “One hundred and sixty. Every year, there’s a volunteer team, and they get involved because they love it. They meet all the artists, and the artists always say hello. I know them all by name now. And it’s wonderful seeing these people. Their enthusiasm is thrilling. It’s a community center which, I think, is theater at its best, especially in rural communities like this. It’s unique. There’s no experience like it. You don’t get that in television! When I go into rehearsal, I do feel it’s like a church. It’s sacred. It’s hallowed ground.