THEATER REVIEW: ‘Once’ at the Colonial Theatre teaches us about happy endings
“Once,” based on the film written and directed by John Carney, plays at the beautiful Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield through July 16.
BY J. PETER BERGMAN
POSTED ON
Once
Berkshire Theatre Group
Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Book by Enda Walsh, music and lyrics by Glen Hansard and Markêta Irglová, directed by Gregg Edelman
Based on the film written and directed by John Carney
“Romance was a blood sport!”
Two things are true about this musical play. One, it is a play about loyalty and trust—faith if you prefer. Two, happy endings aren’t always what you suppose they will be, but they always leave you hopeful. Knowing number two sets you up perfectly for the production of “Once” at the beautiful Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, Mass. where this superb realization of the Tony winning Broadway musical is playing for the next two weeks.
You should also know that the show is very Irish in music, accents, and attitudes: there is a fatalistic sense to the piece borne on a crashing sea of optimism. Set in Dublin the story gives us a man, down on his luck, down on his love, down on his music, an Irishman without a beer, ale or whisky, who meets a Czech refugee who is down on money, marriage and mendacity, but who has music on her side and she uses it to restore this man to the truthful world.
The are twenty-nine musical numbers in the show and a half hour pre-show performance of about seven more songs. You are surrounded by music and you are swept into this show about two musicians who meet accidentally, become the most important aspects of each other’s lives for a week, and then move on to the realities that suffuse them. The week of their friendship is their test in life. It is a week of discovery, recovery, and new beginnings.
She, known as Girl, is a married young mother with an absent husband, a refugee in a foreign land with few friends or acquaintances but an eager heart. She is played by Andrea Goss. She is a trained pianist with a classical bent who moves into the popular music that surrounds her with an alacrity that is almost alarming. He is Guy, a robust Irishman, who has sunk into despair and is about to leave behind the music that has sustained him through both romantic loss and professional regret in spite of his evident musical talents and abilities. He is played by David Toole.
The two of them, Girl and Guy, fall into a deep well of loyalty that sustains them through the vicissitudes of life that surround and fill the time they spend together. Are they fated to become lovers? To become wed? Only time will tell. However they are fated to change each others lives if they trust their instincts and trust one another. Both players are superb. Though the show does not give us the moments we anticipate in this growing “affaire d’couer,” it sets us up for tears and laughter, simultaneously and consistently.
Goss and Toole are surrounded by a most engaging group of actors playing a most engrossing group of characters. Adam Huel Potter as Girl’s employer in a music shop is funny and charming. Andy Taylor as a bank manager who also plays the cello is terrifically amusing as a native of Cork. Kurt Zischke is a good Da. Will Boyajian is very good as Svec and Caleb Adams does well as Eamon.
The entire company sings, plays instruments and moves through the choreographed staging by Director Gregg Edelmanand Movment Director Isadora Wolfe with an unequalled fluidity. The impression is one of animation, a moving picture if you will. Scenic Desigtner Josafath Reynoso has devised a set that reeks of a Dublin square yet leaves room for interiors that emerge as needed, partly through the excellent lighting design by Matthew E. Adelson. Elivia Bovenzi Blitz has kept the costumes real and character driven. Nathan Leigh’s sound design was right on the money. Andy Taylor was also the music director, and his work seems to almost never be finished. We could have sat for another hour, easily, listening to this company play and sing.
When a show is this good you really don’t want it to end and the good thing here is that the ending of the play isn’t the ending of their lives. There is more to know, more to learn about
Guy and Girl and what happns to them, to their affection, their loyalty, and their trust shows us that a happy ending isn’t always happy, but it is hopeful. In “Once” there is the unspoken promise of two or even more visits to the two of them and the world they have created together. Now, that’s a happy ending.
