Berkshires arts reviews

June 28, 2007 performance review by Dave Conlin Read

Well, it looks like this Colonial Theatre makeover may indeed be the tonic for long-gasping downtown Pittsfield. Here we were at the end of Spring and on the verge of the ten-hundred-event Bershires’ summer season, with a dazzling production of West Side Story just a few blocks away, with Shakespeare & Co., and the Berkshire and Williamstown Theatre Festivals all up and running at full speed, and a Canadian touring company of Cats proves to be such a draw that it’s mini-run at The Colonial Theatre had to be extended to meet audience demand.

It was a great show. Long a fan of T.S. Eliot, who’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats was the inspiration for the Trevor Nunn, Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, we were there for the language as much as for the music and spectacle. And we weren’t dissappointed, especially enjoying the early number, “The Naming of Cats.” It got us to remembering our first melancholic grey cat, which we named “Mahovlich” (this Canadian troupe would know that name) and our first stalwart black cat, named “Thurgood.”

There you have it, the magic of theatre, these cats had me in their paws right from the get-go, way before “Memory” came along to finish everybody off!

Kudos to everybody involved; from a techncal standpoint the event seemed to be totally glitch-free - it all looked and sounded just fine - and that’s no mean feat.