Theater at Chautauqua
by Anthony Chase



"The Art of Coarse Acting" runs through July 30 at Chautauqua.

The Chautauqua Theater Company is the resident professional theater and conservatory of the Chautauqua Institution. Now in its 23rd season, the company works with a resident company of 16 young actors from some of the best drama programs in America, and with principle players brought in to play featured roles. Under the leadership of co-artistic directors Vivienne Benesch and Ethan McSweeny, the programming has become increasingly challenging and wide-ranging, more in keeping with the mission of the venerable Chautauqua Theater Company itself.
This summer the season roared to a start with Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, a large-cast classic with doom and gloom aplenty. This has been followed by The Art of Coarse Acting by Michael Green, an unbridled evening of pure silliness, which played through July 30. The season will close out with Shakespeare’s comical and romantic Twelfth Night.
Along the way, the Chautauqua Theater Company is presenting readings of some intriguing new plays. Last week, for instance, the festival featured a world premier reading of New Burlington adapted by Jonathan Walker from John Baskin’s book, New Burlington: The Life and Death of an American Village, about a small town in Ohio that was intentionally drowned out of existence by the Tennessee Valley Authority as part of its flood control projects. Fascinatingly, a principle role was played for the one-night-only event by the remarkable Sada Thompson, the Tony and Emmy award-winning actress best known as the mother, Kate Lawrence, on the long-running television series “Family.”
“I had never been to Chautauqua before,” reveals Thompson by telephone from her home in Connecticut. “I first heard of Chautauqua in a Civil War novel, I think! I was intrigued to do this project because I had actually read John Baskin’s book and had suggested that it would make a marvelous stage adaptation. The part was not written specifically for me, but I am delighted to be able to help take the play on this part of its journey.”
The ability to attract big names is a hallmark of the Chautauqua experience, and in the theater, Benesch and McSweeny have interpreted this call to mean important actors from the Broadway and off-Broadway theater. Tucked into the cast of The Art of Coarse Acting, for example, are Dylan Baker (currently starring on NBC’s “Book of Daniel”) and Marylouise Burke, two actors whose names you may not know, but whose faces you will certainly recognize.
Burke is the muse of playwright David Lindsay-Abaire (Tony nominee this year for Rabbit Hole), and appeared in his plays Fuddy Meers, Kimberly Akimbo and Wonder of the World, earning enormous praise from New York critics for all three performances. She is featured in Robert Altman’s new film, A Prairie Home Companion, and will be remembered in Buffalo for her performance as the mother in the Kaufman & Hart comedy, You Can’t Take It With You. A first-rate character actress and comedienne of extraordinary talent, Burke explains, during a break from rehearsal that this is her first time at Chautauqua.
“I knew Vivienne [Benesch] because we had done The Matchmaker together at the McCarter in Princeton. And I knew Dylan’s work, but did not know him personally. My main motivation to come was that I really wanted to work with Dylan. But everybody told me that Chautauqua is just a beautiful place and they are right. Now that I am here I am enjoying the very supportive community. Everyone is very aware of the theater and very encouraging. I also enjoy the history of Chautauqua; I have a friend who is a retired minister, and when I told him I was coming here, he said, ‘Oh Chautauqua! I saw FDR speak there!’ I enjoyed that.”
The press materials describe The Art of Coarse Acting as “Noises Off meets Monty Python when the Bakersberg Community Theater undertakes an evening of chestnuts and masterpieces. From “The Cherry Sisters” (a hitherto undiscovered Chekhov fragment) and “Streuth” (not by Agatha Christie) to “All’s Well That Ends As You Like It” (based on an idea by William Shakespeare), BCT tackles the classics—and flattens them.
The range and aspiration of the Chautauqua Theater Company certainly bodes well for the future of theater at the festival, and its ability to continue to attract some of the most interesting theater practitioners working today.
The Art of Coarse Acting runs through July 30th, to be followed by Twelfth Night. A reading of 100 Saints You Should Know by Kate Fodor, about the life of a priest questioning his vocation, two teenagers searching for meaningful connection and a cleaning lady seeking revelation will take place August 3-5.
Further information and tickets can be obtained by visiting www.ciweb.org, by telephone at 716-357-6250 (Mon-Fri, 9am-4pm), or at the Institution ticket offices in the Colonnade lobby (Mon & Fri, 9am-5pm), the Main Gate Welcome Center and the Turner Community Center (Mon-Fri, 9am-8pm).

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