Weekend Cultural Highlights, June 19-24, 2009

 

by Seth Rogovoy

 

It’s roots-music weekend at Club Helsinki in Great Barrington, Mass., featuring the vintage honky-tonk sounds of Eilen Jewell on Friday night, and the mid-century western-swing stylings of Hot Club of Cowtown on Saturday night.

 

On her new CD, Sea of Tears, Eilen Jewell harks back to the rockabilly vibe of Sam Phillips’s Sun Records, with chick-a-boom rhythms and bluesy surf guitar rubbing up against the Idaho native’s sultry, soulful vocals.

 

After a long hiatus, which included lead singer/violinst Elana James’s stint playing in Bob Dylan’s road band, the Hot Club has reunited and put out a new CD, Wishful Thinking, the group’s first in seven years. In addition to original tunes written by James and bandmate Whit Smith, who sings and plays guitar, the recording includes songs written by George Gershwin, Hoagy Carmichael, Tom Waits, and the pioneer of western swing himself, Bob Wills, giving a sense of the group’s broad musical range. The Austin-based trio, a Club Helsinki favorite – as is Eilen Jewell – returns to Great Barrington on Saturday night.

 

TIckets to the Club Helsinki performance are $22 and are available in advance at Helsinki (284 Main Street), by calling 413.528.3394, or online at clubhelsinkiweb.com.

 

Barrington Stage Company kicks off its fifteenth Main Stage season with the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Carousel. Considered by some to be the greatest American musical, Carousel runs at Barrington Stage in Pittsfield, Mass., through July 11.

 

Performances for Carousel will take place at Barrington Stage, 30 Union Street, Pittsfield. Showtimes are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7, Thursday through Saturday at 8, Wednesday and Friday matinees at 2, and Sunday at 5.  Opening Night: Sunday, June 21 at 5pm. $15 tickets are available for June 17 and June 18 previews. Pay What You Can Performance for 35 year olds and younger: Friday, June 19 at 8.  Tickets can be purchased ahead at the box office, by calling 413.236.8888 or visiting www.barringtonstageco.org.

 

Last week I reported about the opening weekend of Shakespeare & Company’s Pinter’s Mirror, a program of one-act plays by the late Nobel Prize winning playwright, Harold Pinter, featuring the real-life husband-and-wife acting team of Malcolm Ingram and Elizabeth Ingram. I’m happy to report that the Ingrams, along with newcomer Stephen Pilkington, provide a riveting night at the theater in three short plays, A Slight Ache, Family Voices, and Victoria Station, in a run that will last through August 2. Read Berkshire Living theater critic Chris Newbound’s review.

 

For more info visit www.shakespeare.org or call the box office at 413.637.3353.

 

 

A Shared Perspective, an exhibition of contemporary Israeli painting, sculpture, photography, and applied arts, opens on Saturday, June 20, at the Barn Gallery at Stonover Farm in Lenox, Mass., and continues through July 25. The exhibition is co-hosted by the Association of Israel’s Decorative Arts (AIDA), whose mission is to foster the development of contemporary artists from Israel by connecting them to an international audience of galleries, institutions and collectors. For further information about the Barn Gallery, call 413.637.3344 or visit www.stonoverfarm.com/barngallery

 

Following rave reviews for its Boston run, the Boston Early Music Festival brings its new, fully-staged production of Monteverdi’s final opera, The Coronation of Poppea to the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center (14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, MA) on Friday, June 19, at 7; Saturday, June 20, at 7; and Sunday, June 21, at 2:30pm. 

 

Tickets to Monteverdi’s Poppea may be purchased through the Mahaiwe Box Office at 14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, Mass.; by telephone at 413.528.0100; or online at www.mahaiwe.org.

 

“Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” and “I’m Henry VIII, I Am” were just two of the number-one hits by Herman’s Hermits, a group that for a short time vied with the Beatles for pop chart supremacy during the so-called British Invasion of the 1960s. Lead singer Peter Noone is touring with a contemporary version of the group, which stops at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield on Wednesday, June 24, at 7:30. Tickets for the performance are $65 (preferred seating with pre-show artist meet & greet), $45 and $25, and can be purchased in person at the Colonial Ticket Office at 111 South St.,  Monday-Friday 10-5, performance Saturdays 10-2, by calling 413. 997.4444 or online at www.TheColonialTheatre.org

 

 

Mark St. Germain’s new play, Freud’s Last Session – reviewed by Berkshire Living’s Lesley Ann Beck -- continues its run at Barrington Stage in Pittsfield at the company’s Stage 2 through June 28.

 

And Faith Healer continues its run in the Unicorn Theatre at Berkshire Theatre Festival through July 4. 

 

Seth Rogovoy is Berkshire Living’s editor-in-chief and award-winning cultural critic.