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October 7, 2004
• It's a star-studded 200th birthday for Hawthorne It's a star-studded 200th birthday for Hawthorne Leaves may be falling but stars certainly will be rising in the Berkshires this weekend. This is Nathaniel Hawthorne's 200th birthday year. To celebrate, Shakespeare & Company is hosting a birthday party and fund-raising gala Saturday evening at 8 at Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall. Helping celebrate will be Emmy Award-winning CBS newsman Mike Wallace and Academy Award-winning actress Jane Fonda. Joining them on the Ozawa Hall stage will be noted stage and screen actor David Strathairn and Academy Award-winning actress Marisa Tomei. They will be appearing in "Hawthorne Revisited," a program written and produced by Gordon Hyatt, and directed by Shakespeare & Company's founding artistic director, Tina Packer. Wallace will emcee. Fonda, Strathairn and Tomei will be featured in selected readings and performances from "The Scarlet Letter," "The House of the Seven Gables," “The Blithedale Romance,” “The Marble Faun,” a scene from Carol Gilligan's stage adaptation of “The Scarlet Letter,” notes by Hawthorne about his writing technique and his observations about the Civil War. There also will be music from Hawthorne's era played by the Majestic Brass Quintet and the premiere of a specially commissioned "Hawthorne Fanfare and Meditation" by Dan Cooper, a recent Tanglewood composing fellow. The festivities actually begin at 5 with a series of dinners at several nearby restaurants, inns and private homes. The evening ends with a champagne and dessert reception at Shakespeare & Company's Founders’ Theatre at 70 Kemble St. Earlier in the day, at 11 a.m., there will be a free performance of "Mrs. Pringle's Porch," a play by Pittsfield playwright Julianne Glantz inspired by Hawthorne’s "Tanglewood Tales" in the tented Rose Footprint Theatre. Packer had planned more Hawthorne this summer at Shakespeare & Company -- a symposium on Hawthorne's work and a rewritten revival of Gilligan’s play. But, Packer said, Gilligan hadn’t finished work on the play and, "we needed to do a simpler season. The gala stayed in place and you need to do a gala on something. We did Melville with Peter Jennings at the 2001 gala. I feel dedicated to doing more work of Berkshire writers." The elements were surprisingly readily available. To begin with, Hyatt, project director for the statewide Hawthorne Bicentennial and a documentary film producer and writer with more than 30 years of experience working in commercial and public television, has been interested in Hawthorne, particularly his association with Herman Melville, ever since a chance discussion at a dinner party shortly after moving to the Berkshires with his wife Carol in 1984. The shape of this Hawthorne-oriented gala began taking hold in Hyatt's mind during a book-signing party in spring at the New York Historical Society for Tina Packer’s new book, "Tales From Shakespeare." Hyatt had invited Strathairn, an actor whose work Hyatt had seen on stage and admired, to come to the event and read a piece Hawthorne had written about Abraham Lincoln. Hyatt has known Wallace for some time and made several news documentaries with him at CBS in Wallace's pre-"60 Minutes" days. "I asked if he would emcee this gala and he agreed," Hyatt said during a recent joint interview with Packer in Josie's Place -- the lobby of Shakespeare & Company’s Founders’ Theatre. Tomei became interested in Gilligan's treatment of "The Scarlet Letter" when she participated in a reading of the play in New York. Gilligan also was the connection to Fonda, who had underwitten a chair for Gilligan at Harvard. "[Fonda] is here through Carol's invitation," Hyatt explained. Hyatt also met Dan Cooper at that book-signing reception. Cooper was among a group of Tanglewood composing fellows who met regularly with Packer in Hawthorne's Little Red House. He was among the composers who wrote the incidental music for Shakspeare & Company’s productions of "Coriolanus," the first show in the new Founders’ Theatre, and "A Midsummer Night’s Dream," the last show in the outdoor theater at The Mount. During their conversation, Cooper told Hyatt about a brass ensemble near Salem that specialized in music of Hawthorne's era. Hyatt and Cooper went to hear them. During their trip, they toured the first house Hawthorne lived in in Concord. "There was this clock and it made such a distinctive sound," Hyatt said. "You'll hear it in the piece I asked Dan to write for this occasion.” The Ozawa Hall event is designed, Packer said, "to give people a rough outline of Hawthorne's life, perspective on his life and what was going on around him. "We're looking at how Hawthorne stimulated other writers and why he is so relevant today. We also want to give him an identity as a Berkshires writer. It pulls a lot of strands together. It’s only 90 minutes but we hope it will stimulate and entertain." "I've been working on this material for two years," Hyatt said reflectively, almost wistfully. "We have one night and [this material] probably will never be heard in this combination again. It’s like one big fireworks display.” Tickets are available for the entire evening or the Ozawa Hall performance only. Reservation information for the complete gala is available by telephone at 637-1199, ext. 113. Ticket information for the Ozawa Hall performance only is available through the Shakespeare & Company box office at 637-3353 or online at www.shakespeare.org. |
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