Great Barrington — The 2022 movie “Stage of Twilight” will be shown at the Triplex on Sunday, April 21, at 4:15 p.m. A conversation with Berkshire-based actress Karen Allen and movie producer Brian Long will follow the screening.
The movie is a love story set in the final chapters of the lives of a married couple, Cora and Barry, played by Allen and William Sandler. While the couple is childless, a neighborhood boy, played by Marlon Quijije, acts as their surrogate son.
The film is written and directed by Sarah Schwab, who created “Stage of Twilight” originally as a play. “Sarah wrote ‘A Stage of Twilight’ as a way to open a conversation about death,” Allen told The Berkshire Edge. “We will all experience it firsthand through our grandparents, parents, and friends. But this is something that our culture is reluctant to openly talk about. It’s sort of one of those conversations that you have in dark corners. I think that Sarah felt very much that way when her father died when she was in her 20s. She felt her father had been very open with her and he knew that he was dying from a progressive illness.”
Allen said that both Schwab had “long and meaningful conversations about what was coming” with her father. “But she found that having these conversations was unusual in our culture,” Allen said. “This is why she created ‘A Stage of Twilight.’ Some questions are raised when someone dies: Whose death is it? Do we owe anyone anything? If so, what do we owe to the people who love us, are around us, and want to be there for us? I think that for some people, certainly people who have been married for long periods, there is an assumption that one partner will be with the other partner to the end. And that is, you know, what we put in the marriage vows ‘Till death do us part.’ This film asks the questions: ‘What if that’s not truthful? What if that’s not really what a person wants? What if somebody wants to go off and die alone?’”
Allen, who used to reside in New York, has lived in Berkshire County for 36 years. “I love the beauty and the nature of the Berkshires,” Allen said. “It’s got an abundance of very interesting cultural institutions that have been here for a long time and are beloved by the people here and supported. And I feel as though it’s a place where if you have a good idea about something you want to do, it’s a wide-open community in that sense, like, there’s a lot of room for people to be creative in their way up here. I lived in New York for many, many years, and you get used to the noise and the gruffness, and you know, you know, a kind of certain way of life. And, you know, you get to a point where you can’t hear your thoughts anymore. And I think the deeper part of me that fell in love at the Berkshires fell in love with that part where I would get up here and the silence was so beautiful.”
Allen is a board member of the Berkshire International Film Festival and has also taken part in several Triplex events in the past. “My whole adult life has revolved around films and filmmaking,” Allen said.
According to IMDb, Allen has 69 acting credits spanning six decades, including “Animal House” and several entries in the “Indiana Jones” series of films.
“To me, the Triplex and the Mahaiwe Theater are both central to the Berkshire County experience,” Allen said. “While there is a convenience to watching a film at home, it’s a real experience when you are watching a film with an audience and you are feeling the response from that audience, whether it is the laughter, the anxiousness, or the tension with a group of 100 to 500 people. Some films are really made to be seen on a large screen, and you are missing a lot of what the film has to offer if you are sitting at home watching on your computer or, God forbid, on your phone. I just saw ‘Dune’ at The Triplex. I wouldn’t have wanted to watch that film on my laptop or screen because I would have missed the spectacle of it all.”
For more information about the event and to buy tickets, visit to the Triplex’s website.
