Great Barrington — This year’s Great Barrington Public Theater (GBPT) season is set to open with the gothic mystery “The Stones.” The play debuted in Europe at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe and will be having its American debut to kick off GBPT’s season.
The play is by Kit Brookman, stars Berkshire actor Ryan Winkles, and is directed by Michelle Joyner. The play is described in press releases by GBPT as a “gothic mystery,” and is about the character Nick who leaves his job as a school teacher and breaks up with his boyfriend after a “strange epiphany.” Nick eventually reconnects with an old flame, which leads to a job at an estate in the countryside as a tutor to two young children. Everything seems to be idyllic until stones materialize all around Nick and “a fascinating, ominous mystery unfolds.”
“The story could have happened 100 or 200 years ago, but the plot is compelling enough that it could happen in current times,” Joyner told The Berkshire Edge. “I said to someone recently that, with the tone of this piece, you kind of expect Heathcliff [from ‘Wuthering Heights’] to be striding across the moors. But instead, you have a confused gay school teacher in the middle of a crisis.”
“I was drawn to this play because the story is really interesting, and the language is evocative,” Winkles said. “There are a few moments in the play where a lot is going on, including mystery because the audience tries to figure out what goes on in every moment. At times, it seems like things go along in the play in a smooth way, but there are all of these elements that are going on outside of it. There are elements from the current world that seep into the play and back.”
For the American version of the play, Joyner adds musicians Alexander Sovronsky and Wendy Welch, who will be creating soundscapes and representing ghosts, characters, and moods. “The musicians are not indicated in the original script at all,” Joyner said. “When I saw the play in Edinburgh last year, it was just one guy on stage on a chair. There was not even any set. This is a very different production. I’ve cast the musicians in parts where they are in the background that they are embodying.”
Both Joyner and Winkles said that, while the play is based in Europe, it is not hard for American audiences to relate to it. “There are a lot of things in the play that Americans can relate to,” Joyner said. “The super entitled world that Nick enters into, the climate, and the potential destruction of the earth, it’s all very present in this play.”
“I think the themes in this play are universal to all audiences,” Winkles said. “We love British TV shows, stories, and plays. We like seeing a little bit of ourselves in people’s stories because it gives it a kind of clarity.”
Both Joyner and Winkles have taken part in GBPT productions before, which kicked off its inaugural season in 2019. “I have a lot of respect for GBPT’s mandate, which is to keep the ‘local’ in local theater,” Joyner said. “They’re not necessarily obsessed, like a lot of other places, in bringing in New York talent and stars or going to Broadway with the plays. That could happen and might happen, but it’s not their goal. Their goal is to use the wonderful pool of talented performers, writers, directors, and others that are up here. There are so many residents in the Berkshires that are into theater. It’s not like community theater so much, but it is theater for the community by the community.”
Performances of “The Stones” will start on Thursday, June 15 at the Liebowitz Black Box Theater, Daniel Arts Center, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, 84 Alford Road. For a schedule of performance times, dates, and ticket information, go to the GBPT website.
