The Berkshries, Redux: Williamstown Theatre Festival

Wayne in front of Louise Bougeois' Eyes, Williams College

Williamstown is a beautiful little college town nestled in the Berkshires.  Williams College is here as is the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and the Williamstown Theatre.  We spent the day there and took advantage of all these venues.  The little town has one main street that is filled with galleries.  My favorite is the Harrison Gallery.  This year the main show was a tribute to Henry Geldzahler with works by 4 artist who knew him.  Geldzahler was the first curator of contemporary art at the NY Met.  

Williams College is off main street and we walked to their little museum.  They were hanging a new show so all that was available to see was a bit of the permanent collection.  Most interesting was a maquette of Louise Bougeois sculptures that are on campus.  Eyes, Nine Elements was commissioned by the Museum in celebration of their 75th anniversary.  

Our next stop was the Clark, where a Winslow Homer show was in progress.  Sterling Clark owned more Homer's than any other artist, over 200 works.  I like Homer but Wayne does not.  Or, at least, does not like the ocean coast paintings.  This show had multiple wood engravings and watercolors, too.   I enjoyed seeing Homer's dedication to working and living in a place through his works.  

We still had time to kill before the theater and went to Bennington, VT.  Bennington is home to Bennington (duh!) Potters.  The pottery is very distinctive, stoneware with a speckled glaze.  We've bought things here over the years and today was no exception, coasters for our new table.  Bennington was readying itself for Midnight Madness that evening when all the stores open from 7pm to midnight with sales.  The town was jumping.  We had a great dinner at Allegro and then headed back to Williamstown.

Williamstown Theater is a nationally renowned summer stock theater that performs internationally recognized play writes and attracts significant actors such as Christopher Reeve, Blythe Danner and E.G. Marshall.  We saw, Hapgood, a play by Tom Stoppard starring Kate Burton.  I found it delightful.  The stage was perfect in deep grays and lit with a blue tone, perfect for the spy thriller.  The acting was so spot on, not a bit of over acting that I often feel is present on the stage.