Who: Angel Desai, Debra Jo Rupp, Kurtwood Smith
What: Livestreamed benefit reading
Where: Barrington Stage Company Vimeo
When: Wednesday, September 23, $25, 7:30 (link available through September 27 at 7:29)
Why: Perhaps a funeral parlor is not the ideal setting for a play during the pandemic lockdown, as more than two hundred thousand Americans have died from the coronavirus and too many of us have unfortunately experienced Zoom wakes and funerals. But that is where Three Viewings, Jeffrey Hatcher’s three-part tale, takes place, in a funeral home in a small midwestern town. Barrington Stage in the Berkshires was scheduled to perform the work live on the on the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage but has repurposed it for Zoom for a benefit reading on September 23 at 7:30, after which it will be available for ninety-six hours. (The plan is to present it live once the theater is legally allowed to open with audiences.) The show features actress, musician, and jazz vocalist Angel Desai (Company, Angel Desai/Oscar Perez Quartet), Debra Jo Rupp (The Cake, Barrington’s Dr. Ruth — All the Way), and Kurtwood Smith (RoboCop, Green Grow the Lilacs); for Rupp and Smith, it is an online reunion, as the two starred as Kitty and Red Forman, the parents in the hit turn-of-the-century sitcom That ’70s Show, which introduced us to Topher Grace, Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, and Laura Prepon. Three Viewings consists of Tell Tale, in which a mortician (Smith) falls for a real estate broker; Thief of Tears, about Mac (Desai), who has a thing for corpses’ jewelry; and Thirteen Things about Ed Carpolotti, in which a widow (Rupp) learns unfortunate secrets about her late husband.
Hatcher has also written such plays as Ten Chimneys and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde and such films as Stage Beauty and The Good Liar; Three Viewings, which was recorded for audio by L.A. Theatre Works with Bruce Davison, Laura San Giacomo, and Rue McClanahan, will be directed for Barrington by artistic director Julianne Boyd. Next up for the company is Mark St. Germain’s Eleanor: A Virtual Reading of a New Play on October 3 and 4, starring Tony winner Harriet Harris (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Desperate Housewives) as Eleanor Roosevelt in a performance recorded live onstage without an audience and directed by actor Henry Stram.