G2 The Boston Globe FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2019
InsiderByDonAucoin
GLOBE STAFFP
ITTSFIELD— Whendivorcedfrom
his matchlessprose,the novelsof
John Updike have proven resistant to
dramatic adaptation.
The James Caan-starring 1970
film version of “Rabbit, Run’’ was a sluggish and
stumbling affair, while1987’s starry “The Witch-
es of Eastwick’’(Jack Nicholson, Cher, Michelle
Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon)concocted an incoher-
ent brew whose primary ingredient was ego.
So Mark St. Germain gets pointsfor venture-
someness, at a minimum, for choosing to adapt
“Gertrude and Claudius,’’ Updike’s 2000 prequel
to “Hamlet.’’ Now at Barrington Stage Company,
directed by Julianne Boyd, “Gertrude and Claudi-
us’’ stars an utterly superb Kate MacCluggage as
Gertrude and a charismatic Elijah Alexander as
Claudius.
The play tells the backstory of Hamlet’s
motherand uncle,tracingthe inexorable unfold-
ing of the pair’s passionate love affair and the re-
sulting murder of a king, which of course paved
the way for the revenge plot of Shakespeare’s im-
mortal tragedy, not to mention literature’s most
famouscase of the existential willies.
Transmuting and melding the disparate voic-
es of one of the giantsof Americanletters with
the greatest dramatist of all time whileestablish-
ing a voice of your own cannothave beenan easy
task for playwright St. Germain, and the strain
showsduring the turgidintervals in Act One of
“Gertrudeand Claudius,’’ when the play struggles
to find an identity of its own.
It’s as if St. Germain (“Freud’s Last Session,’’
“BecomingDr. Ruth’’) is trappedbetween the lan-
guage and metaphysicalscopeof Shakespeare
and Updike (who wouldn’t be?) whilealso
hemmedin by the conventions and thematic
echoes of historical dramaslike “A Man for All
Seasons’’and “The Lionin Winter,’’ whichalso
dealtwith questions of family, power, and loyalty.
But there’s a reasonthat plays have second
acts. After intermission, “Gertrude and Claudius’’
comes into its own,growingquicker, sharper,
and more compelling. Under Boyd’s taut direc-
tion, the production amps up the mortal stakes
as Queen Gertrudeembarks on a quite danger-
ous affair withClaudius, the swashbuckling
brother of her outwardly bland but ruthless hus-
band,King Amleth (Douglas Rees). Bit by bit, the
castle at Elsinore(broodinglyrendered by scenic
designer Lee Savage) turns into a stage for life-
and-death plots and counterplots.
Unsurprisingly but intriguingly, St. Germain’s
portraits of Gertrudeand Claudius are far more
sympathetic thanShakespeare’s — and far less
sympathetic to Amleth, or, for that matter, to
youngHamlet (NickLaMedica),who,whenhe
shows up, proves to be kind of a twerp. In “Ger-
trude and Claudius,’’ unlike in “Hamlet,’’ Claudi-
us’s decision to murder his own brother is not
framedas driven only by his lust for the king’s
wife and throne.
As the decidedlynon-heroicKingAmleth, Re-
es bringsthe necessary forceto the scenes where
the ruler shows his true colors, thoughhis perfor-
manceoverall does not project the kind of stature
that wouldexplainwhy Hamlet would revere his
father so. As Polonius, the ever-sententious
chamberlainwho is half-drawn into the palace
intrigue and half-enters it willingly, RoccoSisto is
less impressive than usual(or at least he was at
the performance I attended).GregThorntonis
similarly tentative as KingRorik, Gertrude’s dot-
ing father, but Mary Stout is a font of go-for-broke
comic relief as Herda, the lady’s maidto Ger-
trude.
Part of the challenge for actors in a prequelof
this sort is to endow their characters with equal
parts individuality and familiarity, persuasively
embodyingyoungerversionsoffiguresweknow
well but not allowingtheirperformancesto be
defined by established incarnations. Are we con-
vincedthat, yes, this is what Gertrudeand Clau-
dius were like before we cameto knowthemin
“Hamlet’’?On that scoreand every other, MacCluggage
succeeds marvelously well.Her exquisitely con-
trolled performance, subtle yet intensely expres-
sive, givesus a Gertrudeprecariously balanced
between restraint and desire.And when Ger-
trude yields to the latter and embarks on an affair
with Claudius, MacCluggage makes sure that we
see the action as part of her larger effort to bring
meaning to a life longcircumscribedby an ar-
ranged marriage and estrangement fromher
moody son.
Alexander, too, soundsClaudius to his depths,
revealingtraces of kid-brotherinsecurity and the
needfor validation that lies beneath Claudius’s
braggadocio,swagger, and sexual confidence.
Crucially, Alexanderand MacCluggage generate
considerable heat in their scenes together, even
before Gertrudeand Claudiushave so muchas
embraced. We believe in the force of the mutual
attraction between this pair, whoselove will
eventually yield so muchtragedy.
Though“Gertrude and Claudius’’ takes a
while to findits footing, and its refractions
throughthe St. Germain-Updike-Shakespeare
prism cast an uncertain light at times, the play
does an admirable job illuminating the complexi-
ty, tangledmotives, and poignant journey of Ger-
trude, in particular. She is shortchanged in
“Hamlet,’’ so it’s satisfying to see her finally get
her due.Don Aucoin canbe reachedat
[email protected]. Follow himon
Twitter@GlobeAucoinIllustrator, book artist, and printmaker Barry
Moser delights in beasts and monsters. “Barry
Moser: The Storied Artist,” the latest exhibition
at Bromer Gallery, the space Bromer Booksellers
opened last year, glories in threading mythic im-
plications into fictional portraiture.
Moser, now 78, moved to Western Massachu-
setts from his home state of Tennessee in the late
1960s. He studied with Leonard Baskin, another
printmaker who captured monumental themes
in nuanced characterizations, and opened his
own print shop, Pennyroyal Press. He has illus-
trated more than 250 books, and is best known
for Pennyroyal’s special editions, such as “Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland,” “Frankenstein,” and
the King James Bible.
Adhering to traditional symbols for the evan-
gelists, Moser portrays Luke as an ox, John as an
eagle, Matthew as an angel, and Mark as a lion.
The last is a splendid woodcut. The lion’s noble
visage fills the frame; his eyes appear focused on
something beyond or above us. His mane reads
like radiant light and shadow. The wisdom in his
face made me think of Aslan, the Christ-like lion
in C.S. Lewis’s “The Chronicles of Narnia.”
“Cowardly Lion,” for an edition of “The Wiz-
ard of Oz,” is another sort altogether — nose in
the air, ears and maneflattened back in fear.
Looking like a bearded otter, he’d be goofy if he
weren’t so cowed. In contrast, the wood-en-
graved color prints of Frankenstein loom horrifi-
cally out of the darkness, corpselike and leering.
“Queen of Hearts” is a variation of Moser’s
“Alice in Wonderland” dowager sparked up with
color for “The Mother Goose Collection of Six
Limited Edition Prints.” Dear God, she’s a fright,
eyes askew, head looming over an oversize bow
and roses poking out beneath her crown as if
she’s the thorn.
Moser has a deft hand with watercolors, and
his “The Three Little Pigs” could be a snapshot of
6-year-olds joshing for the camera. One picks his
nose; another makes rabbit ears behind his
brother. Portrait illustrations must distill some
essence of the human experience. Moser knows
how face and gesture tell a story, and he is a mas-
ter storyteller.
Cate McQuaid can be reached at catemcquaid@
gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @cmcq.
ByJon Caramanica
NEWYORKTIMES
When it comes to joy in hip-hop, Chance
the Rapper has a stranglehold.
Rapping in a high-pitched ribbit, he has
become one of hip-hop’s signature stars of the
2010s by enthusiastically following a path
others rarely even peek down: jubilation, ec-
stasy, positivity, glee. It’s in his subject matter,
and it’s in his delivery — an indefatigable be-
lief in the power of positive rapping.
Chance, 26, got married in March, and
large swaths of his new album, “The Big Day,”
are devoted to the joys of wedded life, a topic
that has madefor very little worthwhile mu-
sic. The pains of divorce, the wounds of be-
trayal, the clouds of mistrust — rich muses, all
of them. But pure marital bliss is challenging
to render as richly textured.
In places here, Chance achieves that with
his musical selections; his palette is broad. “I
Got You (Always and Forever)” has the swing
of the early 1990s — Heavy D, the “Living Sin-
gle” theme song, and so on — and Chance
opens with an early Busta Rhymesflow pat-
tern. The excellent “Ballin Flossin” takes a
sample of Brandy’s “I Wanna Be Down” and
jostles it into an up-tempo house record.
“Found a Good
One (Single No
More)” lays gos-
pel overtones
atop a founda-
tion of Miami
bass.
This is
Chance’s real
provocation on
this album:
suggesting that
the samemedi-
ums that trans-
mit sin might
also transmit
salvation. Often
his touchstone
is the hybrid
gospel-pop of
artists like Kirk
Franklin and
Tye Tribbett.
Add to that a
lyrical approach that emphasizes cleverness
in rhyme, and sometimes the result leansto-
ward the tightly wound thrill ride of musical
theater.
Take “Eternal,” which sounds like a home-
workassignment a couples therapist might
give someone who’s gone outside the mar-
riage for comfort: “Sidechicks can’t take out
splinters/ Side chicks make they Kool-Aid
with Splenda.” “Hot Shower” has a rumble of
a beat, but its boasts — “I’m all professional
and proper/ But my babymama stopped me
in a meeting/ Just to Airdrop me somenudes”
— aren’t aspirational so much as taunting.
“The Big Day” is Chance’s fourth full-
length release, and though he has made a
point of referring to it as his debut album, it
feels no more fleshed out than “Coloring
Book,” from 2016 (which won the Grammy
for best rap album), and is less sonically con-
sistent than “Acid Rap,” from 2013. And it’s
less impressive than eitherof them. At 22
tracks, it’s overlong and scattered.
And while it features some impressive
guest appearances — a pugnacious DaBaby
on “Hot Shower,” the nimble Smino on “Eter-
nal” — it also includes somelikely first-time
hip-hop collaborations — Death Cab for Cutie
on “Do You Remember,” CocoRosieon “Roo,”
Randy Newman on “5 Year Plan” — that may-
be didn’t need to happen. (On “Zanies and
Fools,” the sungintro manages a better New-
man than Newman himself; it’s one of the al-
bum’s standout bits.)
When Chance is at his most ecstatic, he of-
ten cuts his lines short, interrupts himself,
leans on the primal energy of how he enunci-
ates his syllables. But sometimes he allows
himself to wallow, and his talents look differ-
ent when darkened by shadows.
On this album, the most striking lyrical
moment — the one that makes best use of his
gift for unlikely rhyme and his penchant for
thick storytelling — is the most somber. “We
Go High” is the story of how Chance almost
didn’t get what he wanted, how he got in his
own way on the path to joy. The mood is glum
and resigned, but that means that Chance
can’t rely on his own liveliness. He opens the
song holding a knife to his own chest:
Lies on mybreath, shesay she couldn’t
take the smell of it
Tired of the rumors, everyroomhada ele-
phant
Trynafind her shoes, rummaging through
theskeletons
Shetook awaysex, took meoutof myele-
ment
I tried to do the single-dadmingle-dance
At the club with theiron in mywrinkled
pants
You could fall much fasterthan you think
youcan
It’s clear-eyed and convincing — not the
wide-eyed boasts of unchallenged love, but
the downcast acceptance of a love you have to
fight for. It’s entrancing enough to make you
wonder what his divorce album might sound
like.ALBUMREVIEWChance the Rapper’s‘Big Day’ is thesound of a happilymarriedman‘Gertrude and Claudius’ castsa different light on ‘Hamlet’STAGE REVIEWGERTRUDEANDCLAUDIUS
Play by Mark St. Germain
Basedon the novel by John Updike
Directedby JulianneBoyd
Presentedby BarringtonStageCompany.
At Boyd-QuinsonMainstage,Pittsfield.
ThroughAug.3. Tickets $15-$65.413-236-8888,
http://www.barringtonstageco.orgDANIELRADERKate MacCluggage
andElijah Alexander
star in “Gertrude
andClaudius.”TIMOTHY HIATT/GETTYIMAGESBeasts, monsters, and
a master artistic storyteller
BARRY MOSER:THESTORIEDARTIST
At Bromer Gallery, 607 Boylston St.,
throughAug.16. 617-247-2818,
http://www.bromer.comGALLERIES| CATEMCQUAID
Clockwisefromleft: “TheThree
LittlePigs,” “Gospelof Mark,”
“CowardlyLion,” and“Queenof
Hearts”by Barry Moser.