Directing

From Berkshire Edge:

“Keira Naughton has directed this new play with a strong sense of impossible reality, which keeps it an interesting, real, and moving drama that just avoids potential melodrama. She has given us good theatre here.”

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“It is a strong measure of Bonds’ writing and especially Keira Naughton’s unassuming direction that none of this tips into melodrama… As the play ends, with the sun coming up on a new and challenging day, Birk’s Rudy delivers in a poignant monologue a deeply affecting moment of clarity and expression of loss — of so many things on so many levels — that evolves, when the boys emerge, into a moment of goodbyes and greetings — soft, unsentimental, real, human.” The Berkshire Eagle

“This is the sort of play we need more of right now. It deals with universal concepts and universal moments in the lives of 21st-century families, families that are expanding the meaning of the word “family.” It is a play that cries out for attention… that salivates over relationships and screams out reality and a demand for understanding. It is a sweet play about love and love’s demands. It’s the kind of play that brings me close in touch with my soul, my heartbreaks and my joys.” The Berkshire Edge

“The ensemble acting is superb. The fixed set — a standard, tired but tidy, 1980s Anywhere USA chain-motel room — by Juliana von Haubrich is perfect. Director Keira Naughton moves the four about in the room, well, just like four people sharing a motel room. Special kudos to lighting designer Matthew Adelson. In a lovely scene, he stunningly transforms the dead-of-night, dark motel room splashed with cold, bathroom light into a morning scene soaked in the warm glow of daybreak. Director Naughton wisely lets its play slowly; it’s a wonderful theatrical moment all in itself.” Broadway World

“The conversations amongst the four reveal elements of their pasts subtly without over-acted epiphanies. As they wend their way through fond and hurtful memories tempered by laughter, their fears and their love are palpable. This is to the credit of the cast and director Keira Naughton. She has effortlessly moved her actors into moments of apprehension and comfort while maintaining underlying tensions. Rudy’s digestive problems produce both laughter and compassion; Linda’s concern for the men in her now-extended family is always evident as she advises and shepherds them to acceptance of their various relationships. Felix, though he loves Jackson, is self-protective and Jackson finds the determination to follow his familial instincts by choosing adoption of his niece with or without Felix. All of these problems and their solutions are within the context of family life. Birk, Brabson, Espinosa and Pontrelli play their scenes and emotions with truth and understanding.” Berkshire Onstage

“Fortunately, Keira Naughton has come up with an ingenious way of staging the play. The father’s hospital bed remains unseen throughout the play. It appears to be located approximately just across the footlights toward where the audience is seated. As a result, though Gabe is speaking to this father, it has the effect that he is speaking directly to us, which allows for eye contact with the audience and direct address. In addition, the daughter Naughton has worked with set designer Hugh Landwehr to determine that less is more. The hospital room setting consists of essentially two visitors’ chairs, a floor lamp and a bedside table, yet this minimalism manages to create the sense of a sterile, somewhat modern hospital room. There is also the projection on the back wall of the room’s large window which, in a colorful abstract drawing, depicts a commanding view of downtown Los Angeles. As the play progresses, the view through that window becomes less specific, offering opaque views and multiply-colored views, which nonetheless convey both the brightness and the smogginess of life in LA…Father and daughter make a promising team and perhaps they will have additional opportunities to work together in the future. This appears to be Keira Naughton’s second professional directing experience, but it is delivered with some insight and intelligence.” Examiner.com

“Keira Naughton has done a fine job staging the piece. There isn’t a moment or a movement that feels out of place here. She has captured the nuance of relationship with a dead body whose mind may be alive but is not responsive. She has definitely shaped the pictures we see and the pace at which we discover things, the water bottle, the necktie, the nurses outside the hospital room’s door, never seen or heard, but noticed. This is an excellent example of what her talent, and her talented family, can achieve.” The Berkshire Edge

“Starring James Naughton and ably directed by his daughter, Keira Naughton, ‘Cedars’’ bristles with punchy one-liners. The playwright has a knack for vividly expressive, out-of-left-field imagery, such as this, on the nonstop demands of marriage: ‘It’s a working farm, not a petting zoo.’'” The Boston Globe

“With finely tuned direction by his daughter, Keira Naughton, he has let the audience experience a range of complex emotions.” Berkshirefinearts.com

“Naughton, two-time Tony Award winner, is directed by daughter Keira Naughton, who has already done some great acting and directing at Berkshire Theatre Group.…Keira Naughton, aided by Hugh Landwehr’s set which provides a compact playing space on the large Fitpatrick Stage, gives “Cedars” a fast pace. Landwehr’s hospital room design, with an institutional feel but no hospital bed, tubes, or machines, gives the Naughtons a stage which is both a playing space and possibly the inner mind of Gabe. It takes incredible technique to pull off a one-person show. Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain, Julie Harris as Emily Dickinson, Jefferson Mays as Charlotte van Mahlsdorf, and Bette Midler as Sue Mengers, had the control, stamina, and depth to triumph onstage. James Naughton is simply brilliant.”  The Westfield News

https://thewestfieldnews.com/review-world-premiere-cedars-berkshire-theatre-group/