The Amateurs: The Play, the Plague and A Lot More

Today we took a drive to the campus of Hampshire College in South Amherst to go back in time.  In ‘The Amateurs,’ a Silverthorne Theater production, the setting is the fourteenth century…and the Black Death pandemic.

A troupe of pageant players makes their way from village to village, putting on plays and bringing with them the masked seven deadly sins–except one.  That one makes his ghostly appearance later on.  We watch them performing and then living their lives as actors on the road, with the usual romances that lead one of them to get pregnant. By the wrong member of the troupe.

Later, the troupe feels lucky when they get to perform for the esteemed Duke of Travo. One of my favorite characters was Brom (Caleb Koval), who also played the snooty liege to the Duke himself, explaining that the Duke does not see anyone. “He will watch your performance through a brick removed from the wall, just like a prisoner staring out of a hole in his cell,” he explained.

This part is straightforward, and at times, almost slapstick, with the characters popping out expletives, and brandishing sticks with heads on top that speak, while wearing funny wigs. The troupe isn’t full of great actors so they have to make do, and their play-in-the-play is performed in rhyme.  Valley veteran Sam Samuels, who I loved in Silverthorne’s production of The Mystery of Irma Veep plays multiple roles and got some laughs as Envy, one of the troupe’s muses.

The troupe’s portable set was an ark, as demonstrated by the rolling drawings of pairs of animals and the crude wooden wheels that it rolls on. It was Noah’s Ark, and the story the troupe was performing involved the stubborn Noah’s wife (Sabine Denise Jacques), who famously doesn’t want to join the two-by-twos walking up the ramp to get on the Ark. Nope, she’s gonna pass. But God won’t have it, he’s played by the same actor (Ryan Caster) who plays Larking. He fights the notion that the wife isn’t going to join Noah, and finally, she submits in the rhyming verse.

Then the characters begin jumping through the fourth wall, when the play’s author himself appears by stripping off his peasant costume to explain what happened during his sixth-grade health class with Mr. Goldsworth, veering suddenly back into the 21st century.  Jordan Harrison, the author of this acclaimed 2018 play, is playing himself when he jumps in here, but he reverts back to Gregory (Patrick Toole) when we return to the 14th century.

Jordan continues his interesting monologue about how his gay teacher influenced his life, and now that they were all headed for the terrible torrent of the AIDS epidemic, his own life as a gay man was greatly changed. We continue into this distraction for a while, until fellow actor Hollis (Sabine Denise Jacques) hijacks the hijacker and begins her leap through that fourth wall, telling us about a play she was in when SHE was in grade school. Something, no, a lot, about being Mrs Crachet in the school production of The Christmas Carol.

These diversions were a bit longer than I would have liked. Director Gina Kauffmann, a Silverthorne veteran who directed the fabulous play ‘The Cake‘ a few years ago, otherwise let the actors go and the pace never let up. I was glad to jump back to the original narrative when the troupe finished their performance for the duke with a sudden medical emergency…Rona was having a baby. This scene was poignant, an interesting element of drama in a mostly comedic show.

One critic, David Flanagan, wrote this about Harrison’s script.  “The play engages with the medium of the stage in a way few have before it, and despite a tonally odd ending, the audience is left with a good deal to think about at the end of the day. “The Amateurs” has something important to say, even if it isn’t quite sure how to say it.”

This is Silverthorne’s 11th season in the Valley, and they have grown from a Greenfield/Franklin County troupe to now bringing shows to the Hampshire College Theater and other locations in Hampden and Hampshire Counties for the 2025 season.

The Amateurs, at Emily Dickinson Hall, Hampshire College by Silverthorne Theatre. Thursday 6/19 at 7:30 PM, Friday 6/20 at 7:30 PM, Saturday 6/21 at 7:30 PM, and Sunday 6/22 at 2:00 PM. Tickets. Directed by Gina Kaufmann, written by Jordan Harrison, and the Assistant Director is Ezekiel Baskin.