These ‘Amateurs’ are anything but: Comedy, tragedy and pandemic tell relatable tale in Silverthorne Theater’s latest production

In Silverthorne Theater Company’s latest production, Jordan Harrison’s “The Amateurs,” a deft cast nimbly weaves their way through a complicated but comedic script with COVID-era resonance.

The show follows a group of actors in 14th-century Europe who travel around with a large wooden wagon, which serves as a stage, performing Christian morality plays like “Noah’s Flood” and “The Seven Deadly Sins.” As they go, they have to deal with backstage interpersonal squabbles and artistic differences – and, of course, the ever-present threat of the Black Plague. Even so, it is still a very funny comedy – picture a medieval take on “The Play That Goes Wrong,” with more layers and more poignancy.

The show, which opened last Friday, has its second and final weekend at Hampshire College’s Mainstage Theater from Thursday, June 19, through Saturday, June 21, at 7:30 p.m., and on Sunday, June 22, at 2 p.m.

An overarching theme of the show are the parallels between the Black Plague and the AIDS crisis, in the same way that “The Crucible” is about both the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism. Of course, a play produced in 2025 about even one pandemic, let alone two, would make audiences draw connections to COVID-19.

While the production team didn’t intend to make the modern-day parallels overt, “there can’t not be” those connections, said director Gina Kaufmann. “We just went through it.” (Though it’s purely a coincidence – the show was first performed in 2018 – one character in the play is even named “Rona.”)

“It’s in our psyche now, and we, the creators, know that it will resonate, and there’s no need or desire to push that, because it’s simply there,” she said.

One character has to watch the troupe perform through a hole in a brick wall, bringing to mind the days of Zoom theater. Another character has to quarantine: “They say I’m poison for another week.” Another character can’t touch a relative, even as he dies in front of her. One character hides their sickness until a bone-chilling moment, causing another to exclaim, “You idiot, you’ve killed us all!”

“It shatters our ideas about the world that we’re in and the idea that we’re unique in our very scary time we’re living in, and shatters the idea that that was so different than now,” Kaufmann said.

“One of the big, big themes that we’re exploring is: What is the purpose, if any, of art when everything around us feels like it’s falling apart? And I think that this is something that modern audiences can really connect with, having all of us gone through what we did just a few short years ago,” said Ryan Caster, who plays Larking. “In recent years, it’s been easy to view art as this indulgence that, ‘Oh, we’ll get to [it] if we’ve got time, but we’ve got bigger fish to fry right now,’ but this play really digs into that.”

Larking, the head of the troupe, is arrogant – in the show-within-the-show, he plays God, a role he cast himself in – and often unkind, finding fault in just about everyone, minus himself. When Physic, played by Sam Samuels, dryly notes, “Who needs the rest of us? You may as well play all the parts,” Larking, not realizing the sarcasm, responds, “You don’t know how long I’ve considered it.”

Caster said that the rehearsal process allowed him to more thoroughly understand Larking’s multidimensionality. Over the course of the show – no spoilers – Larking has to contend with leading his actors through so much professional and personal uncertainty in the wake of grief.

“While at first he seemed somewhat one-dimensional, there is a multifaceted, complex character underneath,” Caster said. “Even though he’s not always particularly good at showing it, there’s always a sense of deep love and care for this found family that he has created around this troupe.”

On one side of the stage is the troupe’s wooden wagon; on the opposite side are three undefined set pieces draped in white cloth, forebodingly stark against the black stage floor. Those, Kaufmann said, could represent rocks and/or dead bodies – accurate to what the troupe would have passed regularly as they journeyed through the countryside.

The show doesn’t have crew members to do the set and costume changes – the actors do it all themselves, which is uncommon in theater but deliberate for this production.

“I didn’t want anybody else on stage,” said Kaufmann. “They are alone in their world, period.”

Yet “their world” shifts in an unusual way. The play involves a few significant pivots in tone between comedy and tragedy; there are also a number of fourth-wall breaks, most notably in a long, unexpected scene in which two characters (again, no spoilers) address the audience with monologues about acting choices, playwriting and a childhood perception of the AIDS epidemic. The scene even includes an impromptu art lesson – complete with actors wearing sandwich boards – about the way that the notion of “the individual” developed in art from the Byzantine era through the late Renaissance.

The play is unconventional, to be sure, but that was what Kaufmann wanted.

“I’m interested in finding that line where we’re entertaining and we’re pushing boundaries, so we’re not doing Neil Simon’s ‘The Odd Couple,’ but we’re also not doing the most avant-garde stuff that’s out there,” she said. “We’re finding this sort of work that we think that people can really connect with and perhaps be challenged by, excited in a sort of curiosity-driven way, like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you could do that! Oh, wow!’

“Some people might love that and some people might be uncomfortable with it and some people might not like it, but I hope that most people find their way in, and I certainly did my best to make choices that allowed for the story to be accessible and clear,” she said.

The character Hollis, played by Sabine Denise Jacques, undergoes a reckoning through the course of the show: Specifically, she has to figure out, over and over again, the answers to the question, “Why?”

Why does her character, known only as “Noah’s Wife,” not have a first name? Why does Noah’s Wife not want to get on the ark? Why do the dead of Black Plague-era Europe have to be treated with such indignity?

And why – with the Flood or the Black Plague or any other mass death – does God allow people to die?

The script examines potential answers for each, but it doesn’t make definitive conclusions about them.

“I think Hollis connects to a lot of us,” Jacques said. “We’re all asking the ‘why’ question. I think Hollis is so curious, which I really appreciate, and the more that we can lean into curiosity, the more we can humanize ourselves and we can humanize each other.”

After all, Jacques pointed out, even after the troupe receives a particular setback, “they are still together, they are still connected, and they are still making their lives feel purposeful by being connected.”

Though “The Amateurs” is primarily a comedy, it’s also not easily categorized. It’s tragic and human and heartfelt, and the cast puts on a solid performance through its twists and turns. None of us is likely to forget the pandemic anytime soon – especially since many people argue it’s still ongoing – but theater like this can help process our collective memory of it through a historical context. The players themselves may be “Amateurs,” but Silverthorne has put on a show that is anything but.

Tickets to “The Amateurs” are $25 general admission, $40 pay-it-forward, $20 for seniors and people 25 and under, and $15 for students, not including fees, via Eventbrite. Card to Culture tickets are available. Masks are available for free at the box office.

The cast of “The Amateurs” includes Ryan Caster as Larking, Sabine Denise Jacques as Hollis, Cáleb Koval as Brom, Sam Samuels as Physic, Mayte Sarmiento as Rona and Patrick Toole as Gregory.

Carolyn Brown can be reached at [email protected].