By JOANNE BRIANA-GARTNER
It’s the shoulder season on Cape Cod, and while it’s no secret that fall on the Cape is equally as enjoyable as summer, it still holds true that there are fewer visitors about, a fact that may free up the crowd-averse for some outings.
Cultural venues know this and in response have new stage productions opening in September and October or have special exhibits that continue well into fall to give those who may not have had the opportunity to visit during their busy summer a chance to come out.
Opening this weekend, Ruthe Lew will direct Neil Simon’s “The Sunshine Boys” at the Eventide Theatre Company in Dennis from September 15 through 25. The play stars Barry Lew, Ari Lew, Cara Gerardi, Doug Sivco and Cleo Zani and tells the story of two legendary comedians who fervently dislike each other in real life and are brought together for a reunion and revival of their famous act.
“The Sunshine Boys” was successfully adapted into a feature film of the same name. The 1975 movie starred George Burns and Walter Matthau.
The Cotuit Center for the Arts will stage Frederick Knott’s thriller “Wait Until Dark” from September 22 through October 9 in its Morton and Vivian Sigel Black Box Theater.
The play follows Suzy, a blind woman left alone in her apartment who becomes embroiled with a group of con men hatching an elaborate scam. As the tension notches up, Suzy is left to fend for herself, but with the phone line cut dead and the house plunged into darkness, can she outwit the murderous visitors?
The intimate setting of the black box theater should heighten the drama in this already tense play that was made into a 1967 film starring Audrey Hepburn and is still often ranked as one of the top 100 scariest films of all time.
Further along this fall, the Falmouth Theatre Guild will present “Bridges of Madison County,” a musical based on Robert James Walker’s 1992 bestselling novel. The musical opened on Broadway in 2014 and won a Tony for Best Original Score. This story too is perhaps best known in its film version, which featured Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep. The 1995 film, while not a musical, still tells of the intense affair between an itinerant photographer and a lonely midwestern housewife.
The Falmouth Theatre Guild will stage its production at Highfield Theatre from October 21 through November 6, under the artistic direction of Joan McKenzie-Baird.
While not new this fall, there’s a good chance many people have not yet been out to some of the local cultural institutions with special exhibits up this season. Fall is your chance to go.
First stop is the Cahoon Museum of American Art, which has assembled the world-class scrimshaw exhibit “Scrimshaw: The Whaler’s Art,” on view through October 30. The exhibit takes up three rooms on the museum’s first floor and includes more than 250 objects.
This not-to-be-missed exhibit was made possible through the efforts of guest curator Dr. Alan Granby of Hyannis Port. Objects were borrowed from 15 private collections and seven museums for the show. With the downtime caused by the pandemic, Dr. Granby was able to produce a beautiful 376-page hardcover catalogue for the show, “Wandering Whalemen and Their Art: A Collection of Scrimshaw Masterpieces,” with many of the items in the catalogue photographed at actual size.
Sarah Johnson, executive director at the Cahoon, described scrimshaw as “an American art form, unique to the whaling industry.”
When you consider that the sailors onboard whaleships did not think themselves to be artists and that the circumstances under which they created scrimshaw were at best challenging—cramped quarters, the rolling deck of a whaleships under sail, rationed food and more—the beauty of their creations and their attention to detail are all the more astonishing.
“The Ship Charles of London Whaling,” circa 1850s by the scrimshander known only as the Brittania Engraver, is on view at the Cahoon Museum of American Art as part of “Scrimshaw: The Whaler’s Art.”
Ms. Johnson described the show as a good fit for the museum because of its relevance to the local history and its relationship to folk art. “For people who like history it’s art and it’s history; for kids too, it’s fun do describe the objects to them and to have them think about being out at sea for several years—no cellphones!” she said.
The variety of objects in this show is astonishing, from traditional etchings on whale teeth to doll cribs, walking sticks, baskets, rolling pins, dippers, candlesticks, hammers, checkerboard pieces and more. Scrimshaw artists were resourceful and talented, creating items that could be used onboard ships as well as others meant for loved ones back home on land.
In addition to the scrimshaw exhibit on the first floor of the museum, there are still two more weeks to view the upstairs exhibit, “Mark Perry, Inspirations Past and Present.”
A folk art sculptor, Mr. Perry currently resides in Rhode Island but grew up on Nantucket, where he was inspired by scrimshaw, especially by the form of the crimper, a tool used for making pies consisting of a handle and a small rotating wheel. His large wooden sculptures, often in the shape of dogs and fish, were also inspired by weathervanes. “He’s self-taught, figuring things out on his own, much like the scrimshaw artists,” Ms. Johnson said.
“Donald Stoltenberg: Building His World” is on view at the Cape Cod Museum of Art through October 2. Featuring an accomplished artist who made his home in Brewster for 50 years before his death in 2016, the show is a major retrospective of Mr. Stoltenberg’s work. What visitors to the museum will notice straightaway is that Mr. Stoltenberg’s focus is on buildings, trains, boats, airplanes and industry, not the natural landscape so often elevated by the majority of the area’s artists.
“The wonders of manmade structure, that was what enchanted him,” said Deborah Forman, who guest-curated the exhibit.
Representational images with abstract elements, exaggerated angles, triangles, shapes and refracted light highlight Mr. Stoltenberg’s prints and paintings. The artist was an avid traveler who loved going on cruises, and one entire room features his renditions of boats: sailboats, cruise ships, ferries and more.
His large collection of travel logs and sketchbooks were given to the Brewster Ladies Library, and many of them are on display with the exhibit. Every page is filled with drawings of boats, city streets, church spires, archways, gears, clock faces and more. Sometimes several drawings are on a page, tiny exquisite thumbnail-sized sketches.
Paintings of Cape houses, a landscape with a distant Provincetown Monument and an abstracted view of Nobska Light are on display with cityscapes and structures from Paris, Italy and Germany along with subway stations, bridges and buildings in Boston.
“Having gotten close to his work and learning about him through his friends, I felt like he believed that these structures were his cathedrals, his places of worship,” said Benton Jones, director of the museum, adding that Mr. Stoltenberg did create a number of church and cathedral images; in one he even incorporates the scaffolding surrounding the under-renovation building. “He just had such a love of structure,” Mr. Jones said.
Two major donations to the museum of Mr. Stoltenberg’s work have resulted in the Cape Cod Museum of Art now having the largest collection of the artist’s work and the museum is looking for ways to advance the artist’s reputation among the public, possibly by creating a traveling exhibit. “Almost everything you see in this exhibition is owned by the museum,” Mr. Benton said. “We really do have the best of his work.”
Another must-see show is “Innovators in Glass,” which is on view at the Sandwich Glass Museum through October 30.
The ancient art of glass blowing, especially as it pertained to The Boston & Sandwich Glass Company and Cape Cod Glass Works, is well-represented at the museum with permanent exhibits and demonstrations, but the museum also seeks to promote contemporary glass art and artists, some of whom are breaking the glass ceiling, if you’ll pardon the pun, on what glass art can accomplish.
Glass infused with colored gases, glass threads used to “paint” an image, traditional vase forms bisected by glass disks and blown glass so fine it looks like threads of saffron are just a few of the cutting-edge methods being created, perfected and employed by these artists.
If you think you know contemporary art because you’ve seen a Dale Chihuly show, think again.
More than a dozen large-scale sculptures by members of the Boston Sculptors Gallery are on display on the grounds of Highfield Hall & Gardens through October 30. The display is part of the museum’s 30th anniversary celebration and includes innovative works using 3D printing, glow-in-the-dark objects and recycled plastic as well as more traditional materials used to create thought-provoking works.
The grounds at Highfield can be visited anytime during daylight hours, and now that it’s fall, it’s not too hot to enjoy a leisurely walk.