Karen Allen Photo by Caelan Carlough

Designer Alexander Woodward's two level set is nothing short of sumptuous. A bathroom, large bed, and tree branches comprise three upper portions. Beneath, there's a door and behind it a staircase, most of a kitchen with table, and the third lower component includes a refrigerator and an outdoors scene.

Older Billy (David Garrison), a dentist, opens the show by explaining that teeth enable an individual's legacy. We learn later that he as young Billy (Shawn Fagan) was motivated to make a decent living and chose to open his own practice. Younger Maggie, a role taken by Rebecca Brooksher, gets a part time job as a librarian. She and William want a house but, more desperately, a child.

As playwright Morgan adroitly unveils the story, we discover that the seventy-something Maggie hasn't been well even if she is stoic and forthright. Maggie and Billy spend much of their time on stage (this four-hander lasts an hour and twenty minutes) coming to terms with Maggie's mortality. She forges a plan for her husband beyond her own lifetime but he balks. The characters are from Great Britain but they now reside in the United States.

A portion of the author's genius rests in her ability to show how older selves acknowledge an earlier time together without sentimentality but with care and recognition. The play's characters when young were not beyond contesting issues through quarrels. Unable to conceive a child of their own, they came to be closer to a neighbor's boy.

There is a precious moment when Maggie and her younger version actually meet. Their compassionate hug is genuine and its authenticity speaks for itself. Director David Auburn helps create a balance which is delicately successful, not overbearing.

Auburn is better known as the award-winning playwright of Proof. He has directed many, many Berkshire Theatre Group productions and his touch with this show is one of empathy and understanding. Movement director Isadora Wolfe, a trained dancer and choreographer, becomes pivotal as the actors sublimely stroll in and around without a trace of pretense. It is all artful and honest. The multiple threads of this story are individual but they interweave as well.

All four actors are both disciplined and, at the same time, natural in their roles. There aren't any rough edges: the performers do become their characters. Karen Allen, with her long, glowing list of film triumphs, is the most famous of the group. As a young star she had, and still has, a distinctive, warm, winsome, illuminating smile, which is memorable. Some might recall it from a movie as famous as Raiders of the Lost Ark. One of her lesser known, intimate portrayals was as Laura Wingfield in the film version of The Glass Menagerie, directed by Paul Newman. That exquisite performance lives on. David Garrison has been nominated for Tony and Drama Desk awards. He has acted on and Off Broadway, at many regionals and on a number of TV series. Rebecca Brooksher returns to BTG and collaborates with David Auburn for the ninth time. She, too, has various credits in New York, throughout New England on the regional stage as well. Shawn Fagan has been featured in Berkshire Theatre Group shows previously, at other regionals, in New York City, and on TV, too.

Abi Morgan is an award-winning Welsh playwright and screenwriter. Lovesong is not often produced in the United States. It is a unique, tender, lyrical look into a four-decade marriage. Time, impossible to quantify, is at question and that just might bid an observer to muse upon the passage of decades. Morgan is writing about survival, but also about possibility, too, and the durability of a relationship.

Lovesong runs through August 29, 2026, at Berkshire Theatre Group, Unicorn Theatre, 6 East St. Stockbridge, MA. For tickets and information, please visit BerkshireTheatreGroup.org or call 413-997-4444.