For such a grim play, Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” (the temperature at which books burn) has a delightful and witty finish with Tolstoy and Aristotle and Dostoevsky and Lewis Carroll and Emily Bronte and others milling about, and shaking hands with each other in some woodsy retreat. “Call me Ishmael,” Melville says, introducing himself to Poe, a newcomer. These readers have escaped to “tell and remember books,” to memorize great works, preserving them like Irish monks in a shattered world. Bradbury wrote the novel (from which the film and, later, the play derived) in the early 1950s, setting it for 40 years hence. The play opens in a city where firemen burn books. Millay on Monday. Faulkner on Friday. And so on. There are no children, no schools, no safe places to walk, no lights, no news, no long chatty evenings. And no books. Books are about knowledge; and as Beatty the fire chief (Andrew Joffe) says, “There is nothing worth knowing.” Fire, we are told, fire is the answer to everything. Fire, and pills, and alcohol, and marathon sports coverage, and reality shows and 20-second news briefs on walls and walls of television in everyone’s home (keep in mind this was written 50-plus years ago). And then there is Beatty’s never-seen killing machine, the hellhound he names Baskerville. “He runs in beauty like the night,” Beatty says — risking riffs on Conan Doyle and Lord Byron. Director Thomas Gruenewald and his cast have made very exciting theater out of a very talky play. It is Beatty who delivers Bradbury’s complaints about crummy literature, news with no substance, poisoned English, mangled grammar and life without substance or philosophy. And he delivers a discomfitting account of how minorities (and he lists many, from blacks and women to second-generation Chinese) have wrung the controversy and sting out of literature leaving us with gossip, sex and comic books (and Texas edition school texts, Bradbury might have added). Those who do not aim for this Norman Rockwell world are expelled, he is saying, leaving pap for the rest. Joffe, irresolute, even diffident in roles at Aglet Theatre, makes a striking character of Beatty: furious, sometimes sly and always riveting. He steals the whole works from Montag (Christopher Vecchia) a young fireman who carries Bradbury’s novel and film. Montag starts questioning his life when he meets Clarisse (Alexandra Lincoln). She drinks rainwater as it falls from the sky and lives in a house with lights and stays up late to talk and asks questions. Clearly a subversive, and subversives disappear. She is in danger. And Montag, moved and awake, is too. With sirens whining, planes overhead, the snorting, bone-cracking hound, and terrific lighting, Gruenewald and his actors have created an eerie awful world in New Stage’s upstairs theater in Pittsfield. A world, Bradbury says, in true sci-fi tradition, that we can work our way out of. If we escape. And if we dare. “Fahrenheit 451,” directed by Thomas Gruenewald, with Sam Craig, Eric Cicchetti, Andrew Joffe, Alexandra Lincoln, Kristine Waterman, Gail Ryan, Mary Therese Valleri and Jeffrey Kent, runs at the New Stage Performing Arts Center, 55 North St. in Pittsfield, MA, through April 17. Tickets: 413-418-0999.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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