| Lady Caroline Bramble, performed by Beth Morgan (left), looks on as Costanza, performed by Amanda Leverenz (middle), chats with Mrs. Graves, performed by Patricia Rudes (right). (Photos: Enoch Wu/Sentinel-Tribune) |
Just as cold weather is about to begin, the Black Swamp Players step up to give
audiences a vision of "wisteria and sunshine" on the Italian seacoast.
"Enchanted April" opens with Lotty Wilton (Sharon Esper) telling a fable
about a man who plants his walking stick to mark where he wants to plant a tree
only to find it has become the tree with a single blossom.
We learn much later in the action the source of this story, which Lotty, as is her
wont, has embellished. The fable establishes in a paragraph the theme that the
play explores over the course of two-plus hours.
The Players are staging the Matthew Barber play, based on a novel by Elizabeth Von
Armin, opening Friday and continuing weekends through Sept. 30 at 2 p.m. in
First United Methodist Church in Bowling Green.
Directed by Willard Misfeldt, the sentimental comedy finds two British women, just a
few years after the end of World War I, in a ladies club. Both are restive,
uncertain of the direction of their lives, though only Lotty will admit as much
about herself. She’s also quick to see through the pious Rose Arnott (Crystal
Soto) whom she’s observed in church and thinks of as "a disappointed
Madonna."
| Mellersh Wilton (performed by Steven Becker) talks to his wife Lotty Wilton (performed by Sharon Esper) at the dinner table. |
| Mrs. Graves, performed by Patricia Rudes (left) makes amends with Costanza, performed by Amanda Leverenz (right). |
Both happen to be attracted to an advertisement in the London Times about a castle on
the Italian seacoast for rent in April.
It is ideal, the advertisement says, "for those who appreciate wisteria and
sunshine."
Lotty decides she and Rose, whom she barely knows, should rent the place and go there
together, leaving their troublesome spouses behind.
She persists despite Rose’s reservations.
Those spouses Mellersh Wilton (Steven Becker) and Frederick Arnott (Nate Miller) are
a contrasting pair.
Mellersh is a rigid, distant prig. Quite fascinated with rimming his moustache, who
would never think of picking up his own newspaper. Frederick is a writer – the
men in the play, even Mellersh, are all artistic – who has turned from poetry to
writing under a pseudonym racy potboilers his wife doesn’t approve of.
When the price of villa proves more costly than the ladies can afford they place
their own advertisement to find other women to join them, and that means they
end up with two absolutely mismatched companions – the socialite Lady Caroline
Bramble (Beth Morgan) whose romantic exploits are fodder for the newspapers and
the elderly widow Mrs. Graves (Patricia Rudes), who clings to tradition and
regime as she does to her walking stick.
Toss in the landlord Antony Wilding (Patrick Drummond), a painter, and the caretaker
Costanza (Amanda Leverenz) who only speaks in Italian.
After the first act establishes the plot and the characters, all arrive in their
fashion on the vividly rendered villa, where secrets are revealed and tensions
resolved.
In the castle, Lotty’s bubbly personality finds the atmosphere it needs to blossom,
and her enthusiasm eventually shines on her fellow travelers.
They are portrayed by a cast full of new or not recently seen faces for the Players,
which hints at a springtime for the venerable troupe.
Having Rudes, a veteran of many area productions including shows at the now defunct
Ms. Rose’s, on stage in Bowling Green is a treat. She makes Mrs. Graves at once
formidable yet with a distinct comic edge.
She along with everyone else, save maybe the volatile Costanza, blossom in the
presence of all that wisteria and sunshine that "Enchanted April"
provides.
