We first meet Clea as she traipses into the great room of a sky-high Manhattan penthouse, enraptured by the “surreal” view. Looking on disdainfully are Charlie (Mark Montgomery), an actor who has been struggling to get cast lately, and his wing-man Lewis (La Shawn Banks).

In the world of theater, a gushing ingénue making a breathless entrance is something that has been seen before, to put it mildly. Charlie for one is not impressed. 

In short order, though, we sense there may be more to this young woman, and these men, than first appears. As it happens, the party is in the home of an actor-writer on the rise, and his older, wealthy patron. Charlie is there hoping to rub shoulders with him, and maybe get a role in his new production.

Clea (Deanna Myers blazes in the role) is on a similar mission – though at this point in her career she is less certain about how things will play out. She is also a font of inanity – “Food is, like, disgusting to me,” she avers, claiming never to eat. “Most things people put in their mouths, it is totally just like eating death. Someone proved that eating is killing people." 

Charlie and Lewis are agape at Clea. Charlie clearly finds her exaggerated pronouncements aversive, while Lewis nods and puts on about the phoniest show of interest imaginable - miming that attraction men sometimes feel despite (or perhaps because of) knowing better.  

Poured into snug-fitting couture and clearly master of her heels, Clea reads, accurately, the mocking tone in Charlie’s desultory conversation. When he asks her how the view can be “surreal,” sparks begin to fly in what turns out to be a harbinger of later romance.   

This is also the first inkling we have that Clea is more femme fatale than ingénue.  She vacillates from helpless to heated. In due course, she reveals a grab-bag of information about herself, and observations on life in general. Her mother is an alcoholic, so she doesn’t drink. People are just not "awake" to life.  

She has recently arrived from Ohio hoping to make her break in New York. She eventually asks for that vodka – just this one time – and becomes even more voluble. Clea reveals she has applied for a position on a television production team – and does a send-up of the woman who interviewed her, describing a “Nazi priestess” of talent bookings, by the name of Stella. As it turns out, Stella is Charlie’s wife - and fatefully, the unrequited love of Lewis.

Clea came there intent on making an impression. And oh she does in Meyers’s super-charged performance. In later scenes, after she has vanquished Lewis, she moves on to seduce Charlie, ultimately triggering his downfall by overstaying a tryst - so the two get caught by Stella.

Charlie eventually ends up on the street, having cast aside his stable life with Stella. (The story line draws on Waugh's of Human Bondage, according to playwright Therese Rebeck.)

The couple was about to adopt a child. Perhaps the prospect of parenthood was too great a strain on Charlie. Fear of parenthood is a classic romance killer, but under Kimberly Seniors direction we are witness to Charlie's action, but not his motivation. Stella also is a bit of a caricature, slipping into Spanish when her blood gets boiling.  Lewis, meanwhile, has played this marriage's third wheel from the opening scene, defending Stella against critiques. The trio has a reasonable chemistry in scenes, but Stella seems overplayed, and Lewis underplayed when they are alone together. 

As to Clea: Viper? Seductress? Ingénue? Trollop? Those old-fashioned words don’t quite apply, as Clea owns her sexuality, and is aware of where she is heading. She seems at once incisive, and empty-headed.

“How can you know so much and so little at the same time?” as Charlie asks.

Waugh’s classic, Of Human Bondage, was filmed three times. And The Scene was also made into a movie - Seducing Charlie Barker. 

In The Scene, the eventual affair with Clea leads to Charlie’s downfall, and his wife Stella’s departure, among other things. While the performance by Myers is captivating, and the chemistry between Stella (Charin Alvarez), Lewis and Charlie is convincing, I struggled to find empathy with anyone other than Clea – a rather villainous protagonist.

The glass and steel set is striking, and works really well through all the scenes. The furnishings were dead on, very Blue Dot Catalog. Likewise the costumes, down to the men's shoes.  Brian Sidney Bembridge did sets;  Nan Zabriskie costume; Sarah Hughey, lighting; Richard Woodbury, original music and sound design; and Scott Dickens handled props. 

Running through April 2 at the Writers Theatre in Glencoe, Illinois, The Scene comes recommended, especially to see Deanna Myers.

The lights come up as a dark-haired young, Latino - bloodied, bruised, battered -  launches  into an adrenaline-fueled monolog.  

Facing the audience, Abe (Gabe Ruiz) is talking a mile a minute to an unseen clerk in the wee hours at a convenience store. From the torrent we piece together clues - Abe has survived a harrowing event. 

From this opening, playwright Ike Holter toggles the audience between puzzlement and certainty as The Wolf at the End of the Block tells its story in increments. This high-energy thriller gradually unfolds details that at each bend make us re-examine what we thought we knew. 

Though serious and even tense, The Wolf is never dreary - the pace and light-hearted delivery, the playful banter of the characters, keep it from veering into a diatribe. These are people who manage to extract the joy and happiness when and where they find it, while  they can.  

The next morning we find Abe awaited by sister Miranda (Ayssette Muñóz) and boss Nunley (Bear Bellinger) at the restaurant where he works, since Abe did not come home last night. He arrives - more lucid but still in shock - and reveals he was attacked in a police bar in an anti-Hispanic hate crime. Ethnic slurs were hurled, fists flew.   

Holter takes us deeper: Miranda, a citizen journalist,  feeds this crime lead to Frida, renowned TV newscaster. After vetting Abe's recount, Frida decides she will run with the story. Sandra Marquez  delivers Frida as a savvy yet jaded reporter  - talking in a clip that seems to be ripped right out of The Front Page. The story passes muster as one that will work on TV. 

We follow as Holter digs even further:  the sister Miranda determines Abe has held back something from Frida - he was drinking more than he said and may have instigated the fight. Frida doesn't care; she will use the part of the story that works for the viewers. 

At another point, Nunley, Abe's African-American boss, reveals he has a tape of Abe that may show him stealing - we are never quite sure. We are with Nunley when he enounters the cop James (James Farrugio is perfectly sinister) who may have beaten Abe, and we share Nunley's fear and intimidation.  

Against the current  turbulent political landscape, the play also examines the role of facts in media, and how motive can affect which truth is revealed, or suppressed. 

Having its world premiere, Teatro Vista's The Wolf at the End of the Block is engrossing, well acted and well produced - and is readily recommended. Holter is considered an up and coming writer - at moments he shows a structure and even lyricism along with pragmatic realism. This is the kind of theater we want to see more of.  It runs through March 5 at the Victory Gardens Theatre.  

Trying to explain what Black Harlem's Renaissance was like is hard. The period was so rich in creative verve, you really have to show it while you tell it. It took me awhile to grasp what playwright Pearl Cleage has achieved - and director Ron OJ Parson has brought carefully to life -  in Court Theatre's Blues for an Alabama Sky.

In this beautifully polished production, we become familiar with the lives and aspirations of five denizens of the abundant cultural life enveloping New York's burgeoning black district in the 1920s and 1930s, driven by waves of aspiring new arrivals during the Great Migration from the South to the North. The period gives rise to the first jazz concert, to international musical superstars like Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller; to writers and thinkers like Marcus Garvey, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Claude McKay, who wrote the first bestseller by a black author. 

Cleage has fleshed out each of her characters - a doctor, a singer, a fashion designer, a social worker, and a carpenter - who are much more than archetypes. These are real people, each contributing a seminal thread to this tale. She has also set the timeline toward the end of that golden era, in 1930 after the market crash, as the Great Depression rolled in. 

The storyline seems surprisingly fresh, but it is true to its time: the protagonists here seem a mismatched couple - a flamboyant gay fashion designer Guy (Sean Parris), and his platonic love, Angel (Toya Turner), a gangsters' moll who tries but fails to make a living as a night club singer.  

Abandonedly outré, Guy has worked his way up from stitching gowns for cross dressers, to designing clothes on spec for Josephine Baker. The pair love and support each other as they pursue their dreams, but have no future as a couple; Angel is set on finding herself a big strong man who will take care of her, and pay the rent. Guy wants to make it in Paris.

Across the hall dwells the scholarly Delia (Celeste Cooper), who is launching the first family planning clinic in Harlem. A history lesson makes its way into the plot as the clinic is burned down. Some in the black community suspected efforts at setting up such clinics - led by Margaret Sanger - were really just part of a plot to reduce the black population. Carrying the torch for Delia is Sam, a medical doctor. James Vincent Meredith's performance gives Sam a steady, even temperament - abiding patience, and someone who is tolerant and nurturant. 

Conflict arises as Leland (Geno Walker) a widowed carpenter recently arrived from Alabama, falls for Angel. His ardor cools as he discovers he is not in Alabama anymore. In this Black Harlem, homosexuals are accepted; family planning is a matter of choice.

Each of these characters engenders our sympathy. And in the course of the action they live, die, move on - or remain stuck in place. Though Cleage wrote this work in 1995, it is completely fresh. And it has been given its due in Parson's production. Costumes and set are beautifully period, and lighting brings added dimensions to the staging. Blues for an Alabama Sky now extended through February 19th at Court Theatre.

Watching an inner circle of Druids contemplate the eventual fall of Rome, my thoughts turned to Game of Thrones, to Mad Maxx’s Thunderdome, even alighting ever so briefly on our own political landscape.  

Lyric Opera’s production Bellini’s beautiful 1831 opera carefully builds such a world, with Iron Age sets in neutral grays, tattooed warriors in leather, heads shaved or dreadlocks piled high, wielding battleaxes, calling for war with the Romans who have desecrated their forest sanctums. 

Then comes Norma, part priestess, part divinity, channeling to her people the spirits of the gods of earth. Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky is the embodiment of the celebrated bel canto singing Bellini calls for, the carefully crafted libretto all gorgeous melody and harmony – no shouted operatic dialog, just lyrical musical poetry in song. This is opera for opera haters. 

Norma must certainly be the most accessible of the operas produced by the Lyric, and its success – along with Bellini’s masterful composition – is largely on the strength of the designers of its costumes and sets. Above those Druids (that term refers to the learned class among the Celtic people of Europe) a sacred oak floats on its side. A rolling altar brings priestess Norma up to the tree, where she cut the boughs of Mistletoe with a golden sickle. This is the very ceremony the real Celtic Druids would hold on new moons following the Winter Solstice. Notably women and men shared the power in this society whose women took the lead. 

While I am not deeply schooled in the opera form and knew nothing of Norma before attending, I was very much able to feel, see and hear all this happening on the Lyric Opera stage, where Norma works her magic. The opera overall was a co-production of the Lyric, the San Francisco Opera, Toronto’s Canadian Opera Company, and Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu.  And no wonder it is so wonderful:

• The set was designed by David Korins, nominated for a Tony for his sets on Hamilton, with scenery built and painted in the shops at the Canada and San Francisco Opera

• Costumes are by Jessica Jahn, and were fabricated at the San Francisco Opera costume shop; makeup and wigs are by Sarah Hatten

• Lighting, by Duane Schuler, is a huge part of the production, allowing the singers to concentrate on their music while shifting the focal point in concert with the development of each scene. 

The traditional opera-style drama in the story stems from two Druid women secretly falling for the same Roman proconsul – the emissary whose culture will ultimately destroy the Celt’s world. But this drama rises to a level of tragedy, as Norma determines that, having destroyed her priestly standing, and broken her spiritual bond with her secret love affair with the Roman, she must leave her role, and sacrifice her life in a ritual ceremony. 

Tenor Russell Thomas as the Roman proconsul Pollione is the perfect vocal complement to Radvanosky (she is from Berwyn, by the way), and bass Andrea Silvestrelli towers (literally - he is quite tall - and musically) above the scenes as Norma’s father, Oroveso. 

As an opera, this production is sterling. The Lyric Opera Orchestra, conducted by Riccardo Frizza, was flawless, supporting in perfect balance the soloists and chorus. Kevin Newbury directed the action at a steady clip, never lagging, and paced continuously in harmony with the score.  

The design of this production is much more than window dressing. It conveys the essence of a timeless story: a noble native culture is upended by powerful invaders, whose influence portends the end of a way of life. Lyric Opera's Norma is highly recommended. 

Just two actors share the credits, yet the stage is crowded with characters in Lookingglass Theatre’s Mr. & Mrs. Pennyworth. This fabulist romp is delightful and fully satisfying, conjuring up characters with artful stagecraft and puppetry that remind us of Red Moon Theatre when it was really cranking.

The puppetry of Blair Thomas is indeed impressive - the animated inanimates range from a mini-replica of Mrs. Pennyworth (Lindsey Noel Whiting) to stage-filling boar. And though puppets are plentiful in Mr. & Mrs. Pennyworth, it is the astounding shadow animations that make this such an amazing experience. Both Whiting and Samuel Taylor are outstanding in their many roles (and stage formats).

Shadow characters grow and diminish, the moving silhouettes created by actors, puppets, and cut-outs on a stick playing against a backlights. Shadow animations by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, and Julia Miller for Manual Cinema Studios, and projection designs by Mike Tutaj, are stunning as they work this magic.  

Hidden behind screens, actors and puppeteers move fro and aft, upstage and down, shape shifting and changing in size. Going in every dimension, using the full depth of the stage, the actors and puppet masters play against the backlight to generate a unique images. (If there were an award for blocking, someone must nominate this show.)

Mr. & Mrs. Pennyworth has a steampunk flavor to it, as the ostensibly Victorian-era buskers take a portable stage on the road across Europe, with performance-art renderings of classic fairy tales, after which they pass the hat.

The plot thickens as some of the characters disappear from the tales - notably the Big Bad Wolf. Mr. & Mrs. Pennyworth set out to solve the mystery, which also creates a social crisis - children, Red Riding Hood, even the three little pigs, are losing track of these stories.

Lookingglass Theatre has long mined traditional tales for its line-ups - rendering memorable, and dark, versions of Grimm's Fairy Tales, for example. Hara broadens the source material, with appearances of the familiar (Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz) and less so (Sæhrímnir, a boar killed and eaten nightly by the Norse goods). The show lags a little as some of the Norse saga was being unpacked. But there was enough momentum to sustain it. 

Written and directed by Lookinglass Ensemble member Doug Hara, this work is said to be influenced by Neil Gaiman, whose American Gods characters struggle through similar travails.

This is not just for kids - or maybe it's not even for them. I found myself wondering where it was a little too dark at times, but that is true in the Grimm tales as well.

Hara is entertaining us, but there is something reminding us that people lose hold of their culture when they lose their stories.The Pennyworth’s life work helps secure these stories - tales that keeps us all tethered to the collective memories that are the touchstones of civilization.

Mr. & Mrs. Pennyworth runs through February 19, 2017 at Lookingglass Theatre

A tragedy is unfolding at Steppenwolf Theatre, a good thing for audiences, less so for the denizens of Lucas Hnath’s The Christians. In this show, with powerful performances by Glenn Davis, Shannon Cochran, Tom Irwin and Robert Brueler, the show stopper is Jacqueline Williams’ marvelous turn in the role of Congregant - she is a revelation.

Pastor Paul (Tom Irwin) is operating a mega- church, one that has grown exponentially from fundamentalist storefront to a building so big it has a coffee shop, retail store, and a parking lot you could get lost in. Exponential expansion incurred debt, which the board of directors, led by Elder Jay (Robert Breuler) has struggled to discharge.

The play opens amid a mega-church service rendered so faithfully - huge backlit cross, melodious music, passionately performed; a serious scripture read - that a number of audience members joined in the prayers. Pastor Paul then delivers the sermon that sows chaos: the church, he says, is at a turning point – it is now debt free; but something else has gone awry. He no longer believes in that pillar of dualist theology, hell fire. Irwin’s discursive recount of this radical change in heart is delivered with a hint of irony, and at a pace faster than a real sermon – reminding us we are not in church, but in a theater.

In due time, the congregation starts to come apart at the seams. Associate Pastor (Glenn Davis) challenges this heresy, and is released of his duties. Elder Jay counsels Pastor Paul, in an eldering, indirect monolog, advising him of the folly of turning out his very popular associate preacher.

Then Congregant (Jacqueline Williams) arises during worship, and reads a letter of her reflections, begun in a self-effacing and unassuming manner, then swelling to emotional poignance, even majesty, as she picks apart Pastor Paul for forsaking the congregation’s need for faith, accusing him of a lack of sincerity in waiting until the after the mortgage was paid off.

The wind-down of the drama finds Pastor Paul again challenged by his Associate Pastor. Glenn Davis’ performance of a combative theological and emotional challenge rivaled that of Williams. And finally, Pastor’s Wife Elizabeth (Shannon Cochran) takes Pastor Paul on her own terms, struggling with the compromises he has inflicted on his family. And asserting she does not share his belief.    

These performances all on their own justify a trip to Steppenwolf Theatre, and the writing of this play. Directed obviously so well by K. Todd Freeman, The Christians runs through January 29, 2017, and is highly recommended. 

Davina & the Vagabonds' rollicking New Orleans-inflected jazz, gospel, and R&B delighted fans at a packed City Winery in Chicago this week. The retro stylings of this Minneapolis group carries a 1960's vibe, underscoring lyrics packed with an ironic take on songs of the “you done me wrong” and “don’t steal my man” variety.  

While the band features cornet and trombone, bass, drums and keyboard, there is added brass in the high powered vocals of lead singer Davina Powers, who along with her band mates, wins fans because she “brings it” to every performance.

Imagine Bette Midler impersonating Amy Winehouse, with a dash of Madeline Peyroux thrown in, and you get a sense of Davina Sowers. And while she has a lot of control of her vocal instrument - going from breathy to belting, with a light rasp that softens the delivery - she’s affecting as a pianist as well.

The  enthusiasm and turnout at City Winery - Wednesday's windchill notwithstanding - also delighted Sowers: nearly everyone yowled in the affirmative when she asked if they’d seen the show before. The band had begun this day before dawn to make an appearance at WGN Studios in the morning, and was to be up at dawn the next day for a show in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Sowers writes most of the songs, and her performance is loaded with showmanship as she mugs her way through the breaks and as songs unfold – but at a point in most songs she gets captured by the music, and really delivers. 

The group is much more than Davina, though, as each member – trombonist Steve Rognes, trumpet Zack Lozier, and drummer Connor McRae Hammergren - sings and writes original songs. Rognes and Lozier take the lead as they swing into Dixieland and Bourbon Street jazz. (The bass at City Winery is not a permanent member of the group.) Drummer Connor Hammergren, with big muttonchops, seems to have a lot of street-style percussive techniques up his sleeve.

Chicago’s City Winery is the perfect setting both in terms of intimacy and sound – and because the elegant noshes and paired with house wines harkens back to the glory days of 1950s and 1960s night clubs. As do Davina & the Vagabonds. 

Serious theatergoers may well want to see Maxwell Anderson’s Winterset, which in 1935 won the first New York Drama Critic’s Circle Award for Best Play. Specializing in mining historic gems, Griffin Theatre Company’s production at The Den Theatre gives it the full Monty.

Though Winterset is a period piece, unlike 1930s works like Mother Courage or Waiting for Lefty, the social agenda in Anderson’s work doesn’t supersede the story. In this tragedy, the star-crossed lovers Mio (Maurice Demus) and Miriamne (Kiayla Ryann) suffer the slings and arrows of an ill-fated romance.  

The challenge for audiences made up of you and me is the language and structure. Written largely in verse, in three acts with two intermissions, Winterset is work to watch. The performances that director Jonathan Berry draws out carry the story well enough. But the language, especially Act I, is so stylized that I wondered if the playwright were really any good. He wrote the 1954 hit The Bad Seed, and in 1947 Anne of a Thousand Days - both also successful as films.

Winterset is another matter. Impossibly poetic lines are tossed into moments of climactic action. Actors sometimes resorted to continuously declaiming, or soaring away on wings of poetry, in their delivery. That being said, you can totally follow the story of young Mio, who wants to clear the name of his father, unjustifiably executed for a murder. Miriamne learns that her brother Garth (Christopher Acevedo) knows enough to clear Mio’s father. But he is intimidated from doing so when two accessories to the murder arrive: Trock (John Odor conjures up Killer Joe) and Shadow (Bradford Stevens as Trock’s ominous partner).

Norm Woodel in his supporting role as Esdras has the vocal skills to overcome Maxwell’s challenging script, putting cadence, timber, emphasis and whatever else the pros know into delivering lines greatly. And Larry Baldacci as Judge Gaunt also has the seasoning to carry it off. But this is a tough script for today.

The retro industrial set by Joe Schermoly is a standout. Despite the constraints of space, Schermoly has created a properly noir environment with backlit fog (lighting by Alex Ridgers). The stage tilts forward, with huge steam pipes that fit the script and are so convincing I thought they were part of the Milwaukee Avenue loft building that Den calls home. Schermoly’s recent credits include Steppenwolf’s Constellations and Victory Gardens Hand to God – all very different and all very creative. 

In its time, Winterset was celebrated for its topicality. Audiences did not miss parallels to efforts to exonerate Sacco & Vanzetti, two Italian immigrants executed for murder in 1927, in a case that resonates with today’s social activist movements. In real life, nearly every major city on the globe saw protests in 1927 in support of the two. That subtext combined with the romantic tragedy was boffo at the box office. Ticket buyers ponied up to keep the retelling the tale in Winterset's 190-performance run on Broadway.

This show is recommended. See Winterset at the Den Theatre through December 23, 2016.

Erika Sheffer’s The Fundamentals is a powerful tale of the struggles of a service industry worker. It is also a parable for our times. Director Yasen Peyankov has taken what we see all the time, and really shows it to us. 

The Fundamentals (at Steppenwolf Theatre) tells the story of Millie (Alana Arenas), a housekeeper in The Bakerville, a New York boutique location of a premier luxury hotel chain. Classic dramatic tension arises as Millie, aspiring to a better job and compensation, tries to move up from cleaning rooms to front desk.

In the course of the story, Millie learns she can get ahead by feeding her manager profit enhancing ideas gleaned from a housekeeper’s perspective. Arenas’s Millie is completely convincing as the innocent feeling her way through a corporate environment, and learning as she goes.

Millie soon discovers her manager puts the highest value on dirt about long-time workers that will let her fire them and hire cheaper replacements. You will readily recognize the lifer in the thirty-year hotel veteran Abe (played to a 't' by Alan Wilder). He ends up in the crosshairs.

In the role of Eliza the manager, Audrey Francis is flawless as an avatar of the steely corporate operative. She captures your attention, yet makes your skin crawl.

Another tension arises in the play around a class divide between workers, and the more moneyed class of managers and customers. This gap is even expressed in the language: Arena’s Millie, speaking in a thoroughly natural Manhattan brogue, contrasts sharply with the crisp Connecticut language of manager Eliza. Tanera Marshall coached dialects.

The private life of the struggling housekeeper spills over into workplace conflicts with her beau, hotel janitor Lorenzo (a strong performance by Armando Riesco). 

Like many contemporary service businesses, this hotel has developed a detailed strategy for maximizing the satisfaction of guests, carefully training employees in seven “fundamentals.” 

In this scenario natural expressions of interest and concern are replaced with uniform gestures of graciousness, and an interest in a customers welfare that is artificial, even clinical. Millie questions aloud the conflict in offering generosity and graciousness to customers, but not to colleagues. 

The Fundamental’s serious reflection of these societal concerns is a tribute to the developers of this work – more than a year in the making it was commissioned by Steppenwolf, funded by the Zell Foundation, parts were read at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and an earlier version was performed at Steppenwolf’s First Look series last year.

Steppenwolf’s prodigious marketing skills were also put to dramatic use fashioning media props in this work. The play is sprinkled with highly polished advertising interludes (Stephan Mazurek) that are shockingly authentic. This was the first time I have ever been shaken from suspending disbelief, to really believing. 

The set by Collette Poward also deserves great praise. The millworked trim and  commercial lighting of a hotel hall make a great backdrop for the multimedia interludes. The elevator from the subterranean locker room to guest services is completely convincing.

The Fundamentals at Steppenwolf Theatre comes highly recommended. It runs through December 23, 2016.

Northlight Theatre’s Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley is deftly crafted, a thoroughly engaging comedic riff on Pride & Predjudice, Jane Austen’s early 19th century classic. 

It is also a refreshing antidote to a truth universally known: that Chicago stages yield slim pickin’s for legitimate drama this time of year. Nothing against A Christmas Carol, but, bah humbug.

Even better, though: Miss Bennet is laugh out loud funny. It picks up two years after Pride & Predjudice left off. Bookish spinster Mary Bennet (Emily Berman) meets her match in a scholarly young Oxford grad Arthur de Bourgh (Erik Hellman). The chemistry between these brainy characters is vividly rendered on stage by Berman and Hellman.

In short order the two become the center of the action, and the life of the play. (I was reminded of Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon & Amy) Another real stand out is Bri Sudia as Anne de Bourgh, who commands attention and obedience as she competes unsuccessfully with Miss Bennet for Arthur.  

Must one be conversant in Austen's ouvre to get this show? Decidedly not. You just need a funny bone.

Playwrights Lauren Gundeson and Margot Melcon have concocted a classic comedy of manners, with a dash of farce. They tread lightly on the Regency English while keeping it clever and witty, injecting various comic tropes - misplaced letters, props imbued with humor in the course of the action - and offering a dramatic intrigue that builds to pique the audience's interest as Act I ends. Just like the old days. 

This play is set in a time when the English people were first adopting the tannenbaum from Germany, allowing a Christmas tree to reasonably appear on stage - conveniently enough for seasonal marketing purposes. Anne de Bourgh showers the spruce in whithering disdain, to great comic and dramatic effect. Perhaps that is why I liked her so much. 

The production is exceptionally detailed, with intensively styled Regency finery for men and women by Melissa Torchia, and a set by Rick and Jacqueline Penrod that would be at home on the cover of Architectural Digest. 

Running through December 18 at Northlight Theatre, this show comes highly recommended for the season.