Some Enchanted Evening
Strong performances highlight local staging of World War I-era comedy of manners
by Martin Brady
The Nashville area saw another local premiere this weekend, GroundWorks Theatre’s almost consummately loving treatment of Enchanted April at Darkhorse Theater. There’s been a spate of noticeably fine acting on Nashville’s stages recently, and this production seems to epitomize that very encouraging development. Director Melissa Bedinger Hade has gathered together assured local community theater veterans—for example, Caroline Davis and Pat Rulon—and matched them up with energetic players like Lisa Gillespie and Megan Murphy (more often seen at Franklin’s Boiler Room Theatre), to create a dynamic ensemble that works this consistently engaging, divinely literate drama to marvelous effect.
The entire evening is a tour de force for the director, who also designed the beautiful costumes and the quaintly appealing settings, which lend the necessary theatrical panache to author Elizabeth von Arnim’s tale, adapted for the stage by Matthew Barber. It’s 1922, and the end of World War I still hangs in the air, as four very different women scheme to leave London behind to rejuvenate their spirits at an Italian villa. They are old and young, married and widowed—similar only in their need for a change in scenery. Enchanted April is essentially a comedy of manners (and of errors), yet the credible plotting and the characters’ diverse attitudes keep us intellectually engaged and always guessing. The setup offers opportunities for savvy actors to evoke consistent laughter and leave their audience with a fond sense of hope.
Gillespie leads the way with her passionate and delightfully comic portrayal of Lotty Wilton, the middle-class woman who unites her newfound friends (Davis, Murphy and Martha Manning) and takes them off on a grand adventure. The actress’ support is strong everywhere, including the men (Jim Wright, Jack E. Chambers and Charles Howard) and also Rulon, who, as the villa’s housekeeper, puts a signature imprint on her way with the Italian language and humorously ties together the play’s disparate cast of characters.
Enchanted April has an old-timey, chick-flick ambience for sure, but GroundWorks infuses it with professional energy and intelligence that could warm the heart of even the most cynical of men.
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