Round House's production of Mee's operatic farce sprawls off the stage onto two ramps built out into the auditorium, in a set designed by James Kronzer. In the setting of a summer house in mid-winter, four couples squabble over love, hilariously, and one dies for love, if only temporarily.

The entertaining play is somewhat more than scenes slung between several jaw-dropping set pieces. The first act closes in a flurry of crockery smashing while "Nessun dorma" is heard, while the ingenue Jonathan slams his noggin repeatedly into a birch tree center stage. There is a dionysian revel in Act 2, what one might call the Dance of the Moons, that goes on a bit too long. Act 2 opens with a deft ballet of finding seats at a wake. The show-stopper, however, is (in Mee's words) "a performance piece of opera and door slamming."

There is a heart to this piece, however: it's the character of Bob (excellently played by the ursine Mark Alan Gordon), who arrives by snowmobile to deliver a composter. Bob is the voice of the ancients. He says:

This theatrical piece of purple sentiment is a complement to Craig Wright's Melissa Arctic at the Folger, which also hinges on a winter disappearance.

One piece of stage machinery mars the mood: artificial snow drifts onto the stage from rather noisy equipment above. Jerry Whiddon's very funny in-character pre-show no-cellphones/no-photography announcement raises the bar for all subsequent curtain speeches.

posted: 6:10:58 PM