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You pop out of its tiny elevator into a space as smoothly bright as a nail salon.
1: Theyre so bashful about kissing that they have tickle fights just to get close.
2: Its 1944, and the Americans are about to liberate the occupied village.
Theyre mysteriously linked to the French scene, their songs commenting obliquely on the action.
Why does my heart go boom?
warbles Fiordellisi after a bombing run comes close to the 1944 hideaway.
The two elders twinkle flirtatiously at each other.
Are they older versions of the young people?
Certainly, they emphasize the soap-bubble delicacy of the lovers situation.
Director Jack Serio has polished the production so it shines.
Carpanini and Mark both do strong work, unaffected by the audience sitting only a few feet away.
They only fail, understandably, at seeming to be younger than they are.
Kalnejais writes the pair as innocents, which, in such an environment, can also make them monsters.
Are they children blindsided by history?
Or are they, as they seem in the production, deliberately ignorant adults?
How we read their ages becomes very important in how we comprehend this behavior.
Kalnejais offers us a great deal to think about here.
Who can afford naivete?
What age puts a person beyond the pale of our sympathy?
The actors pull down the veil between their zones, and the generations embrace.
The egg even seems to hatch!
That confusion has kept me thinking, not always happily, about the play for days.
Its not gorgeous, but theres tenacity ground into every red velvet seat.
(In other words, I love it.)
Its 1912, and a medium named Sara (Jillian Cicalese) is having a dreadful night.
The pressure of making a period drama with special effects has cracked parts of the bootstraps production.
(Phhhhhbbbbbft, Ill say to myself, and thats half an hour of productivity gone.)
She has an ear for both elegant speech and absurdity, and she often makes them rhyme.
Its roll-up-your-sleeves productions like this that sit closest to the pure urge to put on a show.
This Beautiful Futureis at Theaterlab through January 30.Ectoplasmis at the Players Theatre through February 6.
