Enchanted April

There’s something transcendental about Getting Away From It All. Given the right opportunity, people shed their accepted identities, move toward something less constructed and take a closer walk with their ideals. At the turn-of-the-century, Elizabeth Von Arnim’s novel Enchanted April explored the transformative nature of a vacation, a theme which becomes the single most enduring element in the stage adaptation by first-time playwright Matthew Barber. With a well-poised cast that captures a diversity of personalities, the Milwaukee Rep’s production of Enchanted April has endearingly vivid charm.

In the years following World War One, Lotty Wilton (Linsey Page Morton), the housewife of a British solicitor, runs across an advertisement for a vacation at an expansive, romantic estate in Italy. Lotty, a timid dreamer longing for something more than a life of servitude to her husband, seizes the opportunity to break out of her daily life. Since the vacation would be too expensive for Lotty to afford by herself, she approaches someone she’s never formally met – Rose Arnott (Laura Gornott) – and asks if she might like to go with her and split the costs. Rose, stuck in a distant marriage to novelist Frederick Arnott (Torrey Hanson), accepts.

Making her Rep debut, Chicago-based actress Linsey Page Morton brings a charming, exuberant radiance to the stage. In the role of her husband, Brian Vaughn serves as a vaguely comic counterpoint to Lotty’s cheerfulness. Vaughn strikes a clever balance, playing his character somewhere between youth and middle age, halfway between conservative businessman and excitable schoolboy.

The subtlety of Laura Gordon’s comic talent really shines in her role, but once the story moves to Italy in the second act, Gordon renders delicate, genuine emotion. This is Gordon in top form in a role that isn’t really written to break out beyond the ensemble. Deborah Staples and Rose Pickering nestle perfectly into their characters as the two other women approached by Rose and Lotty to join them and further diffuse costs. Staples is perfectly poised as wealthy young socialite Caroline Bramble, who goes to Italy to get away from the stress of English high society. Rose Pickering plays Mrs. Graves, a conservative British matron with hilarious steeliness.

At the beginning of the second act, Gordon and Morton draw back the curtains to transform the darkness of London to the radiance of Italy. Amidst a beautiful, empty set (by Bill Clarke) Deborah Staples gracefully lounges, reading a book. There’s real comedy in the reveal – she seems so perfectly at home in the beauty of Italy that it’s as if the entire estate was built around the image of her there, reclining and reading, at home with her purer self. VS

The Milwaukee Rep’s production of Enchanted April runs through March 9th at the Stiemke Theater. Please note that Vaughn’s performance features something rarely seen onstage: brief, full-frontal nudity. Tickets can be purchased in advance by calling the box office at 414-224-9490 or online.