Half a century can make a difference in an audience's tastes, perception, and interest. With regard to Jean Anouilh's wistful 1950 comedy, Ring Round the Moon, be prepared to receive the play's poetic and pedantic delicacies as you would a rare visit from an eccentric old aunt whose once-elegant graces have been corrupted over the years by the grim truth of reality.
As one third of the three-act play is a delight, another third touching, and the remaining third trying, the cumulative experience of this Christopher Fry adaptation, as directed by Gerald Gutierrez, is that it grows better and better in retrospect. That is mainly due to the presence of Marian Seldes in the role of the opinionated regal matriarch, Madame Desmermortes.
In this romantic comedy of bad manners, put-downs, mistaken identities, and farcical situations, Seldes reigns supreme. With each telling turn of her haughty head, and with each turn of an acerbic phrase, Seldes acts as a good and oddly gracious overseer to a lot of enchanting foolishness.
Oh, the plot. I'm sorry you asked. It has to do with a pair of identical twins, played un-identically by Toby Stephens. One of whom, the cynical and callous one, is secretly madly in love with a caustic young woman (Haviland Morris) who, as you might suspect, loves the other twin, the one who is shy and dreamy. The play takes place during an elaborate ball during which the cynical brother enlists the aid of a poor but lovely ballerina, to beguile the shy brother. Of course, nothing works out as planned, considering the butting in of the ballerina's mother, some politically and socially motivated in-laws, a know-it-all butler, a nonplussed secretary, and notably the daring -- yet discreet -- machinations of Madame Desmermortes.
As set in 1912, in a French chateau's elegant, glass-enclosed winter garden (beautifully designed by John Lee Beatty), the characters (all handsomely costumed by John David Ridge), romp through this adult fairy tale oblivious to the clouds of war the author ingeniously allows to infiltrate the action.
