Walnut's Lettice & Lovage

I can't say I've ever enjoyed Peter Shaffer much, but Lettice &Lovage, a frothy confection originally written as a vehicle for Maggie Smith, at least spares us the heavy breathing of Shaffer's Equus and Amadeus, settling instead for a few simulated beheadings. It's really a play about the stage sans actors, for its principal, Lettice Douffet (Renée Weisband), is an overheated tour guide who can?t stop injecting a little extra drama into the dusty remains of Britain's National Preservation Trust. Her enthusiasm gets her canned, but her former boss, Lotte (Maria Wolf), half repenting her nastiness and half attracted in spite of herself by Lettice's dotty charm (surely this play should have been called Letty & Lotte?), calls to apologize and stays to inhabit Letty's fantasy world, which includes reenactments of the decapitations of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Charles I. One of these goes awry, introducing what little dramatic tension the play contains, but that, too, passes in short order, and the proceedings end cheerfully.

Two ladies of a certain age finding refuge from a cruel world with each other is no news, especially in London, the world capital of loneliness. Shaffer tries to thicken the plot with a little social grumbling Ó la P. J. O'Rourke. The National Preservation Trust is an easy target (all worthy causes require satire from time to time), but Lotte, a closet Luddite, not only loves old buildings but hates new ones. Anyone who has watched the transmogrification of London over the past few decades will readily sympathize--we are just coming through the worst half-century in the history of architecture, with no end in sight--and even the fact that our current Charles, the clueless Prince of Wales, has pointed this out does not make it less true. At play's end, our heroines have discovered a new game, one that involves dynamite. Probably this seemed more amusing when L & L was written than it does in our post-9/11 world, though if any structures in the world gave aesthetic offense, the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon must have been high on the list.

The play must rest, however, on the relationship between its Odd Couple, and the kernel of pathos at its core is just enough--in the hands of capable actors--to sustain it. Renée Weisband (who also designed the set) brings energy and conviction to her Lettice, and Maria Wolf offers a suitable foil. Christine Mascitti has more to do with the second of her double roles, even bringing off a passable fandango. Director Neill Hartley wisely cut the play by a third. No soufflé should be overcooked.