Jack Garton and Meaghan Heires Photo by J Miner Photography

The play begins as the first couple, Ariel (Amelie Rosenhagen) and Jonathan (Teana Nightoak), enter Jonathan's parents' winter home, where Jonathan hopes to make Ariel his fiancée on New Year's Eve. Unfortunately for Jonathan, as he winds up the spring of his love for Ariel, she decides that they are no longer in love, culminating in a lover's quarrel that threatens to unwind their relationship, not to mention their impending engagement.

Other couples enter, unexpected by Ariel and Jonathan, all with serious issues with their relationships. First are Maria (Meaghan Heires) and Francois (Jack Garton), Jonathan's mother and her lover. It develops that Maria has been unfaithful to Francois with her husband Frank (Michael Myers), who in turn has been having an affair with Edmond (Erich Evered). All parties complain of the fragility of their relationships, owing to their opposite numbers not providing enough commitment/consistency/love. If this play has a message, it is that human relationships are fraught with such fragility, and what is left after they break into pieces is what you get to keep–and don't question it too closely.

Bertha (Paula Pachciarz) and Hilda (Molly Maslin) enter, with one complaining as usual about the other's lack of commitment. Poor Hilda exits, only to fall through the ice of the nearby lake but be rescued in time.

A delightful moment occurs when the actors wheel on a prop door, which various couples practice slamming as a comment on their crumbling relationships.

All of the above lovers' quarrels are fascinating and gripping, not for their comprising the fodder of domestic drama, but for the surprises each character brings to his/her part of the jigsaw puzzle. The pieces jiggle and bounce and threaten to jump off the table.

The entrance of Bob the deliveryman (William Buchanan) changes the existential and dramatic perspective and stakes. After ascertaining that the assembled lovers are not the intended recipients of a distant neighbor's composter, he gets them to sign for it anyway, then launches on an unexpected monolog on the meaning of love that wanders into politics, history and metaphysics. He's quite the philosopher!

The final lover to enter is Jacqueline (Carol Robinson), a doctor who has her eye on the romantically over-committed Francois. And so the first act ends, with the various couples squabbling and at each others' throats. Alas, in this romantic disarray, one of the characters dies, setting up the second act for a wake attended by all the other characters.

Some of the characters have roots in Europe, but not enough to explain the riot of questionable accents used. One can put this quality down to a further turn of the absurdist screw that keeps the audience off-balance. Anatomically correct dialect work might have made this performance just too classically rigid.

There are many delicious moments in this play, not the least the recycling of some characters in new roles. The whole is as fresh and exciting as if the actors had improvised all their material. What could have come across as a soap opera is indeed an absurd–even surrealistic, to use the director's (Matt Korda's) word–comedy.

The production elements subtly underscore the fragile threads of the play. Ariel's red jacket and colorful scarf oppose Jonathan's drabness. Francois's bathrobe begs to be complemented by his later addition of a fuchsia boa. (costume design, Marie Freese.) On opening night, the lighting crew (lighting design, Renee Fowler) were unable to separate the house lights from the otherwise sturdy lighting plot, but the extra illumination didn't harm the overall effect. The music (sound design, Nathan Vescio), appropriate to the characters' constant bursts of emotional hyperventilation, comprises operatic solos, both soprano and tenor. The set (designer, Dillon Sheehan) consists of numerous elements that mostly come into play during the busy evening or are appropriate to the venue: lots of fake-but-realistic snow, both inside and out; dust-sheet-covered furniture; a mural of birch trees, snow, and moon; a grandfather clock; and paintings, fireplace, coat stand, hutch, coffee table, chandelier, and carpet.

Wintertime runs through through February 22, 2025, at Bartell Theatre, 113 E. Mifflin St., Madison WI. For tickets and information, please visit bartelltheatre.org or call call 608-661-9696.

Producer, Finn Gallagher; assistant director, Betsy Wood; stage manager, Maddy Sylvester; assistant stage manager, Miranda Miller; props designer, Michelle Dayton.