Hovering between spoof and homage to the comedies of Oscar Wilde, Evan Smith’s play is something of an effortful and eccentric lark that overstays its welcome, though you can’t fault the performances in Michael Halberstam’s cleanly executed Writers’ Theatre production. This deliberately arch and oh-so-witty rendering of nineteenth century England traps an unlikely pair of middle-aged loners in marriage, and then watches them squirm. Linda Kimbrough is Miss Amelia Pickles, the female half of the duo sporting a look of the perpetually stunned, as if she had found her way into some early form of Botox. Her counterpart, Captain Josiah Wickett, is played by a first-rate pair of graying muttonchops, with fine supporting work from their wearer, Greg Vinkler. It’s all pip-pip and campy scowls until the third act, wherein Smith pulls a bait-and-switch and shifts into a more serious gear that is Full of Meaning. Uneasy is right. (Nina Metz)
