'Ring Round the Moon' is a romp

Dan Koehn, Isthmus

One of my colleague's favorite stories involves growing up as an identical twin. In high school, she and her sister would often hurl insults at each other in anger, with their favorite attack being "ugly," which was like accusing their own reflections of being flawed. Such tales of twin dynamics are at the heart of Ring Round the Moon and perfectly capture the unique relationship between two people who are the same — yet couldn't be more different.

Ring Round the Moon, which opened American Players Theatre’s 45th season on June 15, is a romp through a 19th-century French countryside estate, set in a stylishly modern conservatory, referred to as Winter Garden. The English adaptation by Christopher Fry is based on Jean Anouilh's L'Invitation au Château. The romantic comedy centers on twin brothers Hugo and Frederic. Unlike the wide-eyed and naïve Frederic, Hugo is cunning and manipulative and devises a plan to end his brother's relationship with the cold-hearted Diana by hiring the gorgeous but poor ballerina Isabelle to pose as a wealthy woman to woo Frederic.

At its best, Ring Round the Moon hums like a finely tuned piece of music, allowing complete immersion in the performance. Under Laura Gordon's direction, the production does that with acting, choreography, costumes, lighting and sound — combining to make this production, which runs three hours and fifteen minutes, whiz by, especially in acts two and three.

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