Nina Metz

"Let's argue about something intellectual," urges one of the characters at the start of George Bernard Shaw's 1910 play, "Misalliance." Thus begins a whirlwind ride that is part whimsical farce, part serious meditation on the complex, sometimes unsuccessful alliances between parents and children. The entire story takes place at an English estate, where Bunny, an infuriating little pisher, and his father, Lord Summerhays, are spending the weekend. The estate's owner, John Tarleton, is the a successful underwear shop proprietor whose love of philosophical suppositions is exceeded only by his tendency to back up these theories with commands like, "Read your Darwin, my boy. Read your Weisman." Tarleton's daughter Hypatia is engaged to Bunny, though her reasons for marrying him are more cerebral than lustful. This simple set-up devolves into a winning combination of madcap humor (as another love interest for Hypatia enters the picture) and astutely drawn confrontations among the various guests at the estate. Director William Brown has outdone himself in corralling all the necessary elements for the Writer's Theatre production: an eloquently randy, intellectually rigorous cast (with Guy Adkins in a deliciously exasperating turn as Bunny), the flagstone patio by Geoffrey M. Curley, and the sumptuous early twentieth-century costumes by Rachel Anne Healy.

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