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War is no picnic, and no one knew that better than the British combatants of World War I, who definitely left the picnic basket at home. In Arnim’s 1922 novel Enchanted April, the Jazz Age British women who are left behind holding it deal with their losses and longing by packing up the postwar potato salad and going in search of warmer weather and the restorative powers of love and beauty.
Lotty (Austin) is determined to escape crushing routine and English rain at a rented Italian villa. She convinces her chilly, mournful acquaintance Rose (Nalepa) to leave their husbands behind, enlisting tippling flapper Lady Caroline (Weissgerber) and the hyper-regimented Mrs. Graves (Redmon) as traveling companions. The ladies split expenses and share confidences on their road to redemption.
Knuth’s production has its weaknesses: The dialects can be spotty, and the actors consistently miss opportunities to highlight their poignant yearning and grief to better shade the comedy. A scene in which Lotty and Rose confront their husbands simultaneously falls particularly flat. But the cast succeeds in demonstrating the restorative powers of time away; the characters are transformed by the local flora and fauna. The zaftig, cherubic Austin is charming; Redmon does brisk work as the foursome’s resident battle-ax; and the brave Derek Czaplewski wrings laughs and avoids full-frontal nudity with the help of a generous hand towel. Knuth’s drab brown first-act set—the director also designs—properly contrasts the floral riot of the second-act villa. It can be a lovely place to heal, even if the weather is inconsistent.
