Haunted

When a henpecked husband (Niall Buggy, sly yet grandiose) showers a comely ingenue (Beth Cooke) with vintage clothing belonging to his "dead" wife (Brenda Blethyn, clucking and strutting marvelously), you may expect a British sex farce. Instead, Edna O'Brien poetically and sympathetically probes the married mind gone to seed, until the second act gets bogged down in manipulative plot twists.—David Cote