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Playwrights and their sensibilities go in and out of vogue, and Jean Anouilh's crisp romantic cynicism has been experiencing something of a resurgence, starting last year when New York's Roundabout Theatre staged "The Rehearsal." Now, the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice has picked up the baton with a lovely production of "Ardele," a rarely seen gem in the Anouilh canon.
An upper-class household is thrown into a tizzy when Ardele, an unseen middle-aged woman with a hunchback, falls in love with another hunchback and wants to marry him. Her brother, the General (Richard Fancy, also played by William Dennis Hunt), is appalled. He locks Ardele in her room, threatening to keep her there unless she recants her love. He summons his other sister, the age-conscious Countess (Kathleen Garrett, also Betsy Zang), who arrives with...
