Hazel Kirke

Arthur Carringford

Pittacus Green

Sally Fitzpatrick

James Fassett

Philip Bourneuf

The dividing line between drama and melodrama is an obscure one, and "Hazel Kirke," current offering of the Stagers, crosses and recrosses the line. Plot, situations, dialogue, all in the best tradition of the '80's and '90's, offer plenty of opportunities for burlesque, and the person who delights to laugh at over-emotional characterizations will be more than satisfied; yet there is an undercurrent of genuine feeling in the play which elicits a true emotional response from the audience.

The complicated plot includes a tender romance between a handsome lord and an innocent miller's daughter, a doubtful marriage, a father's curse, a self-sacrificing lover, an heroic halfwit, and-a happy ending. Flitting in and out of the story is Pittances Green, clown extraordinary, whose puns and drolleries, no less than his outlandish costumes, lighten the play tremendously. The versatile Phillip Bourneuf plays the part to perfection.

While Bourneuf easily wins top rating, the other members of the cast vary upward from adequate to excellent. But the Stagers are to be complimented more for their fidelity tin recreating the atmosphere of the time with painstaking attention to costuming and other stage business than for their acting.