PORT TOWNSEND — “Heartbreak House,” home of Capt. Shotover and his three daughters, is a ship about to sail the high and heady seas. It is also George Bernard Shaw’s skewering of the British haves and the have-mores, and it sets out tonight at the Key City Playhouse, with a captain, crew and passengers at a glittering party on the eve of war.
Denise Winter is the director of this spring offering from Key City Public Theatre, which stars many of Port Townsend’s best-known actors.
“Each year, I like to open the season with a production that showcases an ensemble of our talented core company,” Winter said. “‘Heartbreak House’ provides a great opportunity for that.”
In the lead as Ellie Dunn, a woman who navigates much love and heartbreak, is Amanda Steurer, while the ensemble includes Lawrason Driscoll as Ellie’s father, Capt. Shotover; Michelle Hensel as Ariadne Utterword; Diane Thrasher as Nurse Guinness and Erin Lamb and Craig Jacobrown as Hesione and Hector Hushabye.
Like her fellow residents of “Heartbreak,” Ellie goes on quite a journey, said Steurer.
And this party unfolds at a breakneck pace.
“From the get-go,” Steurer said, “you are like a racehorse just let out of the gate. You have to ride fast and hard to get through it.
“It is a roller coaster, but it is an amazing ride.”
“Heartbreak House” has been compared with television’s “Downton Abbey,” with its Brits contending with economic riptides and trying their best to chart a course for social advancement, all as World War I looms.
Shaw’s play, said Winter, is a vision of how the upper classes pursued a life of leisure even as they teetered on the brink of disaster.
“Characters come and go, and fall in and out of love,” she said. “But in each heartbreak, debates ensue about morality, money, politics and love.
“There is dialogue in ‘Heartbreak House’ about business and capitalism that you could overhear in a cafe today.”
Shaw is like Shakespeare, Winter believes. His themes transcend time.
“If you’ve never seen a Shaw play, you will be surprised that something written in 1914 can be as funny as a modern sitcom,” she said.
The set, all decked out by designer David Langley to be reminiscent of Capt. Shotover’s seagoing days, serves as a metaphor.
People need a good captain, while passengers and crew must also look out for their ship’s welfare. It is, after all, veering toward an uncertain future.
Shaw’s characters are “so beautifully written because each one of them can be laughed at, and yet we can also learn something from them,” said Winter.
“They are full of the surprises that all human beings hold.”
Curtain times at the Key City Playhouse, 419 Washington St., are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays beginning tonight; 2:30 p.m. Sundays and 7 p.m. Thursdays.
Tickets are $20 on Fridays and Saturdays and $18 on Thursdays and Sundays, although two pay-what-you-can performances will be held this Sunday, April 28, and Thursday, May 2.
On Sunday, May 5, those who bicycle to the matinee will enjoy a $5 discount off admission or food and drink from the lobby bar.
As ever, Key City Public Theatre invites patrons to stay after the Sunday matinees and early Thursday evening shows for Afterwords, discussions of what has just unfolded on the stage.
For information and reservations about “Heartbreak House” as well as other Key City offerings, phone the box office at 360-385-KCPT (5278) or visit www.KeyCityPublicTheatre.org.
