Outside Mullingar ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG

Playwright John Patrick Shanley has a Tony, an Oscar and a Pulitzer sitting on his mantel (does a Pulitzer sit on a mantel?), but his romantic comedy "Outside Mullingar" is one you won't want to miss. It has a lot of "Moonstruck" in it (also written by Shanley), only instead of big-city Italians this time we get rural Irish. It is one of those rare evenings at the theater when you jump up and cheer at the final curtain and wish you could see the whole thing again.

Jessica Wortham doesn't make her entrance until the second scene but she grabs this show and runs away with it. As much as we loved her as Kiddo in "Upright Grand," this is a role she was born to play. As Rosemary, the neighbor daughter in the Irish farm village, she gives us grand physical humor along with expected rain-spattered Irish melancholy, all delivered with a brogue that, one supposes, is only acting. She fooled me.

 She has been in love with Anthony (Rod Brogan) forever, but he is as passive as the grass. There is a long-standing family feud engendered by Anthony's stubborn father Anthony Sr. (Steve Brady), which centers on a patch of ground sold by him to Rosemary's father, the late and lamented Mr. Muldoon.  Lucinda Hitchcock Cone plays Aoifie Muldoon, Rosemary's mother, who delivers quite a few of the show's great lines, like "Don't think! Thinkin' is worse than February."

Anthony Senior could win a curmudgeon award in any language. He says to Aoife:

"The only reason you own that land is love and spite."

 Aofie: "That's two reasons."

Robert Kelley's direction is perfect, and the combination of set (Andrea Bechert), costumes (B. Modern) and lighting (Steven B. Mannshardt) make us feel like we have been teleported from Mountain View to Mullingar.  The show is funny and heartfelt. We can't recommend it more highly.

RATINGS:☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division feels "Outside Mullingar" has everything a Five Star Show has, except for featured music. Fill me with fiddles and harps, lads, and a five-star we should be havin'. Lacking that, we award FOUR STARS with a BANGLE OF PRAISE, our next-highest rating.

"Outside Mullingar" make us remember why we go to live theater: a story that moves us with actors who make us laugh and cry. It seems simple when done so perfectly.

"Outside Mullingar"

Mountain View Center for Performing Arts

500 Castro Street, Mountain View

Through Oct. 30

$19-$80