Pretty soon a woman enters, blond and glamorous in a long evening dress. She's quite a bit younger than he is, and for a while we have trouble figuring out their relationship. Eventually we discover that they are George and Zanovia, and they're married. She was the daughter of his family's maid, and they fell in love while she was still in her teens. After George's wife died of cancer, they wed. "Why is a man with a dying wife so romantic?" Zanovia asks at one point.
But their class differences were difficult to overcome, and the daughter of George's first marriage resented her father's new wife. Now the couple is in the process of getting a divorce, though they remain highly conflicted about it. She inquires if he's asked her to the pool house to seduce her; he says no, he just wants to discuss financial arrangements. What of the champagne, then, we wonder, and the fact that he's brought a phonograph recording of Rodgers and Hart's "There's a Small Hotel" because the song is a favorite of hers?
Mercy of a Storm explores a marriage riven by issues of age and class. It's a gentle play with a patina of sophistication and moments of humor. There are little puzzles throughout and some surprising answers to those puzzles. Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher's dialogue is craftsmanlike, and both characters are likable, even if they're not deep or sharply delineated and the class differences they embody aren't very specific. We do feel for them. Tupper Cullum is an enigmatic and worldly George; he wants very much to be reunited with Zanovia, whom he still clearly loves. But he has lived too long in the repressed and snobbish world of the moneyed upper class to respond to her with any spontaneity. We know there's a problem when he discreetly wipes his lips on a folded white handkerchief after kissing her. Zanovia is a far more direct and emotional character, and Rhonda Brown plays her with charm, vigor and feeling.
As directed by Bev Newcomb-Madden and performed by these skilled actors, Mercy of a Storm provides a pleasant, often absorbing evening of theater. As you watch, you find yourself rooting quite sincerely for the characters -- but you don't think about their predicament once you've left the theater.
