REVIEW

It’s autumn on the stage at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati.

Brian c. Mehring’s evocative set design for “Fiction” depicts autumn leaves falling from the rafters, landing in a neat circle appointed with cafe chairs, sofas and other suggestive pieces to serve as the key settings in the lives of Michael and Linda Waterman (Dennis Parlato and Amy Warner). In the center of the circle is a simple desk-and-chairs set-up that serves mostly as a cabin at the Drake Writer’s Retreat, where the Watermans, in their own turn, wrote their debut novels.

In Linda’s case, it was “At the Cape,” the story of her trip to South Africa in her youth, during which time she dated a black musician and was raped by a pair of white thugs, who were blamed for their crime.

Her novel was a great hit, but her following novels failed to gain the critical or commercial acclaim, so many years later, she still teaches “At the Cape” in her creative writing classes.

Michael, on the other hand, has enjoyed a lucrative career as a “hack,” his word, writing what amounts to be advance novelizations of his movies.

When Linda is diagnosed with a rare kind of brain tumor that leaves her only three weeks to live, she asks her husband to read her diaries when she is gone. In exchange, she wants to read his diaries before she goes.

He reluctantly agrees, but tears out a single page from the steamer trunk of volumes before leaving her to it. But while expecting to delve into the deepest parts of his mind, heart and soul, Linda only encounters a recurring narrative of deception, his on-going affair with Abby Drake, the coordinator of the Drake Writer’s Retreat, played by Shannon Rae Lutz.

The interplay between Parlato and Warner is a beautiful thing to behold. Both are gifted actors and at the top of their game in “Fiction” as they wander through the deceptions and red herrings of the story. Lutz is less effective as Abby. She is supposed to be a muse for Michael, but we can’t quite grasp why that may be. She is rude, selfish and not even made all that attractive physically, so we are never quite convinced that Michael would pursue her and take her around the world with him, even if only in his imagination.

Steven Dietz’ script is carefully crafted to reveal many layers of “Fiction” as the Watermans re-invent themselves for their craft and for their own amusement.

A version of this review originally appeared in the Go! entertainment section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.