'Enchanted April' brings the sunshine of Italy

It rains. A bunch. And is often cloudy.

That oppressive weather is behind the four women who rent a castle in Italy for the month of April in “Enchanted April,” now receiving a lively production at Live Theatre Workshop.

OK, oppressive lives had something to do with it, too.

The time is the early 1920s, when the country’s wounds from World War I were still fresh. Lotty (Carley Elizabeth Preston) is the giddy force behind the idea. She longs to get away from Mellersh (Steve McKee), her demanding and controlling husband. She ropes in Rose (Avis Judd), a woman she doesn’t know but has seen at church (Lotty calls her “the disappointed Madonna”), into renting it with her. Rose is a tad uptight and doesn’t approve of the racy novels her husband Frederick (Brian Wees) writes.

When Lotty is settled on something, it seems nothing will stop her. Before Rose has really committed, she has put down a deposit on the “small castle” in Italy and has advertised for additional women to help with expenses.

Enter Lady Caroline (Lucille Petty), a beautiful, much pursued woman who longs to get away from a busy social life that makes her intensely lonely and unhappy, and Mrs. Graves (Peg Peterson), an older woman who is madly inflexible.

Italy can do wonders. And it does for these women, who one by one let their hair down and begin to take a passionate hold on life.

Preston embraces the character of Lotty, making her irresistible. You almost want to jump on stage and say, “hey, I want in on the Italy, gig, too.” Plus, when Preston smiles, the whole theater lights up.

Judd made the difficult transition from a woman angry, hurt and closed off to love to one who opens her arms to it, and we cheered her along. Petty had the haughty air of a woman used to getting her way (and some of the best costumes), and Peterson was downright spooky as the my-way-or-the-highway Mrs. Graves.

It’s the women who carry this show — the men are more one-dimensional and not as interesting. The same is true of the non-English-speaking Costanza (Toni Press-Coffman), the maid/cook at the castle, though there were plenty of laughs launched by the character.

The play’s first act takes place in London and concentrates on the scheming and planning for the Italian getaway. In the second, we see the women as they are transformed by the wisteria and sun in Italy.

The script doesn’t have a great deal of depth, but it has plenty of humor and is a gentle romance. Plus, watching women come into their own is pretty wonderful.

This fast-moving production, directed by Leslie J. Miller, had a few problems, most notably the accents — they were all over the place. But it had the most important ingredient for a play — heart.