Annual Tryst

Hopelessly romantic in a vaguely offbeat way, Bernard Slade's Same Time, Next Year is a mid-'70s oddity. It's the story of a pair of people who meet once a year to engage in an extramarital affair. Sunset Playhouse in Elm Grove brings the story to the stage once more in a production that runs through March 21 in the Furlan Auditorium.

Cesar Gamino stars as George, a nervous, well-meaning guy who slips into an unplanned night of sex with a stranger named Doris (Sarah Laak Hughes). What starts as a casual meeting between strangers in 1951 becomes an annual event. The play casts a light on six different meetings spanning a decade and a half at the same hotel. George and Doris change quite a bit over the years, but the hotel room stays more or less the same-a spacious, mid-20th-century hotel room carefully designed by Sunset's J. Michael Desper.

Under the direction of Mark Salentine, Gamino and Hughes render believable moments in the lives of two people who meet only once a year. The changes in individual personalities make for a staccato connection between Gamino and Hughes, but the play moves along briskly enough that its six scenes never have a chance to seem uninteresting. The charismatic Gamino doesn't quite manage to bring across George's nervous affability in the early '50s, but as George gains a harder edge in the '60s and greater complexity in the '70s, Gamino excels. Hughes is at her best as Doris gains a sense of individuality and independence toward the end of the play.