“A Man of No Importance” Opens at the Briggs

We the People’s latest production is on stage through April 13.

A Man of No Importance just opened at the Briggs Opera House. It is a story that is multi-layered—sweet and somber, funny and sad. Producer Perry Allison has said she chose this play for a number of reasons: it’s a play within a play, it features Irish music, and it is a quiet and reflective piece about belonging and inclusivity. It works on all counts.

Alfie (Richard Waterhouse) is a bus conductor in 1960s Dublin who harbors a grand passion for the stage as the director of a troupe of dedicated and quirky community theater actors. They are working on presenting Salome, a play by Oscar Wilde. If you’ve ever been someone who makes theater, or you’ve been adjacent to the process, you will recognize the energy and enthusiasm of theater makers everywhere. (“Going Up”in Act I). And the director’s nightmare (in Act II) of trials and tribulations in wrangling cast and crew as opening night looms in the ever-nearing future. Might zippers be included in Salome’s Dance of the Seven Veils, for example? No matter, says the purveyor of each improbable and poorly executed idea, “in a week and a half, it will be art.” Alfie sighs, and hopes.

Under Eric Love’s direction, this ensemble cast delivers. The characters in Salome are amusing and are standard in theater companies of this sort, including the egocentric star-in-her own-mind (portrayed by Beata Randall), the veteran (portrayed by Kay Morton) viciously coaching the ingenue, the earnest one practicing (again) his lines (Jonathan Rosenbloom). Some actors play more than one role both within Salome and without because, well, amateur theater is a demanding and resource-slim business.

Standout performances include Waterhouse, skillfully portraying a character who is many things at once: upbeat and kind, and lonely and confused as he realizes he is yearning for, in his words, “the love that dares not speak its name.” His “Welcome to the World” is profound and moving, and would have been (in my humble opinion) an apt if sadder place for playwright Terrence McNally to conclude. What one critic called “the sunny denouement” left me, too, unconvinced.

Jenn Langhus is superb as Lily, Alfie’s long-suffering sister, who is vocal and witty. She too, however, is harboring her own pain as she foregoes both her youth and marriage in favor of being a caretaker of her eternally unwed brother. She shares her comedic chops in a duet with a suitor, William Carney (Steve LeBlanc) titled “Books.”

Lively choreography (Julie Frew) and a cute tableau vivant in Act II drew an appreciative chuckle from the audience. Musicians (music director Alex Arlotta) bring the streets of Dublin alive with Irish music; a short post-production piece on opening night accompanied the audience’s exit from the theater.

A Man of No Importance is on stage at the Briggs Opera House in downtown White River Junction, Vermont through April 13. Tickets and further info here.

(Photos, Opening night, A Man of No Importance, Briggs Opera House, White River Junction, VT, March 28, 2025. Photo credit: Nancy Nutile-McMenemy)

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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.