Hartford Stage has spent the past several seasons resurrecting two classic forms of American theater: chaotic comedies and murder mysteries.
On the funny front, there’ve been the crazy plays “Laughs in Spanish” by Alexis Scheer, the Greek tragedy turned wacky eco-comedy “Hurricane Diane” and “Pride & Prejudice.” For mysteries, we’ve had Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptations of “Rope” and “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” and Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap.”
Another element Hartford Stage has brought to much of its programming is a female perspective. Of those six comedies and mysteries, only the two Hatcher adaptations were not written by women and all six were directed by women. The theater’s latest offering, “The Cottage” by Sandy Rustin, ticks all those boxes. It is a wild physical comedy with mystery trappings plus the playwright and director and half the cast are women. It’s also the second Hartford Stage main season show in a row (the other is “Rope”) to have its dialogue frequently compared to the 20th century’s greatest practitioner of “drawing room comedy,” Noel Coward, whose plays “Blithe Spirit,” “Private Lives,” “Present Laughter” and “A Song at Twilight” have all been staged at Hartford Stage over the theater’s 60-year history.
“The Cottage” has a reputation for being both smart and silly. It has witty lines and broad physical antics and is set in the cultured world of the English countryside in the 1920s. The play has been around since 2013 but gained fresh attention when it got a Broadway production in 2023. In 2024, Rustin had a different mystery/comedy hit when her adaptation of the movie and board game “Clue” began a successful national tour which is still running. “Clue” played both the Shubert Theatre in New Haven and the Waterbury Palace last year.
Rustin seems to providing the funny, clever, escapist and slightly edgy shows that the American theater is looking for. Not only does Hartford Stage seems ideally suited to produce it, “The Cottage” provides a nice balance for the darker shows on the current season, which began with “Rope” and includes “Death of a Salesman” and “Sweeney Todd” along with another comedy, “Native Gardens.” When announcing the 2025-26 slate this past fall, Hartford Stage artist director Melia Bensussen joked that “this might be our whole murder season” and said of “The Cottage” that “it’s Cowardesque but has murder in it.”
The production is being directed by Hartford Stage’s associate artistic director Zoë Golub-Sass who directed “Hurricane Diane” last season and “2.5 Minute Ride” the season before that.
Mary Cavett as Sylvia in “The Cottage” at Hartford Stage. The play by Sandy Rustin is a blend of witty romance, broad farce and mystery. (Miceli Productions)
Mary Cavett stars in the Hartford Stage production of “The Cottage” as Sylvia, who sets the plot in motion by deciding to unburden herself of a scandalous secret.
Cavett calls “The Cottage” a “fantastic play.”
”It’s really smart in its argument. Sandy Rustin takes the form of farce and messes with it,” she said. “It begins with that feeling you have when you’re walking into a new romance and a relationship, then gets crazier and crazier. There are a lot of quick entrances and exits. The language is fun and witty and has a shape.”
She is reticent about giving away plot details. “This is a tricky play to talk about because it’s full of surprises. There are many things you don’t want to reveal,” she said.
Cavett brings great range and experience to “The Cottage.” She has done new plays, Shakespeare, soap operas and the Edinburgh Fringe. She studied at Juilliard and NYU and now teaches movement at the Stella Adler Center for the Arts. You know she can handle rigorous physical comedy acting because she was a Rockette at Radio City Music Hall for nine years. She said her Rockettes and “Cottage” experiences can feel similar because “I love working in an ensemble. This play is incredibly ensemble-based.”
The rest of “The Cottage” cast includes Kate MacCluggage (the Groton native whose previous Hartford Stage shows include “Bell, Book and Candle,” “Twelfth Night” and the repertory productions of “MacBeth” and “La Dispute,” all for director Darko Tresnjak), Craig Wesley Divino of New York City’s Fault Line Theatre, Matthew J. Harris (who has a lot of Shakespeare on his resume), Jetta Juriansz (who has done sketch comedy with The Groundlings, UCB and the series “Studio C” and appeared at the Goodspeed Opera House last year in “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”) and Jason Sobel (who was a guest artist at Connecticut Repertory Theatre for “Metamorphoses”).
Cavett hasn’t worked with any of her castmates or director Golub-Sass before but she knew some of their work or had friends in common. She was urged to audition for “The Cottage” by a friend who had auditioned for a different role in the show and suggested that the Sylvia role might suit her.
The cast of “The Cottage” at Hartford Stage. (Miceli Productions)
They may not have known each other previously, but the cast had to bond quickly. “The Cottage” needs to deliver convincing romantic relationships, marriages and friendships. It also requires the cast to engage in complex physical comedy routines.
“We’re right on top of each other,” Cavett said. “We’re running up and down the furniture. There may or may not be somersaults.”
Even before they appear before an audience for the first time later this week, there’s a lot of laughter at rehearsals in appreciation of each other’s comic talents. “It feels like we’re at camp,” Cavett said. “We’re having a ball.”
Cavett also acknowledged what she call the “feminist bent” in Rustin’s script. The six-person cast is evenly divided between men and women — you’d be hard pressed to find an actual drawing room comedy or farce from the 1920s with that ratio. The key perspective in the play comes from Cavett’s character.
“Sylvia is the audience’s lens into the play. It begins with her making a big decision in her life. A woman who is searching for love ends up finding herself,” Cavett said.
“This is play about love, lies and laughter. The characters are all operating from real needs and desires. There are pockets of wisdom from uncanny places. There’s a lot of depth to it. It has a message: Bring truth to light.”
“The Cottage” by Sandy Rustin, directed by Zoë Golub-Sass, runs Jan. 16 though Feb. 8 at Hartford Stage, 50 Church St., Hartford. Performances are Tuesdays through Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 2 and 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. There is no 2 p.m. performance on Jan. 17 and an added 2 p.m. matinee on Feb. 4. $20-$105. hartfordstage.org.