Annulla skips through some of the most dramatic times in 20th-century history but, ironically, makes for little drama itself. The play, essentially a one-person show, does offer an engaging sketch of a charmingly garrulous woman, however, and it comes beautifully to life in the energized performance of Eileen De Felitta in the title role.
Written by Emily Mann (the artistic director of McCarter Theatre in Princeton, N.J.), the play is set in the kitchen of Annulla's London flat in 1974. Through recorded voiceover narration identified as "the voice of Emily" (played by Neva Small), we learn that Annulla is the aunt of Emily's college roommate. Emily, while on a trip with her roommate, visits Annulla to gain a sense of her own family's hard-to-trace roots.
Annulla has no hesitation in talking about the past or present, and she does so with a strikingly clear-eyed vision of life and its vicissitudes. She tells about her childhood in a wealthy but unloving Jewish family, first in Poland and then in Vienna. She relates how she married a Viennese Jew simply to get married but grew to love him; how she was able to pass as Aryan during the early years of Nazi power in Austria, even while her husband was imprisoned in Dachau; and how the couple was eventually able to move to England, where her husband served in the British forces. Annulla is also a feminist, busily writing a play telling how once women gain total political power, the world will be free of tyrants.
In its brief running time (less than an hour), the play covers so many events and so many characters that it's sometimes difficult to follow. But De Felitta, under Pamela Hall's astute direction, holds attention, investing Annulla with humor, irony, and sudden but short-lived bursts of poignant emotion. And as Annulla goes about preparing a meal while talking with her visitors, there's a gratifying sense of life lived to the fullest under both extreme and ordinary conditions.
Presented by Edmund Gaynes and West End Artists Company
at the Theatre at St. Luke's, 308 W. 46th St., NYC.
May 14-June 11. Mon., Thu.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat. and Sun., 3 p.m.
(212) 239-6200, (800) 432-7250, or www.telecharge.com.