The Good Book of Pedantry and Wonder

One needn't be a pedant to adore or even appreciate this play, but it helps if you know—or, more aptly, care—what "pedantry" means. And one must pay attention to glean from the dialogue that the characters are building the Oxford English Dictionary, first edition. Moby Pomerance's world premiere script is a love letter to those who work in words. It is also a crushing indictment of parental neglect.

The action takes place in the 1880s in a damp garden shed (Brian Bembridge's set and lighting design) in Oxford, England. Here the Murray family collects, let us say today, gazillions of slips of paper bearing words, definitions, and quotations. The stock in trade of chief editor and patriarch James Murray is precision, as well as irascibility bordering on cruelty. His daughter, Jane, is brilliant and playful, but female and therefore second class. His son, Paul, left home and became a surveyor, drawing pictures, the antithesis of words. Many words came and went in the next century, but office politics and office romances have endured, as has the way we use words as swords and shields.

John Langs directs this world that looks so dusty and feels so fresh. Emotions are worn gently on sleeves, with tasteful touches of comedy layered throughout. The casting (Michael Donovan) is flawless. As James, John Getz looks decrepit but simmers with dogged energy, seemingly possessed by his character. Melanie Lora's Jane is upright but far from starchy, a staunch little feminist who suddenly and sweetly capitulates to her father's opinions when the pair discusses word choice. Ryan Welsh's Paul is sturdy enough to have traveled the world but fragile enough to have suffered his father's abuse.

The comedy with heart comes from Travis Michael Holder as a gentleman who comes to inspect the premises and stays to work, and from Gillian Doyle as a member of the lower class who brings colloquialisms to the table. Adding a romantic layer, Henry Todd Ostendorf charms as a bemused outsider. Time Winters plays the diligent office assistant, the actor's almost unnoticeable flickers of the eye proving that although a picture is worth a thousand words, a human glance can be worth a million.

Yes, we should live life instead of reading—or writing—about it. And yet, how could we discuss and argue and revel in the world's experiences without the precise words to describe them? Several false endings can and probably will be smoothed over in future editions of this stimulating, stirring play.

Presented by Circle X Theatre Company with and at the Theatre @ Boston Court, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena. July 31-Aug. 29. Thu.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. (626) 683-6883. www.bostoncourt.org.

Editor's note: Travis Michael Holder reviews for Back Stage.