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REVIEW: 84 Charing Cross Road at Richmond Hill Players Barn Theatre

Richmond Hill Players
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Wowsers! What a theatre weekend I had! It began on Thursday at Geneseo’s Richmond Hill Players with its production of 84 Charing Cross Road, an adaptation by James Roose-Evans of Helene Hanff’s memoir of the same name. The result is a charming, funny, endearing, and poignant production, here wonderfully directed by veteran Jennifer Kingry.

This 1949 through 1971 true story is told through the perspective of a series of letters written between the struggling freelance New York writer, Helene Hanff, and London’s Mark & Co.’s chief buyer of antique books, Frank Doel.

Hanff was a voracious reader. It fueled both her endless curiosity and buoyed her diverse writing assignments. She is frustrated in her quest to find the usually too-expensive books she wants or needs in the topsy-turvy post WWII era. She stumbles upon Mark & Co. as a potential source and thus begins a two decades long distance relationship with Doel and, eventually, his family and colleagues.

Hanff is a feisty, no nonsense New Yorker; Doel is the consummate English gent. Somehow – as they say – opposites attract. Although Hanff has dreams of traveling to London to meet her long distance friends, something – usually financial – always foils her plans.

This is not a romantic or lusty relationship and therein lays its charm. It is genuine friendship fostered by a common love of books. You will be swept into its pseudo-fairy tale enchantment as easily as slipping into your favorite jeans. And it is accomplished although the characters never directly address each other.

Mischa Hooker and Jackie Skiles
Richmond Hill Players
Mischa Hooker and Jackie Skiles

Heading up the cast as Hanff is RHP doyenne, Jackie Skiles, and she imbues this character with just the right amount of vim and vinegar – sort of a female version of a loveable old curmudgeon. As the dedicated British bibliophile is Mischa Hooker. I have long wanted to see Hooker in a leading role and he does not disappoint here. He nails this character as solidly as a master carpenter nails a two-by-four.

The supporting cast has few lines but a big presence in this show. Kingry has them in and out of the book shop with near constant movement lending a truly authentic vibe to the set and relieving any possibility of the show becoming static.

This show is well worth the jaunt out to Geneseo to take in this thoroughly delightful production.

84 Charing Cross Road continues at Richmond Hill Players Barn Theatre in Geneseo, Thursday through Saturday, July 18 through 20 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, July 21 at 3:00 p.m.

I’m Chris Hicks…break a leg.