Review: Penumbra Theatre mines 'What I Learned in Paris' for laughs

"What I Learned in Paris" has the markings of a farce, with portals opening and closing, a doorbell that constantly rings and a surprise ending. But the pacing is far less hectic and the laughs are more subtly earned.

It's a different type for production for Penumbra Theatre, which has built its reputation on hard-hitting dramas by the likes of August Wilson and whose last show, "Sugar in Our Wounds," was about queer love on an antebellum plantation.

The Pearl Cleage play, about political workers in Atlanta who are learning to discover themselves after a historic political campaign, is light and fluffy, feeling more like a French pastry than the heavy meal the St. Paul theater usually serves up. That's not a knock. Variety is always welcomed.

Director Lou Bellamy staged "Paris" with the same crew at Portland Center Stage before bringing it home, introducing some new actors to the Twin Cities.

Cycerli Ash, who cut her teeth in Atlanta and plays the sophisticated Zen mother Eve, moves with a confidence and seeming ease that blends right into Penumbra's jazzy style. She holds the spotlight as a kind, seemingly selfless owner of an Atlanta townhouse that she has lent to the campaign of Maynard Jackson in his bid to become the city's first Black mayor.

When the play opens, the campaign workers are celebrating. Their candidate has just won. As campaign lawyer J.P. (Lester Purry), who also is Eve's ex, and his much younger love interest, Ann (Lauren Steele), are about to leave, Ann locks eyes with another campaign worker, John (La'Tevin Alexander). John is closer to her age and, from the looks of it, the two have something going on.

Inquiring minds get curiouser and curiouser.

For example, the play actually is about the kind of sacrifices that campaign workers, especially female ones, make willingly and cheerfully to advance male candidates.

Eve does not seem to have an unkind bone in her body, and stands as an example to everyone. When things get heated and complicated, she tries to cool things down and solve the problems. She literally and figuratively embraces Ann, a young, country innocent who has not really found herself.

Purry, who delivered a titanic "Thurgood" last year at Penumbra, is the stalwart in this acting ensemble. He is solid but his character is just one of Eve's many spokes and spins in her amiable wheel. All eyes remain on Ash, who flows on the stage like an eminent personage and draws you in with her charisma.

Steele, also new to the Twin Cities stage, plays an Ann that may be too country. It's not broad, per se, but she has such a deep-fried Southern speech and walk that she sticks out.

Twin Citian Vinecia Coleman, who plays Lena, acts as a kind of grounding force in the show, which takes place on Vicki Smith's two-story townhouse and in Dana Rebecca Woods' '70s-tinged costumes.