Wintertime

Wintertime begins with deceptive familiarity, as if it’s going to be a frothy dinner-theater bedroom farce with all the wacky, naughty shenanigans familiar to regular viewers of Frasier. Spending a romantic weekend at the family cabin, young Jonathan is just about to propose to his girlfriend when—whoops!—in walks his mother wearing a negligee and swilling champagne. She’s there to have an affair with a caddish Frenchman named Francois. Total mood-killer. Soon enough, Jonathan’s dad and his boyfriend show up for the same reason, and the next-door lesbian couple pops in to complicate things further. What makes Wintertime stand out is that playwright Charles Mee doesn’t milk it only for laughs, but goes for a mood more multifaceted and disturbing, with a surprise shock in the second act that deliberately knocks the action off the tracks. Mee cheerily constructs Wintertime with elements from musicals, Greek tragedy, Shakespeare and the avant-garde, making his work somewhat unclassifiable, yet certainly boisterous and witty. At its heart, though, are cutting questions on the permanence and value of love, and it’s safe to say he doesn’t leave the audience any easy answers. After all, that’s for Mee to know, and you to find out. Guthrie Lab, 700 N. 1st St., (612) 377-2224, www.guthrietheater.org