For vintage entertainment, the smart money's on `Idiot's Delight'.

Byline: FRED CRAFTS The Register-Guard

If life is a game of cards, then the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has dealt itself a winning hand with Robert Sherwood's sprightly comedy, "Idiot's Delight."

A form of solitaire that is virtually impossible to win, "Idiot's Delight" is an inspired metaphor for the war that is bearing down in 1935 on an odd assortment of people trapped by passport problems in the cocktail lounge of the Hotel Monte Gabrielle in the Italian Alps, near the borders of Switzerland and Austria.

Here, the flotsam of many nations - Italy, Germany, the United States, England, Austria, France and Russia - work out their petty concerns and find harmony while their motherlands drive headlong into World War II.

American Harry Van - a former encyclopedia salesman, snake oil peddler and carnival mind reader - intends only to spread a little cheer, but he ends up in the arms of a Russian socialite, who blows up her affair with a French arms dealer to pursue true love.

Here's a droll comedy where the sharp characters and zany situations are guaranteed to put a smile on your face and keep it there until the sobering end. Theatrical experiences don't get much more pleasurable than this. It's the kind of comedy the festival does best.

Although Sherwood (1896-1955) isn't exactly a household name today, he was once one of America's keenest craftsmen. He had six plays on Broadway in the eight years before "Idiot's Delight," the best of which was "The Petrified Forest" (1935) with Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart.

"Idiot's Delight" was written for the celebrated acting team of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. It opened on March 24, 1936, and ran for more than 300 performances, earning Sherwood the Pulitzer Prize. Two of his later plays, "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" and "There Shall Be No Night," also won that award.

In "Idiot's Delight," Sherwood set out to write a serious play about war, with touches of humor to lighten it up. But he ended up with just the opposite, much to our pleasure.

In the vortex of the play's many concerns is Van, a low-achieving but eminently likeable con man shepherding four shrill singers known as Les Blondes through Europe to earn a buck any way they can.

Handsome Michael Elich has Van's oily charm and facile ways down pat. He can work a scam like nobody's business and is smug enough to address everyone as either "Pal" or "Babe."

Despite his facade, he gradually reveals an appealing and surprising sensitive side. Elich's performance is a mesmerizing, fully realized tour de force.

Paired with Elich is the assured Robin Goodrin Nordli as Irene, the Russian scamp who tells people whatever she thinks they want to hear. Her deep voice dripping with a thick Russian accent, she has a fateful encounter with Van in which she loses her mysterious "past," but wins the audience.

This is one of those plays with a squadron of appealing characters, not the least of whom are Robert Vincent Frank as the waiter Dumpsty; James Newcomb as the fiery Frenchman Quillery; Tony DeBruno as the patient Captain Locicero; Demetra Pittman as the busy hotel owner Signora Pittaluga; and Maya Thomas, Wendy Spurgeon-Couraud, Saffron Henke and Nicol Foster as Les Blondes.

Director Peter Amster gives Sherwood's finely drawn characters an uncommon polish as he expertly glides the action to its inevitable conclusion.

The narrative takes place in the bar of an elegant hotel, where floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the sun setting on snowcapped Alps - a stunning set designed by William Bloodgood.

CAPTION(S):

Harry Van (Michael Elich) explains the benefits of rehearsing to Les Blondes (from left, Maya Thomas, Wendy Spurgeon-Couraud, Saffron Henke and Nicol Foster) in `Idiot's Delight.' Review