DaytonDailyNews.com

DAYTON — "The Paris Letter" is a play about investment manager Sandy Sonnenberg. All but omnipresent narrator Anton Kilgallen, his friend and former lover, tell us that early and often.

The person Jon Robin Baitz's play is really about is Kilgallen, which becomes increasingly clear in the Dayton Theatre Guild's production of the two-act drama, which opened Friday, Feb. 27.

That's a good thing, because Kilgallen is a complex being with hopes, desires, resentments and a cold will to have the final say. Sonnenberg is a two-dimensional man whose fall from glory to gutter evokes little sympathy.

That isn't the fault of Michael Boyd, who plays the fallible and cowardly older version of Sonnenberg in a production directed by Greg Smith. Ian Manuel plays him as a young man, when he's still striving and struggling.

Gil Martin delivers a fine, subtle and evolving performance as Kilgallen. Henni Fisher is at her best as the open-minded, loving and clear-thinking mother of young Sandy. Matt Curry is both young Anton and Burt Sarris, who ruins Sandy, but never should have had the chance.

Baitz demonstrates a command of language, history and selective human emotion in this gay-themed script set between the 1960s and 2001. But he overwrites virtually every scene. It makes for a mixed experience that delivers drama, laughter and frustration.

"The Paris Letter" will continue through March 15 at 8 p.m. Fridays, 5 p.m. Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $9-$17. Call (937) 278-5993.

>Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2377 or tmorris@Dayton

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