‘FOURPOSTER’ REFURBISHED WITH STYLE

Room for Theatre has done it again with “The Fourposter.” Their dusting off of Dutch playwright Jan De Hartog’s study of four decades in a long marriage, debuted on Broadway with the Cronyns in 1951 and later made into a film with Rex Harrison and the late Lilli Palmer, looks so fresh you forget it’s supposed to be a revival.

The play opens in 1890. Gary L. Wissman’s graceful set re-creates a well-appointed Victorian bedroom within whose walls we witness all the major events in the lives of the room’s occupants: the nervous wedding night, the birth of their first child, the threatened dissolution of their marriage and finally their reluctant departure at the dawn of the Roaring ‘20s.

Director Dolores Mann paces the action with a quiet, lifelike rhythm that brings out the gentle grace of De Hartog’s writing. The period detail is characteristically flawless, the slow passage of time suggested by subtle changes in Wissman’s set as well as Geoffrey Rinehart’s delicate lighting and sound designer Luanna van Holten’s evocative backdrop of original period recordings.

At first, it stretches credibility a bit to see the obviously mature Rosanna Huffman and Jerry Lacy pretending to be giddy newlyweds. But this is one of those rare instances in which the actors actually seem to grow into their roles, and it isn’t long before we’ve come to regard their scenes from a marriage as something close to our own.

The feeling is a testament to both the naturalistic playing of the performers and the up-close dimensions of the theater itself. Lacy, who played Bogart in both the Broadway and film versions of “Play It Again, Sam,” does an especially good job of making the starched-shirt husband into a charmingly droll ne’er-do-well.

Good as he is, it’s Huffman who shines--especially when wearing one of Barbara Cox’s breathtaking, absolutely authentic-looking gowns. Charming and vivacious, she brings a delightful feminist touch to the patriarchal settings. She’s easily the most spirited thing about an already bouncy “Fourposter.”

The vows at 12745 Ventura Blvd. in Studio City are taken Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7:30 p.m., through March 23; (818) 509-0459.