"Family Secrets"

July 1, 2014 — My first trip to the Peterborough Players in Peterborough, New Hampshire this season will be hard to top. "Family Secrets," a comedy by Sherry Glaser and Greg Howells, directed by Howard J. Millman, features Carolyn Michel in a one-woman performance that reminded me of Lisa Bostnar's one-woman show in 2010, "The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead," where Bostnar portrayed seven very different characters, including two males, in a tour de force performance. Michel's offering is every bit the equal of Bostnar's.

Michel plays five members of a dysfunctional Jewish family, one of them male. She does her costume changes at a dresser and clothes rack on the left side of the stage in full view of the audience. What she does with her hair is remarkable, some of the changes accomplished with wigs but some with her natural hair. Costume designer Nicole Wee and hair and wig designer Michelle Hart deserve special mention for their contribution.

Michel's character transformations are complete, not only in appearance but personality and mannerisms. She goes through the five roles in the fast-moving hour and 15-minute play with no intermission. As the pregnant Fern, she does a cringe-inducing but hilarious take on child-birth. That's just one highlight. The entire performance was a laugh-a-minute audience pleaser, and a great start to Peterborough Players' 2014 season. Next Players production on my must-see agenda, "Last of the Red Hot Lovers," July 9-20.

Trivia note: Greg Howells, one of the authors of "Family Secrets," disappeared from a golf course in 1997. Never found, he was declared dead five years later and the case was closed. "They just stopped looking," said his wife and co-author, Sherry Glaser.