East Hampton - Leaves fall, the cold wind blows and temperatures drop, but the arts remain in bloom throughout the East End, even in the off-season. On Tuesday, November 17 Hamptons.com attended the staged reading of A.R. Gurney's "The Cocktail Hour" at Guild Hall presented by the Naked Stage theatre troupe.

As a wordsmith, I have always been a fan of staged readings. That is not to say that I do not love a full staged production of a play, but a staged reading is a pleasant change that allows one to really concentrate on the playwright's words, the dialogue, the innuendo, the music of the phrasing.

Gurney, an American playwright and novelist who studied at the Yale School of Drama, has had a prolific career represented by over three dozen works written for the stage. He firmly established himself on the American theatrical landscape in 1981 with the Playwright's Horizon production of "The Dining Room." It is a comedy of manners with 18 scenes, representing 18 different households all set in a single dinning room. Gurney is best known for his reoccurring character portrayals of upper class WASPs of the Northeast and the guarded emotional communications within the families of this stratum of the American culture.

Josh Perl, founder and executive director of The Naked Stage.

The evening's fare of "The Cocktail Hour" was in line with Gurney's trademark milieu, as the audience witnessed the gathering of four of five members of a proper WASP family joined during the pre-dinner, parlor cocktail hour of scotch, wine and martinis. The agitation at the evening's gathering is centered on yet another play written by eldest son John that is itself called "The Cocktail Hour." Biographical in nature, the play is too close for comfort for any family member except John himself. Within the dialogue each member of the family reveals and or confronts personal demons and regrets, along with coming to terms with the guarded emotional honesty and affection that is often the staged, sometimes cliché, representation of American WASP families. Even the missing member of this upper-crust family is represented by way of an outgoing family phone call that reveals he is packing it in and moving to California to build wooden boats, initially upsetting to all except John who has actually helped orchestrate the life changing move for his younger brother and his brother's family.

Those of you unfamiliar with the dynamics of a staged reading should understand that because it is simply a reading, does not mean it is a stagnant performance. It certainly can be, based on the caliber of the actors, but it was anything but that at Guild Hall thanks to the brilliant portrayals presented by the actors of the Naked Stage. Larry Nicks played the father with a country club, toastmaster panache that was funny when in the character's comfort zone of old boy's club anecdotes and defensive with the thought of any personal revelation by his son's play. Kristen Lowman was particularly endearing as Anne the mother with a subtly of facial expressions and understated comic timings that were spot on throughout the reading. Kate Mueth's rendering of a conflicted, yet devoted, wife and daughter who finally addresses her own long neglected needs more that hit the mark in her multi-level, in tone and volume, vocal performance. Guild Hall artistic director Josh Gladstone, who choose the play for the series, read the part of playwright son John. He portrayed the family fly in the ointment and drove the plot along with a rich unveiling of the textual nuances demanded by Gurney's assumed autobiographical character.

A staged reading, no pomp just circumstance, the poetry and immediate beauty of the written word.

During the lively Q & A that followed the reading Gladstone explained his reasoning for suggesting "The Cocktail Hour" for the series, "Guild Hall, in this economy, is on shaky ground at the moment and we need to find plays that are small casts. We need to find plays that are single unit sets, which this is, and we need to find plays that are arguably lighter in tone, but without sacrificing theatrical integrity." Posing the play to the audience as a possible candidate for a full stage production next summer, Gladstone was met with a resounding round of applause and comments of support from several attendees.

Referencing the difficult economy, it should be noted that beyond being a thoroughly enjoyable evening of theater, the event was free. Yes, I said free! Although extremely well attended, another 200 Hamptonians certainly could have and should have found seats in the John Drew Theater of Guild Hall that night, particularly considering that cost was no excuse for anyone not in attendance.

Even the Naked Stage's upcoming "fundraiser" in association with the League of Women Voters is a bargain with ticket prices of $15 for general admission and $10 for seniors and $5 for students. The evening will be a staged reading of "Proof," the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play by David Auburn. The reading will be followed by a discussion of women in math and science by enormously popular East Hampton writer Dava Sobel and Lehman College mathematics professor Dr. Linda Keen. At $5 a head for students, East Enders should certainly be encouraging, if not demanding their school age daughters attend this entertaining and illuminating evening. The fundraiser will be held at the Ross School on Sunday, December 6 at 3 p.m.

After the reading I spoke with Naked Stage founder and executive director Josh Perl, who read the stage directions during the evening's performance, "We have been at Guild Hall for six years, before that at Southampton College where I first started doing it. We have been a non-profit for about a year, which has enabled us to do things like the marathon readings we did last spring and the benefit we did for the Wounded Warrior Project we did last weekend. We are going to do our first fully staged production this spring at the Bridgehampton Community House."

The East End is replete with artistic organizations and venues like the Naked Stage and Guild Hall, organizations that need and deserve our support, no matter the season. The Naked Stage has two more staged readings in Association with Guild Hall coming up this year, "A Streetcar Named Desire" on December 1 and "Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge" on December 15.

For more info go to www.thenakedstage.com and www.guildhall.org.