Exit laughing: Northlight Theatre closes Skokie era with hilarious ‘Angel Next Door’

“The Angel Next Door” — 3.5 stars

Northlight Theatre exits its longtime home at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts not only on a high note, but also on a hilarious one.

Director Linda Fortunato’s funny, impeccably paced revival of Paul Slade Smith’s delightfully metatheatrical comedy “The Angel Next Door” concludes Northlight’s 50th season and drops the curtain on its 29-year run at the Skokie venue.

The wave of laughter that Smith’s screwball comedy and Fortunato’s razor-sharp ensemble generated opening night should carry Northlight all the way to Evanston, where it inaugurates its new home in September.

In his affectionate tribute, adapted from Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár’s 1924 farce “Play at the Castle,” Smith skewers theatrical conventions while also embracing them. But Smith’s play has more than laughs to recommend it. It is, at its core, a testament to the power of theater.

Savvy Charlotte Sanders (played by Lombard’s Katy Sullivan) reflects on that power and the shared experience in the monologue that concludes the first act.

“In the middle of a packed theater — shoulder to shoulder with … strangers, who’ve arrived with … whatever’s on their minds, whatever’s in the news — all the troubles of the world — but once they’re here … Once the lights go down, and the story begins … there is no world. There is no ‘out there.’ There is only this room. And these foolish characters. And their mistakes, and their idiocy, and their triumphs, and their … humanity. For two hours, they get to — we get to … escape into … a play.”

Lovely sentiment, and it has the benefit of being true.

The time is 1948. The place is the bedroom of a seaside Newport, Rhode Island, mansion, lushly designed by Jack Magaw with a surfeit of doors.

The action commences with husband-and-wife playwrights Arthur (Sean Fortunato, as droll as droll can be) and Charlotte (Sullivan, in classic doyenne mode) arriving at the mansion for a weekend getaway featuring a private concert from Broadway ingenue Margot Bell (Aja Alcazar). They’re accompanied by their young friend, budding writer Oliver (Garrett Lutz), who is about to publish his first novel, “The Angel Next Door,” inspired by his romance with Margot, whom he met through Arthur and Charlotte the previous year.

Desperate for a hit to make up for their recent Broadway flop, the couple have adapted Oliver’s novel for the stage, hoping to enlist Margot as its star. But their plans get upended when they overhear, through the mansion’s paper-thin walls, an amorous encounter between Margot and Victor Pratt, the self-styled “Broadway’s favorite baritone,” played with dimwitted affability by Andrés Enriquez.

Oliver — whose relationship with Margot was more pen pals than lovers — is devastated. So much so that he tears up and eats his Simon & Schuster publishing contract, then threatens to do the same to his 300+-page novel.

Displaying a take-charge ingenuity that recalls the great Rosalind Russell, Charlotte concocts a scheme — a play within a play — to reunite would-be lovers Oliver and Margot, while also saving her career and her husband’s. Her efforts require assistance from sourpuss housekeeper Olga (Erin Noel Grennan, who originated the role in 2023 and plays it to deadpan perfection). Initially critical of theater and its artists, Olga succumbs to its allure and becomes an enthusiastic participant in their deftly executed funny business.

As opening night concluded with a standing ovation, a woman sitting behind me remarked: “That was wonderful.”

“It was good to laugh,” replied her companion.

Indeed it was.

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Location: Northlight Theatre, North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie, (847) 673-6300, northlight.org

Showtimes: 1 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; and 2:30 p.m. Sunday through May 10

Tickets: $46-$98

Running time: About two hours, with intermission

Parking: In the lot adjacent to the theater

Rating: For teens and older, includes sexual innuendo and references