Christmas play takes audience back to simpler time

MILFORD — Imagine sitting in the cozy lounge of the Victorian-style Rainbow Gardens restaurant with a view of the city Green twinkling in white lights as you eat a traditional Irish meal, drink mulled wine and watch the musical version of Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” performed live.

The restaurant’s first “dinner theater” venture will be on the menu for two more Saturdays, Dec. 8 and 15, after rave reviews and a sellout performance last week, actor Colin Lane said.

The two-person performance is being put on by Lane, originally from Dublin, and singer Rebecca Zaretsky, whom he describes as having the voice of an angel. When Zaretsky sings her first note of a Christmas song, the audience immediately knows “they’re in for something good,” Lane said.

Lane and Zaretsky have performed what he describes as the “wistful, whimsical, gentle” piece for years, but for the first time in such a special setting, he said.

The space in the popular restaurant’s bar area is intimate, so the audience is making eye contact with the performers and the lights outside the picture window on the

Green make it magical, Lane said. There is seating for only about 25, plus maybe six at the bar.

The owner of Rainbow Gardens, Heather Profetto, said she wanted to try a dinner theater experience, so she contacted Lane about performing the piece.

“It was wonderful, traditional and heartwarming,”

Profetto said of the performance.

She said the play offers a new, non-commercial twist on Christmas with thoughts of Dylan Thomas on growing up in Wales.

“To hear Colin do it, it takes you back to another time,” Profetto said.

Tickets are $60 each — including the meal. They can be ordered on the restaurant’s website or by calling 203-878-2500. They may decide to add more performances

by popular demand, Profetto said.

Diners get a three-course meal with main course offerings being Cornish hen, fish and chips, roast beef.

The audience starts the night with a Champagne toast and is served mulled wine, with a choice of apple pie or bread pudding for dessert.

Lane, who first performed the piece in 1988 in Boston and “oodles of times” since, is a professional actor who has done

Broadway, off-Broadway and regional theater throughout the country, including at Yale Repertory Theatre. He lives in Milford.

Lane said the setting at Rainbow Gardens is so magical that “midway you feel transported back to Christmas in Wales in the late ’20s.”

He said Zaretsky, with whom he is close friends, is “light” in contrast to his “dark.” The two performed the piece for years at Milford Library.

Zaretsky

Lane