HALLOWEEN week is the perfect season for this theatrical chestnut about witches. The most familiar incarnation of John Van Druten’s 1950 play is the 1958 movie, starring Jimmy Stewart in the romantic lead as Shep Henderson, opposite Kim Novak as a modern New York witch, Gil Holroyd. At age 50, Stewart was well past his prime for such roles, and he knew it. After all, Novak was exactly half his age, although she had played opposite him that same year in Hitchcock’s murder mystery Vertigo.

Bob Brown

Bob Brown

Bob Brown

   DEPENDING on your family dynamics, Thanksgiving can be a time of joyous reunions or of sheer torture. In the Lundeen household, it’s a little of both. “Things are not usually this strange around here,” says Mom (Jan Miktus) somewhat apologetically to a visiting neighbor, Jerry (N. Charles Leeder). “Oh, don’t worry about it,” he replies, adding rather matter-of-factly, “By definition, any family with three or more people is dysfunctional.” By the second act of Phil Olson’s amusing and heartwarming play, we’re inclined to agree — but dysfunctional in a nice way.

IN his welcoming remarks to the opening-night audience at George Street Playhouse, Artistic Director David Saint elevated Arthur Laurents from “artist in residence” to “one of the family.” The celebrated playwright has certainly found a home here on New Brunswick’s theater row. This is the second world premiere of a Laurents’ work at George Street this year, following the production of New Year’s Eve in April.

Bob Brown

Anthony Stoeckert