Grade: A+

Only two criteria exist for the above rating. Either a production meets the highest artistic standards or it is too important and relevant to a community to be missed. The Kitchen Theatre production of Lee Blessing's “Two Rooms” satisfies both.

Director Jesse Bush has given area theater-goers a gift. A play so powerful, so moving, so intimate, that to miss it leaves a gap in our understanding of what theater is and what it can mean.

He has a brilliant cast to work with and an absolutely perfect venue for this play - the 75 seat theater involves an audience and adds immediacy to every play produced there.

But Bush has directed that cast with rapier precision, not one single moment or delivery or gesture is misplaced - or even askew. Absolutely everything that happens is perfectly honest and thoroughly believable.

The play details the lives of an American professor, taken hostage in 1984 Beruit, and his wife, back home in America. She has emptied a room in her home, only a mattress remains, in an attempt to replicate the conditions he must endure. She has frequent meetings with a liaison from the State Department and with a reporter who wants her story.

Jonathan Ave and Kathryn Blume are the couple and the chemistry between them is palpable, full of emotional truth and poignancy. Ave is superb in his frequent monologues, perfectly convincing and detailed as a man suddenly cut off from his world and forced to live his life from memory.

Blume is nothing short of stunning as the wife, giving a gorgeously crafted and subtly nuanced performance. As she is pulled from her private tragedy into a contest for her suffering between the media and the government she is the heart and soul of the play and she measures up exquisitely.

Michael Baugh and Cynthia Henderson are marvelous as the reporter and the liaison, respectively. Baugh has enormous energy and drive, his performance is a tour de force. Henderson gives her character a quiet determination and single minded focus. Both offer shaded, honest performances.

Mel Pantealeoni Boel has created a superb, and superbly used, original score for the play. Steve TenEyck creates a wonderful set for the play and Owen Walz lights the show beautifully.

The play may not hold the attention of younger children, but for anyone over 15 this is a vital and important play.

If you go

What: “Two Rooms”

When: 7:30 tonight, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday continues through Nov. 19

Where: Kitchen Theatre, 116 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca

For tickets: Call (607) 272-0403