Middlebury Community Players presents Lillian Groag’s hilarious farce The Ladies of the Camellias at the Town Hall Theater. Opening February 6 and closing February 9, showtimes are 8:00 PM for the Thursday through Saturday performances, with a 2:00 PM matinee on Sunday afternoon.

Tickets are $13 for the Thursday performance, $19 for all other performances (with a $2 service charge) and can be purchased at the box office, (802) 382-9222, or online at www.townhalltheater.org.

Camellias is based on an imagined 1897 meeting between the greatest French actress of the age, Sarah Bernhardt, and the most famous tragedienne of the era, Eleonora Duse.  Since the women are both divas and rivals, their respective companies can only tremble and wait until unstoppable Bernhardt meets the immovable Duse.

The situation becomes even more ludicrous when an amateur Russian anarchist takes the companies hostage but discovers that dealing with actors’ egos is much harder than changing the course of history.  What follows is high comedy mixed with reflections on theater, reality, social conscience, and the power and limitations of art.