The entire Affair appears genuine, given its performance in the actual Powel home, restored to a fare-thee-well by this City's Society for the Preservation of Landmarks.

By the Republic's current distressed standards, the conversation was restrained; suffice to say, we are not newly minted voyeurs. And if Mrs. Powel (Colleen O'Brien) declaimed in a slightly unnatural stagelike manner and with unusually crisp "t's," and if Mrs. Washington (Janice Erickson Smith) seemed overly timid in softness of speech, these are but trifles, for the talk was interesting enough.

The women addressed the ongoing war against the Crown, the loss of children to disease; the proud Philadelphia ladies who fashioned 2,000 army shirts, and the Valley Forge soldiers who rallied to perform a skit for their General (early-period Philly Fringe). "I should not name names," said Mrs. Washington, "but there are some . . . I pray are better soldiers than they are actors." Everyone's a critic, to be sure.

Benjamin Franklin's name was oft spoken. The women recounted how his daughter, Sarah, danced in this very house with the General at the Washingtons' 20th anniversary fete. Mrs. Powel claimed the General to be quite sly with the ladies. Odd, how Dr. Franklin readily accepts all credit for that sort of thing.

The presentation must have been affecting, as on my way home I was compelled to stop my carriage curbside at the Franklins' resting place, Christ Church Burial Ground on Arch Street. There, being of proper Philadelphia manners, I reached through the iron gate to place pennies from my pocket upon the graves of Sarah, her Mother, and Dr. Franklin, my most senior Editor.

I remain your humble Theater Adviser,

- Howard Shapiro

Happy Hour. True to its title, John Stanton's Happy Hour is a brisk, humorous 60 minutes about two men, two women, and the time of day when work ends and buckets of Pabst Blue Ribbon begin. Not that the characters get to share any of that enjoyment. The men are losers, and the women, too, but likable losers all. Stanton's script contains plenty of laugh-out-loud moments at their expense, while Allison Heishman's direction lowlights any actual happiness, replacing it with a couple of shots of stupidity, and an ennui chaser.

Robert Neddoff's Man One bristles at Man Two's (Gregg Pica) suggestion that he was involved in a drunk-driving accident. "It wasn't a DUI. . . . I was driving drunk and some other drunk hit me." Pica, in turn, admits he was fired earlier in the day for performing, well, an unprintable act in the company parking lot because there was nothing in the employee handbook to indicate that he shouldn't.

The women, a hardened paper- pusher who trades sexual favors for office perks (Colleen Corcoran's Woman One), and a weepy recent divorcee (Megan Slater's Woman Two) inevitably make their way over to the men's table. But really, things aren't any better on that side of the room, unless, of course, you're watching from the audience. - Wendy Rosenfield