THEATER REVIEW : A Couple’s Transition Signals the Collapse of a Way of Life : In “Painting Churches,” a pair who could have stepped from a Henry James novel illustrates fading Old-World values.

Although Ensemble Theatre’s “Painting Churches” remains resolutely centered on an individual family undergoing a life transition, its broader implications are inescapable.

The somber overtones in playwright Tina Howe’s 1983 comedy about an aging couple confronting their own decline make it clear we’re also witnessing the collapse of a way of life--the fading Old-World values that render Fanny and Gardner Church living portraits of a bygone time.

Gardner is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose picture hangs in the National Gallery; his wife Fanny is an adroit socialite. Cultured, well-spoken and impeccably bred, they could easily have stepped from the pages of a Henry James novel.

Yet as they prepare to sell off the contents of their magnificent Boston mansion for permanent retirement on Cape Cod, they find the divestiture involves more than material possessions.

With each object they pack, a part of their lives slips away--from Fanny’s heirloom silver to the shoes given Gardner by Ezra Pound--and under Robert G. Weiss’s direction the well-paced dialogue seems to roll effortlessly from the stage.

At first, their sentimental nostalgia seems comical as they fuss over the packing logistics. But more sobering is the gradual revelation that the once-great Gardner is also losing his mental faculties.

Pete Trama, already well known to Santa Barbara Theatre Center patrons, has no trouble taking command of a different venue in his marvelously detailed portrayal of Gardner.

Gardner isn’t going gently into that dark night, but he isn’t exactly raging with self-will and determination, either. His overall condition is rather one of befuddlement, as failing memory reduces him to poking around the house for possessions he’s already carrying or trying to catch up on long-dead acquaintances.

Each scene brings new evidence of the depths of Gardner’s decline, yet Trama also tempers his doting frailty with glimpses of the lofty heights from which he’s fallen. Reciting Yeats to his transfixed daughter, he captures the audience as well with his eloquence, and there are a dignity and grace to him that no amount of senility can completely obliterate.

Every bit as powerful is Sylvia Short’s complex performance as Fanny, whose role as witness and nursemaid to Gardner’s decline has left her cryptically sharp-edged, her true emotions kept carefully under wraps. At times, her outright ridicule of her husband makes her seem icy, yet our view of Fanny changes as Short gradually lifts the veil (not unlike our shifting perspective of Georgie, the heroine of Clifford Odets’ “The Country Girl”).

Dena Anderson rounds out the cast as the Churches’ daughter Mags, a successful artist returned home to capture her parents on canvas before their transitional move. Anderson confidently embodies the inevitable struggle: gaining the respect of a parent for a child’s autonomy.

Nevertheless, her role throughout remains more of an enlightened guide through Gardner and Fanny’s darker journey, and she’s ultimately called on to celebrate them in the play’s stunning visual finale.

Details

* WHAT: “Painting Churches”

* WHEN: Through Jan. 2, Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sunday at 2 p.m.

* WHERE: Alhecama Theatre, 914 Santa Barbara St. in Santa Barbara

* COST: $14-$19

* FYI: For reservations or information, call (805) 962-8606