THEATER REVIEW : Fantasy Rules Over Fact in ‘Lettice and Lovage’ : Performance of Peter Shaffer’s play at the Alhecama Theatre in Santa Barbara is both hilarious and endearing.

“Fantasy floods in where fact leaves a vacuum,” proclaims Lettice Douffet, a historical tour guide with an eccentric approach to lecturing in Peter Shaffer’s “Lettice and Lovage.”

The tediously scripted narration she’s forced to deliver about a longstanding but inconsequential English estate never fails to leave visitors unimpressed.

So, true to her credo, Lettice starts dressing up her tour with all sorts of colorful anecdotes.

Needless to say, they never happened.

In an endearing and hilarious performance, Ensemble Theatre Company’s Gretchen Evans captures Lettice’s quirky appeal and her implicit repudiation of the soulless mediocrity of modern life. Instead, Lettice treasures the values of a more indulgent, imaginative past--like her idol, Shakespeare’s Falstaff.

Lettice is precisely the kind of gifted kook who, in another Shaffer play, would meet a tragic fate--most likely at the hands of some champion of the status quo driven to subjugate her into normality (the vengeful composer Salieri in “Amadeus,” for example, or the hack psychiatrist Dysart in “Equus”).

“Lettice and Lovage,” however, is a welcome upbeat relief from Shaffer’s typical brooding, with the playwright’s trademark flair for powerful, often-poetic dialogue employed this time for wit and wry social commentary instead of agonized soul-searching.

Which isn’t to say that Lettice has an easy time of it. Her wildly popular “alternative” lectures soon attract the notice of her supervisor, Lotte Schoen (Sylvia Short), a prim and proper authoritarian who exacts rigid discipline.

“It is not my fault,” counters Lettice when confronted with her transgressions, “except in the most limited sense of the word.”

That most limited sense, of course, defines the conventional rules of propriety in Schoen’s system of justice, but the undaunted Lettice faces her punishment with a hysterical parody of Mary Queen of Scots at her execution.

The twist comes when Schoen, drawn to Lettice’s rebellious spirit like a moth to a flame, ends up switching sides. Letting down her guard in believable stages, Short’s assured portrayal smoothly transitions from stern inflexibility to the twinkling revelation of her long-buried secret--she once contemplated acts of terrorism against the ugly monolithic architecture in post-war Britain. “I care more for buildings than their inhabitants,” she gleefully confesses.

The blossoming alliance between this unlikely pair is the heart and soul of the play, and director Robert G. Weiss’ handsomely staged production is appropriately tuned to all the nuances of character.

In the third act, however, the playwright lobs a plot twist from left field involving an investigation by a bumbling solicitor (Charles De L’Arbre) in much the same spirit of inquiry that structured “Amadeus” and “Equus.” (This might well be a genetic compulsion--Shaffer’s brother Anthony wrote the all-time classic brain-teaser “Sleuth.”)

But here, rather than being systemic to the work, the complications turn out to be grounded in a trivial misunderstanding easily cleared up. Unfortunately, challenging us with this pseudo-puzzle puts us at one level of remove from the emotional attachments so delicately nurtured in the first two acts.

In the end, the equilibrium is restored, but it’s a needlessly close call.

Details

* WHAT: “Lettice and Lovage.”

* WHEN: 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Through May 29.

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

* HOW MUCH: $14 to $19.

* FYI: For reservations or information, call 962-8606.