It's the decadent embers of Germany's Weimer Republic in the Berlin of 1930. Rising Nazi Fascism encroaches on daily life, and an impoverished young English writer, Christopher Isherwood, taps at his small typewriter, courting a reluctant muse. "I am a camera, " he writes, "shutter open." It's a great opening line, but isolated in his busybody landlady's bed/sit, he finds little to write about. In sweeps Sally Bowles, the magnetic core of John Van Druten's 1951 play I Am A Camera, from which the musical Cabaret was drawn. Sally burns comet-bright in Theatre in the Round's pleasing production, tugging the young writer into her hectic trajectory, before flinging off on a new course and leaving Isherwood with material aplenty to write the short story upon which Van Druten based this play.

Talented Katie Guentzel plays Sally with all the exaggerated mannerisms and dramatic flair of a self-centered, upper-crust English debutante. She's attractive, she's youthful and she relishes her role as a gin-swigging, sexually free hedonist. But so plummy and rapid is her top-drawer English accent that I found it hard to catch whole chunks of her dialogue in the first act. Whether my ear had become attuned, or whether Guentzel slowed her delivery in act two, I am not sure, but I heard much better as the play progressed.

Van Druten draws his characters as broad types, but I appreciated a tender moment when Guentzel finds Sally's vulnerability after a painful episode, shading and deepening the role. As quiet writer Isherwood, David McMenomy provides a perfect foil for glittery Sally. He's an intelligent and thoughtful observer who willingly gets swept up in Sally's blazing trail. Their relationship is fond, but platonic, and the play barely hints at Isherwood's homosexuality. Written for 1951 audiences, when both homosexuality and frank female sexuality were shameful, Camera is properly discreet.

The outside world and its creeping Fascism makes itself felt, but director Matt Sciple does not emphasize it. Isherwood pays his meager rent by giving English lessons to a wealthy young Jewish woman, Natalia Landauer, played with earnest seriousness by Mimi Holland. As Natalia's wooer, who hides a secret and has his eye on her father's money, dashing Nathan Surprenant fills the part nicely.

The play's three stereotyped roles are loud landlady Fraulein Schneider, a bit over-the-top in Tina Federickson's playing; Clive, a brash, bored and moneyed American, who tosses around gifts and loose promises in exchange for sex with Sally, and played to type by Joel Raney; and, lastly, Linda Sue Anderson's redoubtable Mrs. Watson-Courtneidge, Sally's practical mother, who comes to reclaim her wayward daughter.

Kesa Collins all-in-one set of a much-lived-in bedroom-cum-sitting room of disparate period furniture serves the play well. Daniel Ellis' lighting shades each scene's moods, and costume designer Michelle Clark clearly had fun dressing flamboyant Sally.

Matt Sciple directs a well-produced and entertaining Camera that gives a glimpse into pre-World War II Berlin, and I suspect Guentzel will cadence Sally Bowles' posh British accent to deliver its wit with increased clarity.

To really immerse yourself in the period, keep your TRP ticket stub and get a discount to see Chameleon Theatre Circle's darker and saucier Cabaret, the 1966 hit musical that was adapted from Van Druten's play. It runs concurrently at the Burnsville Performing Arts Center. (612-747-8378)

I Am A Camera February 13 - March 8, 2008. Tickets $20. Fridays - Saturdays 8:00 p.m. Sundays 2:00 p.m.. Call 612- 333-3010 for tickets, or visit www.TheatreintheRound.org. Theatre in the Round, 245, Cedar Avenue, Minneapolis.

- Elizabeth Weir