The Irish will be staying a little longer in sunny California. The Abbey Theatre's American premiere of Hugh Leonard's play, Love in the Title, has extended at San Jose Repertory Theatre, running three extra performances April 14-16, instead of closing April 9. Performances began March 11 with an opening, naturally, on St. Patrick's Day, March 17. Tony Award winner Patrick Mason (Dancing at Lughnasa) directs.

Love in the Title is about Katie, a novelist who writes books in which love always appears in the title. An isolated but successful woman, she is sitting alone on a hillside in Limerick when she has a fantasy encounter with the thirty-year-old incarnation of her mother Triona and her grandmother Cat, at twenty. As the three talk love and life, the changes in morality and the world over three generations are revealed.

Leonard is best known for penning the Tony Award winner, Da, as well as Stephen D, The Poker Session, The Au Pair and The Mask of Moriarty.

Ingrid Craigie stars as the novelist Katie. Her mother Triona is Catherine Walsh with Karen Ardiff as the youthful grandmother Cat. All three starred in the world premiere at the Abbey in March, 1999.

Tony Award nominated set designer and costumer Joe Vanek (Dancing at Lughnasa) and lighting designer Michael Hughes repeat their designs for the San Jose mounting. The coming together of Dublin and San Jose theatre companies partially springs from a sister city partnership formed between the two burgs in 1986.

Tickets are $35-$17. San Jose Repertory Theatre is located in the Sobrato Auditorium at 101 Paseo de San Antonio. For reservations, call (408) 367-7255. San Jose Repertory is on the web at http://www.sjrep.com.

Shows expected next season at San Jose Rep include Warren Leight's Tony winning Side Man, David Hare's mother-daughter drama, Amy's View, and the musical Enter The Guardsman.

-- By Christine Ehren