Matunuck magic

The first moth arrived during the third song, Fats Waller's "T Ain't Nobody's Biz-Ness If I Do," a fluttering welcome to the return of musical theater at the old barn in Matunuck. Opening with "Ain't Misbehavin'," Theatre By The Sea is celebrating its 75th anniversary of song-and-dance at the Rhode Island seaside, even though a few of those years, including most of the past three, were dark. The peculiar charm of the place remains. The drafty barn, hearing coyotes howl in the moonlight, watching clouds of fireflies explode on sultry summer evenings, dodging bats hunting mosquitoes, while savoring the gardens, the grounds and the musicals.

"Salty Brine always sat in the seat next to you," said the customer seated behind me during intermission. "He never missed a show." A friend recently told me that when she was a young girl, she used to sneak in, but only in time for the after-play cabaret. The magic of Matunuck, one of the last places in America where a barn playhouse still comes to life, stirs the collective memory of Rhode Islanders, stoking the gray matter where Theatre By The Sea and summertime go together like families and clambakes, neighborhoods and block parties.