A wishful, romantic comedy, "Enchanted April" is based on the daydream that a couple of repressed British wives can blossom and grow when transplanted from dreary London to sunny Italy. The play is adapted by American playwright Matthew Barber from the 1922 novel by Australian Elizabeth von Arnim, and could be whimsical, diverting escapism — even without being a great stage script.

Barber's version is overwritten in the first act and contrived in the second. Since the playwright doesn't provide the necessary subtext to flesh out his characters, it's up to the actors to create it. And in that, the Diamond Head Theatre's current "Enchanted" fails to realize the story's potential magic.

While director Randl Ask shows plenty of thought in the production, it doesn't charm us into the enchanted state needed to accept the plot. Instead, we see most everyone working too hard at building their characters. The result: characters that stand apart, disconnected from the actors who play them.

Lotty (Melanie Garcia) is breathy and fidgety; Rose (Laura Bach Buzzell) the "melancholy Madonna" is a case study in rigidly controlled depression. Their husbands (Brian Gilhooly and Jerome Anthony) are a thinly disguised bumbler and a cheat. For most of Act 1, which feels longer than it is, the characters stump through routine lives, soggy with stoicism and unhappiness.

A glimmer of hope comes in the form of an advertisement for a castle on Lake Como available to rent. Lotty and Rose discover it simultaneously. To cut costs, they sublet to an aged dowager (Jo Pruden) and a young socialite (Genny Wilson).

The end of the act promises a change but does it so damply that coming back from intermission is a chore.

The London of Act 1 is unremittingly bleak, thanks to a soundtrack of incessant rain and dreary backdrops enlivened only by Johanna Morriss' clever turntable set and spare furniture groupings. Soft, colorful Act 2 is a parlor comedy set in a piazza.

Act 2 also offers Derek Calibre as the castle's owner and Patrice Scott as its cook, who help catalyze the transformation of the English vacationers. But when the promised change happens, it's because the playwright says it must and not because the production is convincing.

Maya Fernandez's costumes add a great deal of interest to this period piece, but while some are successful (like the dowager trading her bustle for flapper fringes) others are unattractive and difficult to wear.

"Enchanted's" Italian awakening seems forced and manipulated in this production, but that's partly to do with Barber's script, which improbably sends his central characters back into the arms of the very husbands they longed to escape.