★★★★☆ Umbrella Arts Center, Concord, MA. The down-home vibe of The Spitfire Grill may be just the tonic you crave for our troubled times. It was, for me. Based on (and much improving upon) the 1996 Sundance Festival audience hit by Lee David Zlotoff, it explains how prison parolee Percy Talbott (Liza Giangrande) makes her way to rural backwater Gilead, WI and the titular greasy spoon, and how her interactions with owner Hannah (Kerry A. Dowling), put-upon spouse Shelby Thorpe (Shonna McEachern), and parole officer Sheriff Joe (Sean Donnelly) change her life, and everyone else’s. It’s no Hallmark family drama, I assure you. The characters are believable and fully-rounded individuals rather than types; their stakes are high; and their lives are set to a lilting, ballad-forward score by James Valcq and the late Fred Alley that envelops you like a warm blanket, or a long country drive with your radio set to Sirius XM’s 24-hour folk station. The first-rate cast includes Anthony Pires, Jr. as an unemployed quarryman who takes out his frustrations on wife Shelby, Catherine Lee Christie as nosybody Effy, and Cristhian Mancinas-García as a mysterious denizen of the Gilead woods. But it’s the glorious emotion of Giangrande in word and song that drives the action, staged delicately by Ilyse Robbins and bringing a lump to the throat. Don’t miss this one, running through May 18. https://theumbrellaarts.org/Spitfire. (Photo (l-r) Pires, McEachern, Giangrande, Dowling, and Donnelly by Jim Sabitus.)