PERFUME

In leisurely, aristocratic measures soaked with irony, PERFUME unfolds the gruesome, picaresque allegory of an olfactory genius-monster--a murderous perfumer of decadent eighteenth-century France. Sean Barrett gives a masterfully effete reading, with flawless articulations of character and wicked, understated nuances. He wisely plays the humor not at all, instead accentuating a kind of connoisseur's study of the Grand Guignol. Eschewing overtly Gallic inflections, he puts pre-Revolutionary France in his voice merely through lightness of touch. A feast for lovers of voluptuous language, sly wit and epicurean mayhem. Y.R. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPT 97]