Two area actors are facing the dialogue challenge of their lives as they take on the two-person show, “Talley’s Folly” for Albert Lea Community Theatre.

The play runs Feb. 6-8 and 12-15 at the Albert Lea Civic Theatre. Tickets go on sale the Thursday of the week before the play opens for season ticket holders, and the Monday before opening for the public.

In the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Lanford Wilson, Matt Friedman (play by Mike Compton), a Jewish accountant from St. Louis, comes down to the Ozarks to woo Sally Talley (Cindy Langeberg). In the swirls of multi-cultural worlds their differences collide on a warm summer evening in a decaying Victorian boathouse.

Sally is adamant that a relationship between the two will never work, but Matt’s determination to win her is absolute. The pair confront personal experiences and feelings as “unpredictable and surprising as the course of love itself.”

Langeberg, of Owatonna, said she likes her character. “She’s feisty, in a 1940s quiet sort of way,” she said.

“The plot’s cool, but what I really liked was the dialog,” the actress said, adding Matt is quite verbose, while Sally is much more down to earth.

Langeberg also said she can relate to Sally and describes her as “relationship challenged.” “She’s good at changing the subject and talking about things that are not too personal. She feels trapped between pleasing everyone and shocking everyone.”

Compton said his character lost his own parents to atrocities before World War I, and has been scarred by what he’s seen. “He’s spent a lot of time trying to overcome that — unsuccessfully,” Compton said.

Matt has made some personal vows when it comes to women, that they must meet certain criteria. “To him, she’s the best thing that’s even happened to him — the apple of his eye, even though he only spent seven days with her.”

Try as they may, the two just don’t click. “They see the attraction, but they just keep missing each other,” Compton said.

Director Patrick Rasmussen said this is a match-made-in-heaven romantic comedy, perfect for the Valentine’s season. “It’s a feel-good, and a feel-good-along-the-way play,” he said. “If people are looking for a fun Valentine’s date, this is it.”

This is Langeberg’s second play for ACT. She previously had a role in “The Shadow Box.” At Little Theatre of Owatonna, she’s had two roles since the fall of 2000, and before that, no theatre since high school.

She said she auditioned for that first play in 2000 on a whim and started rehearsal for “Inherit the Wind” that very night.

A native of Albany, Minn., Langeberg works at Federated Insurance in Owatonna.

Compton moved to Albert Lea in June of 2001 and is now on his sixth show in the last year and a half. “I enjoy theatre anytime, all the time,” he said.

For ACT, he was Schroader in “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown,” Robert Ewell in “To Kill A Mockingbird” and Homer in “Morning’s At Seven.” He also had a role in Minnesota Festival Theatre’s “Crimes of the Heart” and “Of Mice and Men” in Owatonna.

A native of Coon Rapids, Compton first got involved in theatre in the Mora-Cambridge area. “I have some of the greatest theatre memories you could ever have,” he said of the productions there.

After their son and daughter went off to college, he and his wife Shelly were “up for a major life change” and moved to Albert Lea. Their daughter is in nursing school , and their son is attending the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. Albert Lea was closer to both of them.

Compton said he likes the organization of the theatre in Albert Lea because people involved can concentrate on what they enjoy, whether it’s set building, costumes, backstage work or acting.

“The other theatre groups I’ve worked with have been more sporadic and not as organized,” he said.

Compton works in Owatonna as a respiratory therapist for a medical equipment company.