Edith Wharton returns to the stage at the Mount next week, and the production is a homecoming of sorts for the actors and director, too.

A new theater group called the Wharton Salon is bringing an adaptation of Wharton’s story “Xingu’’ to the writer’s landmark home in Lenox. The one-act comedy will be performed Aug. 20-23 in Wharton’s drawing room, “which is appropriate, since it actually takes place in a drawing room,’’ says Susan Wissler, executive director of the Mount.

The play centers around a society women’s lunch club hosting a popular author for a discussion of her latest novel. When conversation teeters toward social disaster, the club’s most unpredictable member introduces a compelling new topic, Xingu, although no one quite knows what that is.

Behind the scenes, the production offers a happy return for director/producer Catherine Taylor-Williams and most of the actors, who are current or former members of Shakespeare & Company. The Mount was home to Shakespeare & Company for more than 20 years, before an acrimonious split that became final in 2001. Read More…