OK, I know, what I saw Saturday night was a preview and it’s really unfair to judge a show by a preview. The show is in flux. One of the authors said they had done some cutting just since the night before. Fine, fine, I understand. Now think about this. The Philadelphia Theater Company’s production of Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins is one of the best things all year and well worth the price of admission and then some even as a preview.

Margaret and Allison Engel have constructed a play that is pure Molly Ivins. They haven’t fudged it by filling in with some of their own views and they’ve used Ivins’s words almost exclusively but they have constructed this play. It builds beautifully to an emotional ending that is honest and something we all need to hear but it’s also Ivins in top form.

Kathleen Turner plays Ivins and is wonderful. She doesn’t do a slavish imitation but she captures this bigger than life woman with opinions that were bigger than her life. Turner’s ninety minute monolog never loses its energy and is always entertaining. The key to entertainment is wanting to see what happens next and that is exactly what happens. You are always waiting to see where Ivins is going to go next. Please note I didn’t say where Turner was going to go next. From the very beginning there was a clear, sharp characterization and even the most ardent Turner fans will forget her as they watch Ivins.

Director David Esbjornson has kept it simple leaving Ivins down stage to talk to the audience. John Arnone’s set design was just a bit confusing with a backdrop of old desks stacked on each other and Ivins’s desk down center but at the end of the play it does make sense. My only quibble, and if this is the only one then they have very little to worry about, is the paper coming out of the typewriter which, for people sitting down house right, is just high enough to hide Ivins’s face when she sits behind her desk. She spends very little time there but I still found myself leaning to see. The light design by Russell H. Champa looked as simple as the set and direction but it takes a lot of light cues to look that simple as the eye is guided from a Maya Ciarrocchi projections to Ivins and back again and the costume design by Elizabeth Hope Clancy is perfect right down to the red boots.

Again, I realize that what I saw was a preview but the quality of it points in no other direction than a great run. If you have not yet purchased tickets for this show you need to right away. It will be one of the highlights of your theatrical year.