“Actors — they lie for a living! That’s their profession,” yells the pompous Reverend Duncan Wooley in Ken Ludwig’s comedy farce Leading Ladies. Yes, they do, time and time again with a straight face.
The actors in the St. Albert Dinner Theatre production were clearly piling it on, setting up one joke after the other. Judging by the audience’s ricochet of laughter, the actors clearly enjoyed playing it up in a run that ends Nov. 30.
Set in 1958, Leading Ladies follows the misadventures of two washed-up British Shakespearean actors touring Pennsylvania’s rural country. Booed off the stage during their latest travesty, Leo Clark and Jack Gable (wink, wink, Clark and Gable), trudge to the train station with no money or prospects.
At the station they read a newspaper article about Florence, an older woman with a $3 million inheritance searching for long-lost nephews. The duo, with Leo browbeating Jack, decide to impersonate the long-lost relatives, but there is a big problem. Detailed information reveals the nephews are nieces and the scam just got trickier.
Only slightly fazed by the news, Leo whips open their suitcases, rifles through women’s garish costumes, and within minutes the prodigal relatives are attired as Maxine and Stephanie.
The farce’s strongest comedic mayhem occurs when Leo/Maxine falls in love with Meg, Florence’s stage-struck niece, while Jack/Stephanie is drawn to Audrey, Meg’s ditsy best friend.
The play moves slowly in Act I, in large part due to Ludwig’s scriptwriting. But once the men-in-drag arrive at the posh mansion, the production accelerates the laughs and hums with comic momentum. Some of this three-ring circus’s funniest bits are the typical tropes: gender-bending disguises, overheard conversations, mistaken identities, sexual innuendo and letter mix-ups.
Sam Daly as Leo/Maxine commands both roles and is an imposing figure whenever he’s onstage. As Leo, Daly is the alpha male pressuring his long-time acting partner to commit a crime, but as Maxine, he is enchanted by Meg’s (Monica Lefurgey) innocence and passion for theatre.
Meg, on the other hand, is engaged to Rev. Duncan Wooley (Leith Hutton), a man who thinks engagement rings and honeymoons are frivolous. He has his eyes on Meg’s inheritance and does everything to protect his interests with un-Christian like attitudes. As the villain, Hutton is a hoot, and so much fun to dislike.
Meanwhile, Mike Deregowski as Jack/Stephanie plays the more easy-going personality who is deeply attracted to Audrey (Hannah Boulay), a daffy nitwit with a heart of gold who steals every scene. Jack is tired of the rootless existence of an actor. All he wants is a home and a family, and thinks Audrey may be it.
Christine Gold as Florence is the autocratic aunt who stubbornly refuses to die. However, Gold brings a large degree of sparkle to her character and the play. In one scene, she dances the tango and sweeps across the stage with panache, much to the chagrin of her counterparts.
Dave McKay as her incompetent physician Doc Meyers scores some of the hottest lines in the play. Although Doc Meyers is one of the smaller parts, McKay uses every trick in his toolkit to entertain the crowd.
Lastly, there is Butch, Doc Meyers’ son and Audrey’s somewhat dull boyfriend. Butch is a role that is woefully underwritten, and at one point I wondered why Ludwig included it. Despite the few lines of substance, Jack Morrison stepped up to the plate with some solid work.
And director Courtney Wild deserves a solid round of applause for keeping the comedic beat perfectly balanced. A farce filled with layer-upon-layer of wacky jokes can become overwhelming. However, Wild’s direction keeps control of the action, and it never loses momentum.
Leading Ladies runs Nov. 21 to 23 and 28 to 30 at Kinsmen Banquet Hall. Single tickets are $70. Group ticket prices for 10 plus are $65 per person. Visit stalbertheatre.com or call 780-222-0102.
