"Leading Ladies"

Theatre review
"Leading Ladies" at Cortland Repertory Theatre
The Ithaca Journal
June 12, 2008
564 words
"Cortland Rep's 'Leading Ladies' offers plenty of laughs"

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Cortland Rep's ‘Leading Ladies' offers plenty of laughs

By Mark Tedeschi • Special to The Journal • June 26, 2008

Since the dawn of first names with ambiguous gender attachment, cross-dressing has been a staple motif for comedic performance. But when Billy Wilder's “Some Like it Hot” hospitalized filmgoers with uncontrollable laughter in 1934, stories involving men wearing ladies clothing had a new par for the course. (I made up the hospitalization thing, but it could be true — after all, the American Film Institute did name “Some Like it Hot” the funniest movie of all time.)
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In that film, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis played two guys who pose as women temporarily only to find themselves stuck in their roles — just like Marc Goldhaber and Dominick Varney in Cortland Repertory Theatre's latest chucklefest, “Leading Ladies.”

Goldhaber and Varney respectively play Leo Clark and Jack Gable; they are two down-on-their-luck Shakespeare-trained actors who stumble upon a news article about a woman (Florence Snider, played by Robbeye Lewis) searching for her kin (“Max” and “Steve”), whom she hasn't seen in years, so she can include them in her will. Eventually, Clark and Gable (get it?) discover that Max and Steve are Maxine and Stephanie, but decide to go ahead with the scam anyway; after all, it's a chance for them to exercise their craft in greater depth than ever before.

“Ladies” was written by Ken Ludwig, best known for the Tony Award-winning “Lend Me a Tenor” and directed by Tony Capone, who directed “Ten Little Indians” at CRT last summer. Other cast members include Morgan Reis (Meg Snider, Florence's other niece), Adam Bevlo (Duncan Wooley, Meg's pastor husband), Mark Bader (Doc Myers, Meg's best friend), Kyle Hines (Butch, Doc's son), and Erin Balsar (Audrey, Butch's girlfriend).

The story, set in 1950s York, Pa., contains all the elements you'd expect from a farce with a men-posing-as-women backbone: the con men fall for the women they're fooling, fooled men fall for the “women” they meet, and all hell breaks loose halfway through the second act when everything comes to a head.

The loony story would be less credible if CRT didn't have such sound actors. The lead males exhibit full commitment to their roles, which demand on-the-fly switching in body language, attitude, and voice. Goldhaber, the Curtis to Varney's Lemmon, smooth-talks his way in and, less often, out of sticky situations; director Ludwig has Varney spending a lot of time working the audience (successfully, mind you) by bulging his eyes and squirming — a shame, since his performance during the hilarious “Scenes from Shakespeare” portion confirms his capability for better depth. Reis also deserves mention for her confused but passionate Snider. But the biggest laughs come from Bevlo, whose Pastor Wooley, admitted foreigner to the words “living,” “sex,” and “humor,” frantically frets over being chastised for his skepticism.

To amplify the absurdity, “Ladies” features a great number of elaborate costumes courtesy of Wendy Zea; Clark and Gable make their first disguised appearance after digging into their suitcase of Shakespeare garb and pulling out costumes of Cleopatra and Titania (possibly the most ridiculous choices they could have made, but their hosts are calmed by the age-old device of “They're not weird, they're English.”).

The crafty scenic design (Brian Howard) proves useful, as the pristine Snider mansion turns almost instantly into a stage for Shakespeare plays when needed. And Todd Proffitt's subtle lighting design (watch for the stained glass window reflection), along with Andrew Modansky's sound, help along those transitions.

The dialogue in “Ladies” hits and misses; there are many obligatory jokes, usually tee-hee procreative one-liners (“Is that a chopstick in your pocket?”) and Freudian slips (“I wanted your bust—I mean, your trust”), but there are just as many snippets that embrace the silliness (“He put a telegram in my hand— maybe for a minister, that's foreplay!”).

“Ladies” has its superior moments (Duncan's color coming through during the show's plenty of theatre meta-jokes) and its humdrum ones (What's with that tango scene?), but through it all, it's a crowd-pleaser. There are surprises in the end, to be sure, but the marvelous final few lightning-round scenes are less a twist than a treat, one that gives “Well, nobody's perfect!” a run for its money.

“Leading Ladies” runs at CRT through Saturday, June 28. Visit www.cortlandrep.org for more information.