Sometimes you leave a theater convinced you know how the play came to be written.
One night, playwright Ken Ludwig sat down for drinks with Mark Twain and Billy Wilder. Twain regaled the trio with tales of the fun he had creating the rascally Duke and Dauphin, two con men who prowled the Mississippi river in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn proclaiming themselves to be Shakespearean actors, and who nearly passed themselves off as being the long lost English brothers (one a deaf/mute) of a wealthy man who had just died. Wilder looked back on all of his comedic successes and proclaimed his favorite to be Some Like It Hot where two musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) find that their only hope for survival after witnessing the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago is to become women and join an all-girl dance band. When one falls hard for a woman in the band, he must find a way to slip back occasionally into a male role so as to court her – much to the frustration of the partner still stuck in drag.
And Ludwig said: I'll do you one better.
Okay – maybe it didn't happen like that, but having just seen Ken Ludwig's Leading Ladies, directed by Linda Marley Smith and now playing at Poquoson Island Players, I'm betting that it could have.
Leo Clark (Jonathan Manning) and Jack Gable (Ben Jenkins) are two British actors who have seen better days – maybe. They are touring the Moose Lodge circuit in small towns in Pennsylvania circa 1952 with little success when they notice an advertisement: Florence Snider, a wealthy woman in nearby York, Pennsylvania, seeks re-acquaintance with her daughter's long-lost children, Max and Steve, who are believed to be living in England. Purpose? Inheritance. Just as Leo and Jack are planning how they will become those two long-lost grandchildren, in skates Audrey (played with scene-stealing aplomb by Katrina Murphy), a joyously ditzy young lady on roller skates who has just completed her training as a TasteeBite car-hop. It turns out that she knows all about the wealthy Mrs. Snider (now reportedly dead) and the long-lost grandchildren, including the fact that they are girls: Maxine (said to be an actress) and Stephanie (who is a deaf/mute). Not to be deterred, Leo cajoles Jack into taking on the greatest role of his life and they set off in search of their shares in the estate.
The home of the wealthy Mrs. Snider is occupied by another granddaughter, Meg (Holly Johnson), whose plans to see a performance by her stage-hero, Leo Clark, have been thwarted by the possibly intentional ineptitude of her fiancé, the phlegmatic and self-satisfied Reverend Duncan Wooley (Carsten Berndt). Meg had seen Clark years before and had been smitten ever since. When Clark and Gable make their appearances in the home as Maxine and Stephanie, one of Meg's first questions to actress Maxine is: do you happen to know Leo Clark? Maxine/Leo is obviously bowled over by Meg and decides that “she” will convince Leo to visit and perhaps give Meg personal acting lessons. When Stephanie later meets Leo in the house, “she” decides that turn-about is fair play so “she” contrives to visit as Jack so as to compete with young Butch Myers (Kevin Chigos-White) for the affections of Audrey (whom Stephanie has already showered with considerable affection). The double-dealing and double-roles begin in earnest, continually threatened by the efforts of Reverend Wooley to unmask what he is certain are impostors angling to steal the inheritance he hoped to obtain through his marriage to Meg.
Oh, did I forget to mention that the wealthy widow is not dead? Attending physician Doc Myers (Mike White), has mistakenly declared her dead but the feisty old Florence Snider (Lydia Mugler) is still very much with us and not only creates a desperate moment for our impostors when she comes to greet them but sprinkles confusion and wisdom throughout the remainder of the show.
Linda Marley Smith has done so many things right in bringing us this entertaining show.
First, she recognized that no screwball farce benefits from close inspection so this production has a fast-pace that keeps the audience just a bit off-balance, like the characters experiencing the action. Think of Howard Hawks, Billy Wilder, or Preston Sturges. (Although the reviewed Sunday matinée performance on opening week had a few spots in the second act where the energy seemed to slip, that was clearly due to fatigue and not intent.) If you have never seen this show played for its full fun, you owe it to yourself to experience it.
Second, she and actors Manning and Jenkins worked hard on the feminine mannerisms that would sell the female impersonations - even if looks wouldn't. I do not for a moment disparage the efforts extended to create the “look” of Maxine and Stephanie, but our current age of movie-magic (think of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) has raised the bar to a point where no theater production can hope to satisfy an audience's appetite for realism. Instead, it is wiser to go for suggestion and suspension of disbelief. In looking back at the aforementioned female impersonations of Curtis and Lemmon, one sees that the secret to their success was their mannerisms, not make-up and costume. Smith, Manning, and Jenkins mine this vein superbly. Jenkins, in particular, had some uproarious moments as Stephanie, while Manning delivered countless uncanny shifts from one gender to the next – oftentimes in the same sentence. When his partner notes with horror that “Maxine” is possessing Leo, we believe it. A tour de force.
Third, no farce works unless there is some truth to the underlying situation. This is where Holly Johnson (Meg) carried the load. She “sold” the idea of an infatuation with Leo Clark that blinded her to the preposterous goings-on around her. As Ludwig notes, this is her story, and we watch its arc move from her dubious choice to marry Reverend Wooley through her consuming idolatry to Leo Clark to the show's happy conclusion (which I won't mention to avoid spoiling it).
Finally, this successful farce was packed with larger-than-life supporting characters, a touch that helps to make the improbable story seem less improbable. As mentioned already, Katrina Murphy was a delight as Audrey. She created a thoroughly enchanting character that held true to its own wild course even while imitating Brando. (Go see if you don't believe me.) Veteran actors Lydia Mugler and Mike White proved once again the truth of the old adage: there are no small parts, only small actors. At various moments in this show, their characters were the driving force in the scene, and their skill and bravado lifted those moments into entertaining jewels.
The well-designed and crafted set (Ken Kelley) ably supported all of these thoughtful elements, and the period and Shakespearean costumes from costumer Miranda Ruddick, particularly the outfits for Meg, Audrey, and the flamboyant Maxine, enhanced our journey back to an earlier time. Other nice touches included the clever but straight-forward staging of scenes at the Moose Lodge and aboard a train on a stage already fully occupied with the Snider home. We were also treated to a very entertaining tango scene (choreographed by producer Kimberly Vernall) that was a new element in the show added by this creative team.
Every stage show asks the audience to suspend disbelief and accept the possibility that what they see – and know is not real – is real. When a show takes the additional step of asking the audience to suspend belief again and accept that the characters are fooled by impersonators who are not real, layering improbability on top of unreality, the stakes are much higher. I'm happy to report that this show plays for those high stakes – and wins!
Go and joyfully suspend your disbelief. You'll be glad you did.
Leading Ladies runs at the Poquoson Middle School auditorium through Sunday, June 28. Call 757-881-9797 for tickets or visit Poquoson Island Players online at www.pipstheatre.com.
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