Published: May 24, 2009 02:46 am      

THEATRE REVIEW: ‘Leading Ladies’ evokes fond memories of old favorites

EDITOR’S NOTE: Charles Whaley joins The Tribune and Evening News this week as a theater reviewer.



“Leading Ladies,” the boisterous Ken Ludwig farce that Derby Dinner Playhouse has chosen to open its 35th anniversary season, is tailor made for the talents of its crowd-pleasing, gender-bending ensemble.

With its cross-dressing Englishmen bent on masquerading as long lost kin of a rich harridan at death’s door, this regional premiere evokes fond memories of “Charley’s Aunt,” “Tootsie,” and “Some Like It Hot.”

Leo Clark (Matt Wallace) and Jack Gable (Bill Hanna)--"Clark and Gable,” two Shakespearean actors down on their luck, are reduced to performing garbled “Scenes From Shakespeare” to turned-off audiences at Moose and Elk lodges around York, Pennsylvania, when they hear about a search for Maxine and Stephanie who would inherit millions when wealthy, elderly aunt Florence Snider (Carol Williams) dies.

Maxine and Stephanie were taken away to England at an early age and have not been seen or heard from since then.

Wallace dons a Cleopatra costume to become Maxine while Hanna slips into a fairy queen outfit with wings so they can call on the ailing woman. They are the least likely of women but that’s part of the fun.

Naturally they fall for two of the local girls — Leo for Florence’s stage-struck niece Meg (Tina Jo Wallace) and Jack for roller-skating waitress Audrey (Janet Essenpreis).

That all plays havoc with Meg’s plan to marry stiff-necked minister Duncan (Cary Wiger) as well as Audrey’s liaison with Butch (Lem Jackson), the son of the randy doctor (David Myers) who is Florence’s physician. He is constantly amazed when Florence pops back up after her collapses and starts berating him. Williams makes her small role an attention-grabber.

Wallace and Hanna are hammy delights as they work every verbal and physical trick to avoid exposure. Hanna is particularly outrageous with his fake sign language when he appears to be deaf and dumb and when he gloats lasciviously while receiving hugs begged from Essenpreis.

Producer/director Bekki Jo Schneider steers the cast through a deliberately amateurish “Twelfth Night” segment cooked up by Leo to play opposite Meg. Shortly after that comes a magical interlude (don’t ask why) when couples pair off to dance sexily to “Hernando’s Hideaway.”

Ken Ludwig’s latest comedy, set in 1954, while loaded with laughs and sexual innuendo, doesn’t reach the heights of his “Lend Me a Tenor” (which Derby Dinner did in 1992) or “Moon Over Buffalo,” which Carol Burnett performed on Broadway, but it comes close.

“Leading Ladies” runs through June 28. Ticket information is at 812-288-8281.