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"Leading Ladies"
March 3-5, 2011
Childs Auditorium, Deep River
written by Ken Ludwig
directed by Karen Shewchuk and Ike Dimayuga
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Review of "Leading Ladies" in the March 9th edition of the North Renfrew Times:
Players score again with "Ladies"
by Argus
“The play’s the thing/Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.”
There wasn’t a lot of conscience in the behaviour of Leo Clark and Jack Gable, down-at-the-heels Shakespearean actors, who attempted to “act” their way into a fortune by posing as the long lost nieces of cantankerous millionairess Florence Snider.
However, in a twist of fate, which parallels the cross-dressing lovers of Shakespeare's “Twelfth Night,” Leo, masquerading as niece Maxine, falls in love with the genuine niece, the beautiful Meg, as Jack falls for her ditzy, roller skating friend, Audrey.
In comedy, “all’s well that ends well” and this certainly was the case in the Deep River Players’ recent production of Ken Ludwig’s “Leading Ladies,” capably directed by Karen Shewchuk and Ike Dimayuga.
It was a taut, smartly paced production from start to finish – well almost to finish.
The timing was spot-on; the costumes were era-appropriate, in some cases - particularly for stunning Stephanie and Sir Toby Belch - brilliant; the choreography of the tango was straight-forward, but delightful; the set was attractive and functioned well - and the diction and projection were mostly excellent (thank you!).
Players veteran Jeremy Whitlock was the anchor of the show, as credible as the caring Maxine (in spite of the occasional surreptitious tugging at his bra) as he was the conniving Leo.
His relationship to Meg (Kristen Glowa) grew apace, and their dance to the music of “Fascination” was magical indeed, the growing love between them clearly communicated.
Kristen did a fine job of developing the character of Meg, engaged to the stick-up-his-butt minister, Duncan Wooley.
We watched Meg grow, naturally, subtly, from an insecure but dutiful girlfriend into a self-assured woman, “forgetting” to tell her fiancé about her shopping trip.
Her delight in her mirrored reflection in her new dress was charming. As her love for Leo/Maxine grew, so did her confidence in her own womanhood.
Terry Myers found the character of the humourless, penny-pinching minister and stayed with it throughout the play.
His cluelessness to the problems of the moment and his preoccupation with his own agenda were augmented by his resonant voice and his character-appropriate body language – a stellar performance.
It is hard to believe that Marko Pilic who played Jack/Stephanie has had little previous stage experience.
Though a few lines were lost in the opening scene because of his “English” accent, he was an excellent, more moral, foil to the nefarious Leo.
He kicked his performance up several notches as Stephanie, a damn good looking, if titanic, broad!
His mobile face conveyed the variety of emotional responses demanded by each quickly unfolding situation from dismay to seduction to passion, and his exit when he was forced to flee holding a strategically placed cushion had the audience in stitches.
Phyllis Heeney resurrected Shakespeare’s Audrey, the country wench in “As You Like It.”
High energy, sofa leaping, pert as a button, somewhat dense Audrey was consistent throughout, and her exit on the coattails of the Reverend was a perfect touch.
Doc, “the worst doctor that ever lived,” was played by Gordon Burton.
He delighted the audience both with his Moose Lodge MC responsibilities, and as Sir Toby Belch.
Under his suitably stuffed paunch, his red-clad legs resembled articulated pipe stems. His energetic courting of Stephanie resulting in the entanglement of four very long legs added to the side-splitting hilarity of the scene.
Doc, however, might have benefited from a few more lines and grey hair as he looked hardly older than his son.
Ian Graham as Butch, the not-too-swift son, left out in the cold at the end of the play, came into his own as the slack-jawed Sir Andrew Aguecheek (usually pronounced with a long “A”).
There might have been more of a parallel between Butch and Sir Andrew throughout, but that was up to the directors to decide.
A somewhat thankless, one-dimensional role was that of Florence, played by newcomer Nancy Rose. She did a credible job of bringing Florence to life. Several times.
Her best moment was when she cranked herself up to dance with Reverend Wooley. Excellent timing between Nancy and the sound effects crew.
Other peripheral characters did good workmanlike jobs – the servants unobtrusively moving around, Sam “the moose” Melnyk storming out of the Lodge meeting, etc.
Now a few quibbles: Decorating the set for the party scene took rather a long time. Adding one or two more cute maids would have helped.
The Rockin’ Robin music did not seem suitable to set the scene for a party in an elegant mansion; something more sophisticated might have worked better.
Maxine should have placed fingertips rather than nails on Stephanie’s lips so that “she” could feel the words.
Finally, the end of the play left something to be desired. After Audrey’s climactic revelation that the second fraudulent nieces were notorious crooks, the play seemed to fizzle out, perhaps a fault of the writing.
Despite the quibbles, however, the production was much more than “knowing the lines and not bumping into the furniture.”
It was a hilarious show, more than up to the high standards of comedy set by leading ladies and men in the Players over the past 65 years.
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