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| The wealthy Florence (Monica Cappuccini) welcomes Leo (Samantha Ricci, left) posing as Maxine and Jack (Adrienne Kaori Walters) posing as Stephanie, whom she believes to be her nieces. |
He and the show’s audiences are getting their fill
in this silly yet skillfully crafted farce.
It starts when two down-on-their-luck English actors
are performing scenes from Shakespeare for a Moose lodge in York, Pa., in 1958.
Their act is a hilarious mish-mash of some of the Bard’s most famous lines.
When they learn that a wealthy woman in the area is
looking for her sister’s two children to share her $3 million estate with their
cousin, who lives with her, they assume that the heirs-to-be, Steve and Max,
are men.
However, they’re women, Stephanie and Maxine. Eager
to get the money anyway, they disguise themselves as women and show up at the
aging dowager’s home.
Complications arise when there’s a mutual attraction
between them and the niece and a roller-skating waitress – shades of
Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.”
But there’s more. Demers also says, “In
conversations with Jim Knipple, our director, we decided to explore the idea of
gender-blind casting, meaning we wanted to be open to the idea that two women
could play the two leading men who then play women.”
Hence the two actors are played by Samantha Ricci as
Leo Clark and by Adrienne Kaori Walters as Jack Gable. Leo, the instigator, becomes Maxine, while the
reluctant Jack is Stephanie.
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| Audrey (Justin Travis Buchs, right) has a word with Jack (Adrienne Kaori Walters). |
In another twist, the roller-skating waitress,
Audrey, is played by Justin Travis Buchs.
The other actors are cast by their gender. The two
most grounded characters in this crew of zanies are Florence (Monica
Cappuccini), the dowager, and Meg (Sarah Benjamin), her niece.
One of the play’s best sight gags involves Florence
rushing around, trailing her IV stand behind her.
If there’s a villain, it’s Meg’s fiancé, Duncan
(Peter Ray Juarez), a strait-laced minister who seems mainly interested in her
potential wealth. When Jack and Leo show up in their female guise, he’s both
jealous and suspicious.
Completing the cast are Scott Solomon as the inept
physician, Doc, and Drew Reitz as Butch, his son and Audrey’s boyfriend.
The crew’s attempted staging of “Twelfth Night” on
the eve of Duncan and Meg’s wedding is another hilarious scene.
Despite the complications, “all’s well that ends
well,” with the right matching of couples.
It might be difficult at first to wrap one’s head
around the cross-gender casting, but willing suspension of disbelief and the
actors’ skill make it all work.
On top of that, many of the costumes by Raven Winter
are laugh-worthy themselves.
Adding to the fun are the drawing room set by Nora
Kelly, lighting by David Gotlieb and sound by James Goode.
Running about two hours and 30 minutes with an intermission,
“Leading Ladies” will continue through March 24 at Hillbarn Theatre, 1285 E.
Hillsdale Blvd., Foster City.
