Community theaters love Ken Ludwig. Since he first hit it big with his Tony-winning farce Lend Me A Tenor, Ludwig’s farcical takes on the world of Agatha Christie (Murder on the Orient Express), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Baskerville, a Sherlock Holmes Mystery), and even George and Ira Gershwin (Crazy for You) have been proven audience pleasers, though their quality varies. The Cloverdale Performing Arts Center joins the frey with its production of Ludwig’s Leading Ladies, now running through April 26.
To enjoy a Ludwig farce, one must fully engage one’s suspension of disbelief as miraculous coincidences, ridiculous impersonations and preposterous behaviors take center stage. Doubly so for this particular production.
Director Amanda Claiborne has reset the show from rural Pennsylvania in the late 1950s to present day Cloverdale, where two traveling British actors end up after a poorly received presentation of Scenes from Shakespeare at the Petaluma Kiwanis Club.
Leo Clark (Charles Bertram) and Jack Gable (Dan Stryker) are riding the SMART train (to Cloverdale?) when Leo reads a newspaper article about an ailing elderly local who’s seeking out some missing relatives. She wishes to see her sister’s children and leave them a large part of her estate before she shuffles off this mortal coil. The last she heard of them they were in England.
Leo quickly comes up with a plan for him and Jack to impersonate “Max” and “Steve” and claim the inheritance. Local rollergirl Audrey (Katie Bially) is riding the train too and gives them some helpful info including the fact that Max and Steve are actually Maxine and Stephanie.
No problem. They’re actors, and they happen to have a suitcase full of costumes and wigs. So it’s off to Cloverdale where they meet the ailing Florence (Ann Mackenzie), “their” cousin Meg (Trish Doscher), her fiancé, the not-very-reverent Reverend Wooley (Max Chittister), attending physician Dr. Myers (Robert Bauer) and his San Fernando Valley surfer dude (in Cloverdale?) son, Butch (John Enterline).
Wooley is suspicious of the new arrivals as he has his own designs for the estate, while the doctor schemes to marry his son off to one of the soon-to-be-rich ladies.
Further complications arise as Leo falls madly in love with Meg while Jack finds himself quite taken with Audrey. Even more complications arise as a telegram (in 2026?) arrives announcing the impending arrival of the real Max and Steve. The only way out of this is, of course, to put on a production of Twelfth Night.
Claiborne has a game cast at work here but timing is everything in a comedy and their work is severely undercut in the first act by several lengthy scene changes that are inexplicably underscored by a sluggish instrumental version of A-ha’s “Take on Me”. The act ran over 90 minutes. Things markedly improved in the second act, which ran in half the time, but the entire show should run no more than two hours. It’s about 30 minutes over.
Bertram makes for a good straight man to Stryker’s more comedic sidekick. They both look absolutely ridiculous dressed as women so one’s powers of disbelief suspension are put into overdrive. Stryker shows a flair for physical comedy as does Bauer, who brings a jolt of vocal and comedic energy to his scenes.
Director Claiborne’s resetting of the play’s location may have worked for budgetary reasons, but other than the few easy laughs that come with an audience’s recognition of local names added little to the show. The time change was also problematic as the frequent use of cell phones made the key plot point of arriving telegrams extremely anachronistic.
There were a few other questionable directorial choices, the most notable being an absolutely out-of-left-field, unscripted reveal about Rev. Woolsey.
Leading Ladies was written in 2004 but, even with the modern day setting, feels incredibly dated. Farce isn’t easy to pull off, subpar farce even more so, but the cast gives it their all and works it for the laughs that are there.
‘Leading Ladies’ runs through April 26 at the Cloverdale Performing Arts Center, 209 N. Cloverdale Blvd., Cloverdale. Fri–Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2pm. $20–$25. 707.894.2214 cloverdaleperformingarts.com
