All too often, people are judged by their names or their clothing, or indeed, by the very faces that they present to the world. Perhaps this helps to explain the current fascination of the media for those persons considered to be ‘celebrities’. Just who IS the person underneath, really? An entire culture has developed in the last few years, devoted to that very question.

Last weekend, Cleveland’s two major professional theater companies opened their fall season with plays that are very similar in nature, yet wilde-ly dissimilar (pun intended), all at the same time. The Cleveland Play House presented the World Premiere of Ken Ludwig’s very American farce Leading Ladies is just simply hysterical. There are a few sight gags, a few slightly bawdy gags, some fancy dancing, and a whole lot of laughs. An enormous amount of laughs, actually. In fact, I’m not sure when I’ve laughed so hard and so consistently at any show in the last few years as I did during this one. Midway through the final act, a gentleman seated behind me remarked to his companion, ‘This is a good show’. That it is.

In publicity, it’s compared a lot to the movie Some Like It Hot, but really, other than the cross-dressing (and a brief scene on a train), it’s not all that similar. In the mid-1950s, two young British actors, Jack and Leo, are slightly worn out from a succession of ‘one-nighters’ through the wilds of Pennsylvania, when Leo reads about an elderly, very wealthy lady searching for two missing heirs, Max and Steve. Jack prevails on Leo to make a side trip to collect the inheritance. Unfortunately, before this can quite happen, they discover that the heirs in question are really Maxine and Stephanie. Undaunted, Jack re-convinces Leo, and the masquerade is on.

There is one more heiress, niece Meg, who is engaged to the Reverend Duncan Woolly. Florence, the wealthy old woman is under the care of Doc, whose son Butch is madly in love with Audrey, a roller-skating waitress. Don’t worry, you won’t be at all confused by all of this while you’re so busy laughing.

The perfect-for-their-parts cast consists of Brent Barrett as Leo and Christopher Duva as Jack. Meg and Audrey are portrayed by Erin Dilly and Lacey Kohl, respectively. Doc is Dan Lauria and Butch is Tim McGeever. Mark Jacoby is Duncan, and Jane Connell nearly steals the show as Florence.

The production also benefits from Judith Dolan’s fabulous costume designs, and Neil Patel’s set designs are both sumptuous and versatile. Sound is by John Gromada and Lighting by David Weiner. An unusual credit for a non-musical is Choreography, but Michael Tapley certainly deserves a bow for his contribution.

I saw this show in last year’s reading as part of ‘Next Stage’ and was entirely impressed because the humor came from the wittiness of the language used, and did not rely on being nasty or un-civil. Happily, that is still the case. It’s worth a repeat trip! from Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz artswriter@core.com (:divend:)