Harp Players to present ?Leading Ladies?

    Doing plays where men pretend to be women has worked so well for the Harp Players Theater Group in the past that they are doing one again. In their production of ?Leading Ladies,? which opens this Friday night at the Washington Community Theater, they cast caution, and whatever dignity was left after their last show, to the wind to produce what may arguably be their funniest production in their 12-year history.

    The story takes place in a small Pennsylvania town during the early 1950s.  Our heroine, Meg, is expected to inherit millions of dollars when her aging aunt Florence dies, which could occur at any second. Meg is engaged to a local preacher, the Rev. Duncan Wooley who has some less-than-charitable interests in Meg?s inheritance. Florence despises Duncan, as she does nearly everyone else in the story, including her doctor who twice prematurely declares her dead.

    Enter two enterprising young gold diggers, Jack Gable and Leo Clark. Jack and Leo are actors, whose career trajectories have led them to the low point of performing at Moose Lodges. They are literally broke when Leo reads in a local paper that unless two lost relatives (?Max? and ?Steve?), children to Florence?s deceased sister, turn up, then another cousin (Meg) will receive the entire inheritance. The two actors no sooner decide they will assume the identities of the long-lost cousins, when they learn that Max and Steve are actually women, Maxine and Stephanie, and that Stephanie is a deaf mute.  No problem for desperate and resourceful actors, right?

    Lynn Partridge plays the mean-spirited old rattlesnake, Florence, the woman whose wealth generates competition between the phony nieces and Meg?s fiancé the Rev. Wooley. If Partridge presented any viler a creature, the audiences would have to be inoculated before each show.

    Lori Wiley?s portrayal of the sweet, naive, attractive, and enchanting niece, Meg, is so absolutely perfect that Snow White and Cinderella pale by comparison. Yet, somehow Wiley gives Meg enough dimension to make the storyline work.