It’s 1942 and the Oberon Theater’s director and male actors have gone overseas to fight in WWII. Rather than closing the theater for the season, Maggie Dalton (Mary Randolph), the theater director’s wife, decides to produce Shakespeare’s “Henriad” with an all female cast—dressed as men.
Maggie convinces leading lady Celeste Fielding (Diana Ifft) to join the production. Persuading the theater’s benefactor, Ellsworth Snow (Kevin Bass) to fund the show isn’t quite as easy. It’s accomplished when Maggie agrees to cast Snow’s wife, Winifred (Marianne Shaffer) in the show.
Disappointing auditions produce only two actors. June Bennet (Annabel Lorence) and Grace Richards (Julie Ann M. Boles), both of whom are completely, comically inexperienced. The show must go on so the actors are required to play multiple roles.
A plethora of challenges pop up during the very comical rehearsal process. In one hilarious scene, the women are instructed in “man walking” (So silly and yet so funny).
Randolph’s Maggie is the glue that holds everyone and everything together. She’s human and convincing as the sometimes rattled, sometimes poised director.
Ifft glows as the glamorous self-assured diva who poignantly accepts that she has aged out of her ingenue stage roles.
Bass is a talented character actor who delights as he uses his masterful comedy chops to embody the sometimes stuffy, yet lovable Ellsworth.
Shaffer channels her inner Betty White as the clueless, sweet Winifred. She knows exactly how to play it for laughs and she does so with smashing success.
Lorence plays it just as sweet and innocent as she needs to, in order to endear June to the audience.
Boles authentic portrayal of Grace’s ambivalence rings true. The audience easily relates to and empathizes with her.
The characters Stuart Lasker (Noah Kendall) and Ida Green (Lynette Goins) are playwright, George Brant’s nod to social commentary –beyond the previous alluding to feminism.
Kendall is sympathetic and likable as Lasker, who is denied acceptance into the military because, in 40’s jargon, he is a “swish.”
Goins, a mild mannered, agreeable costume designer, is rejected as a blood donor because the blood bank already has enough “Negro blood.” This serves as a reminder of the cruelty of Jim Crow laws.
It’s clear that the entire well cast troupe is having a ball onstage.
This thoroughly enjoyable, delightful, laugh-filled show will keep you in stitches. Beyond that, it is a reminder of the gains that have been made in equal rights over the past 80 years, as well as a sobering warning of what is currently at stake.
LTL
“Into the Breeches” runs through September 7th at South Park Theatre, Corrigan and Brownsville Road, South Park, PA. For more information, click here.