Playwright George Brant reinvigorates the backstage comedy with Into The Breeches!, his crowd-pleasing look at a theater company that refused to go under when its male actors went off to do battle in World War II.

The year is 1942, the place is Long Beach, and the theater in question is the Oberon Play House where leading lady Celeste Fielding (Leslie Stevens) has reigned supreme for over two decades opposite director-star Andrew Dalton.

Andrew’s gone off to war, however, as has every single one of his fellow actors of the male persuasion, and with no one left to hold down the fort but wife Maggie (Meghan Andrews), it’s perhaps no wonder that Board President Ellsworth Snow (Nicholas Hormann) has proposed that the Oberon close its doors until the menfolk come back from Europe and the Pacific.

What Ellsworth hasn’t counted on is Maggie’s determination to not only keep the Oberon alive and thriving, but to go ahead with the 1942 season exactly as planned, even if that means finding enough actresses to fill every single role in the season-opening “Henriad,” a four-hour-long mashup of Henry IV and Henry V.

Not that Ellsworth can be easily persuaded, or at least not until Maggie invites his socialite wife Winifred (Holly Jeanne) to join the cast, an offer as hard to resist as Mrs. Snow’s persuasive powers where hubby is concerned.

Finding enough female talent proves a considerably harder task, however, forcing Maggie to downsize the cast, if not the number of roles.

She does manage to enlist the untested talents of ingenue June Bennett (Brooke Olivia Gatto), a mesmerized audience member these past two years, and Grace Richards (Emilie Doering), freed by her husband’s deployment to pursue heretofore forbidden dreams.

Completing Into The Breech’s cast of characters are African-American costume designer Ida Green (Sydney A. Mason) and stage manager Stuart Lasker (Lee James), deemed unsuitable for enlistment for reasons he’d rather not divulge.

Like many a backstage comedy before it, Into The Breeches! provides audiences with a fascinating look at what goes into making live theater, and the fact that virtually everyone in it is a neophyte (including first-time director Maggie) only adds to the fun.

Not only that, but Brant’s play proves an eye-opening look at what life was like in the pre-Women’s Lib, pre-Civil Rights Movement, pre-Gay Liberation 1940s as its characters begin to rebel against societal strictures and prejudices that keep them straitjacketed in prescribed roles.

Last but not least, Into The Breeches! offers the thrill of seeing just how each and every character ends up transformed on Opening Night from who they were at the time of auditions.

The performances elicited by director Brian Schnipper on the International City Theatre stage could not be more sparkling, beginning with the trio of star turns delivered by Andrews as the plucky Maggie, Stevens, as the divaesque Celeste, and Doering as the mousy Grace about to discover her inner lion.

Jeanne’s society dowager Winnifred and Hormann as her stuffed shirt of a spouse are absolutely splendid too, as are Mason’ Ida and James’s Stuart, no longer willing to be “less than” because of how they look or whom they love.

Tim Mueller’s ingenious scenic design utilizes the sort of furniture and set pieces a theater might have stored backstage to transport us from place to place, aided and abetted by Patty and Gordon Briles’ plentitude of props.

I can’t help wishing that Kimberly DeShazo’s costumes had paid closer attention to 1942 hemlines and padded-shoulder silhouettes but I love the play-within-a-play garb, and Donna Ruzika’s vibrant lighting, Dave Mickey’s lively sound design, and Anthony Gagliardi’s period-permed wigs are all topnotch.

Into The Breeches! is produced by caryn desai. Michael Polak is fight choreographer. Pat Loeb is production stage manager and Lorenzo Martino is assistant stage manager. Casting is by Michael Donovan, CSA and Richie Ferris, CSA. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

As someone who has trod the boards more than a few times, I have a particular fondness for plays that take me backstage. Yet another ICT winner, Into The Breeches! is among the best of the bunch.

International City Theatre, Long Beach Performing Arts Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach.
www.InternationalCityTheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
June 11, 2023
Photos: Kayte Deioma

Tags: Charles Brant, International City Theatre, Los Angeles Theater Review