If you enjoyed Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire, Dustin Hoffman as Tootsie or even Flip Wilson as Geraldine, you should get a kick out of Lakewood Theater's current comedy, "Nobody's Perfect," by British playwright Simon Williams. Williams (Robin) and Hoffman, you'll remember, were forced to masquerade in drag because of plot situations that required them to infiltrate the world of the opposite sex.
(Wilson did it, well, because he was Flip Wilson.) Plot situations in "Nobody's Perfect" also goad mild-mannered single parent Leonard Loftus (Ted Smith) into a similar cross-dressing predicament, with inevitably humorous results. Leonard has submitted a manuscript in response to a competition for new writers at Love is All Around, a "feminist" publishing house (whose office, in violation of feminist orthodoxy, is adorned with posters of bodice-ripping hunks).
The only catch is that the winning book must be by written by a woman, and so Leonard submits his entry under a feminine pseudonym, Lulabelle Latifa. The publisher, Harriet Copland (Pam Smith, real life wife of Ted), is bowled over by how authentically "Lulabelle's" manuscript captures the voice of the real, everyday woman, awards "her" the prize, and from there we're off to the races in a boy-meets-girl-meets-girl-meets-boy farce, during which Leonard and Harriet gradually discover that love, if not all around, is at least closer than they had thought. Acting as foils and enablers to the budding romancers are Leonard's father (Mark Nadeau) and daughter (Danielle Beaman).
Director Stan Pinnette also appears in a non-speaking cameo that garners him more yucks-per-stage-minute than any other actor in the cast. Nadeau is a virtual comedy machine as the Jerry Stiller-like Gus Loftus. He raises guffaws out of the audience like a conjurer with his impeccable comic timing, an incredible database of facial expressions, and a laugh that the word "goofy" doesn't cover by half.
Williams's script is certainly funny in itself, but Nadeau's comic interpretations are butter to the bread whenever he appears. Beaman is a treat as the teenaged Dee Dee. She has poise and presence as an actress well beyond her years, and she was so convincing and natural as an attitude-drenched high school girl that I nearly took her home with me by mistake, thinking she was my own.
Truth be told, in this show the two supporting actors outshine the leads. Williams's play, written in 1997, was of course originally staged in England, and the Lulabelle Latifa character was a properly British matron by the name of Myrtle Banbury. For some reason, in the process of Americanizing the script Myrtle became a Dixie magnolia, which is not necessarily a good thing.
A male actor playing a female role is challenging enough in itself, but asking him to do it in dialect is nearly worse than asking him to do it in stiletto heels. Dustin Hoffman pulled off a Southern accent stylishly in the aforementioned "Tootsie," but then he's Dustin Hoffman. In "Nobody's Perfect" Smith seemed too often to be playing the accent itself for laughs rather than using the accent to coax laughs from his material.
At times he was too over-the-top even to be understood, and at times the melody of his dialect was simply harsh and annoying. Especially in the middle of the second act, which drags through an overlong dialogue between Lulabelle and Harriet. In future performances, if Smith could turn the "refined" up a couple of notches and the "manic" down a couple, he might find that Lulabelle would be enjoying as satisfying a comedic audience response as Leonard.
(In the first act, for example, Leonard pulls off the classic Danny Thomas coffee spritz routine. The first time I have ever seen it performed live.) Laughs and dialects aside, "Nobody's Perfect" touches on a number of social topics well worth thinking about.
Do we all really expect happy endings out of life? What should we do when we feel that it's all just passing us by? Are the differences between men and women hurdles or catalysts to good relationships?
Those themes are just undertones, though, to the show's main purpose: getting the laughs. No play is perfect, but on that score it delivers the goods. (Adult language advisory.
Lakewood Theater is on U.S. Route 201, approximately 6 miles north of Skowhegan Center.
Matinee and early evening performances Wed.; evening performances Thurs.-Sat.
Tickets $19 -- $21 at door. 474-7176.
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