Men in dresses, women in pants and a clever play within a play

Bas Bleu production of ‘Act a Lady’ challenges the meaning of art

Here are just a few reasons why I love attending and reviewing plays at the Bas Bleu Theatre in Fort Collins: First, they typically produce evocative plays, not musicals. For me this means they are much more about the story and the characters and less about singing and dancing. Second, the small, intimate venue allows for a unique viewing experience. Finally, Bas Bleu always seems to take on thought-provoking, often head scratching, but always leave-you-with-something-to-think-about-and-ponder plays.

Act a Lady, directed by Steven Keim, lives up to all three of these, especially number three. Set in a 1920s Midwestern town, Act a Lady is, on its surface, a play about the men of an Elks club hoping to raise money for a fundraiser by putting on a play. That play just happens to be directed by guest director, Zina (Ashlie Kirkpatrick). She’s a pants-wearing non-conformist (that might be what they called them back then) who has the idea to cast the men in a play full of women.

The play within the play is the one where men dress as 18^th century women in exquisite costume and Zina directs the men on how to act a lady: “Always act less, as if your very existence fatigues you,” she says. As Zina, Kirkpatrick delights the audience with her expert and charming mysterious accent and her comedic timing.

The play is fairly straightforward (or so I thought) through the first act. The three men must convince Dorothy (Nancy Patton), the accordion-playing wife of Miles (Jeffrey Bigger) to put up the money to produce a play full of men in drag. Then rehearsals begin. It is the last scene of this act that left my companion and I quite literally scratching our heads.

This is not a play that allows you to sit back and relax. It is indeed one you must pay careful attention to, and even then, you still might be confused by everything going on within the two plays. Adding to the confusion and the fun is the fact that every actor plays two roles, both in dresses and in pants.

Although I’m still not entirely sure what I saw at Bas Bleu, Act a Lady is the type of play that I feel everyone can walk away with a different idea of and be OK with it.

One thing I am sure of is that this is a play about art, and what it means for something to be art. Maybe that’s an accordion player who makes up her own songs about stomping on the devil in high heels, or maybe it’s a makeup artist making men pretty with powder. Or maybe it’s a man playing a role in which he finally gets to be himself.

Art doesn’t always have to make sense. In fact, most times it probably doesn’t. Act a Lady is a fun exploration of that reality.