THEATER REVIEW:Buffalo's 'Moon' shines at GWC

There's no business like show business, as Ethel Merman fervently reminds us before the curtain rises on "Moon Over Buffalo" at Golden West College, even when you're playing the provinces and barely making ends meet.

Ken Ludwig's popular backstage farce continues the incestuous admiration that playwrights and producing groups maintain for plays about the theater itself.

"Buffalo" focuses on a pair of uncured hams, George and Charlotte Hay, who find themselves mired in a regional theater in the western New York municipality back in 1953, but their big break is right around the corner. Seems Ronald Colman has broken both legs while shooting the movie version of "The Scarlet Pimpernel," Greer Garson has walked off the set and director Frank Capra is on his way to Buffalo to check out the contentious husband and wife team as potential replacements.

This being Ludwig, who also wrote "Lend Me a Tenor," Murphy's Law is enacted on numerous occasions, each funnier than the last in director Tom Amen's gleefully amusing Golden West production.

At this particular Buffalo venue, the company is staging two plays in repertory — "Private Lives" and "Cyrano de Bergerac" — and you can imagine what happens when an actor gets them mixed up and appears in full warrior garb on the balcony of a posh Riviera hotel. That particular scene is one of Ludwig's most hilarious, and the Golden West company gets the most out of it.

Ray Lynch excels as the pompous poseur George

His wife, already on the brink of divorce, is tartly enacted by Lynn Gallagher, who gives as good comic shtick as she gets. Their daughter, raised in the theater but about to bolt when she's recruited for one last scene, is nicely played by Barrie Linberg.

The company journeyman is particularly well played by David Chorley, who turns throwaway lines into comic gems. Veteran actress Shirley Romano neatly swipes her scenes as Gallagher's hard-of-hearing mother.

A young actress is ditzily rendered by Michelle Terrill, while Tony Torrico hits some sharp notes as a local TV weatherman engaged to Linberg's character. Jack Roberts offers token opposition as Gallagher's prospective swain.

This being farce, there's a lot of traversing in one door and out the other, which gives scenic designer Wally Huntoon's dressing room setting a workout.

Susan Thomas Babb's costumes successfully re-enact the 1950s, while Fred DePontee's lighting and Tim Van Gerven's sound effects complete the comical picture.