RED DAGGER PRESENTS WACKY SIMON PLAY

As couples clad in evening dress begin arriving at Charlie and Myra Brock's 10th anniversary party, one by one they learn in fits and starts that Charlie is upstairs, shot in the ear lobe and passed out, and Myra is missing.

The manic games they play and preposterous lies they tell to keep the unknown truth from each other, from the police and eventually even from Charlie provide the framework for the Yuppie drawing room comedy "Rumors."

"Rumors," one of Neil Simon's lesser known works but still quite funny, will be presented at 7:30 tonight and Saturday night by Cape Central High's Red Dagger theater club. Admission is $4 for adults and $2 for students.

Charlie, who never appears in the play, is the deputy mayor of New York. His friends, successful lawyers, an accountant, an analyst, another politician, are all as interested in looking out for number one as they are concerned about Charlie's welfare.

None of these people is terribly likable, but that gives the 10-person cast, under the direction of Cynthia Wyatt, a chance to concentrate as an ensemble on maintaining the tricky pacing, which it does very well.

Laughter-inducing pandemonium breaks out at least a couple of times in the two-act, two-hour comedy, but it's the kind of confusion which resolves in clarity.

That's especially true for Lenny Ganz (Chad Reimann), a BMW-loving accountant who finds something more inside himself before the end of the play.

Ganz' wife, Claire, is played by Kathryn Welch, who gets the play's nastiest line: "I have holes in my ear lobe. It doesn't hurt."

Lara Clem and Andrew Trueblood play Chris and Ken Gorman, the lawyerly couple who arrive first and set the wheels of deceit in motion.

The cast also includes Simon's usual collection of quirkily normal people, including a crystal-rubbing flirt (Amber Hopkins) and her self-absorbed politician husband (Thomas Edwards); and Ernie and Cookie Cusack (Chris Roberton and Jennifer Martin), the analyst and his ditsy wife, the hostess of a TV cooking show.

Jeremy Welch plays Officer Welch and Jennie Lukens is Officer Pudney, the cops who come to investigate this delirious anniversary party.

The set, the interior of a renovated Victorian outside New York City, is smartly done. Kudos are due Patrick's Furniture for loaning the living room set.

The student director is Ragan Ward, and technical director is Steve Lukens.

Head of the set crew is Jeff Steffens, Carrie Patterson is in charge of costumes, and Tim Arbeiter is the props crew head.

Bryan Unger and Jay Stuart head up the lighting crew, Chris Redfearn is in charge of sound, Amber Tinsley leads the makeup crew, Autumn McSpadden was in charge of publicity and Crystal Miller is handling the house crew.