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'Moon Over Buffalo'

"Moon Over Buffalo" is a perfect play for the Showboat Majestic, says the next leading man for the theater on the water.

"It's kind of cozy there," said Jack Williams, who plays down-and-out actor George Hay.

The Showboat "is a unique place," he said. "First of all, when you get there, you park on a slope, the banks of the Ohio River. Then you walk on this little gangplank and you have a feeling that you're doing something special there.

"You can't be too serious when you go to the Showboat."

The madcap comedy "Moon Over Buffalo" is a backstage farce that brought Carol Burnett back to Broadway.

George Hay and his wife Charlotte have seen better days. They made a couple of successful films in the 1940s, but a couple of flops finds them on tour in Buffalo with a repertory consisting of "Cyrano de Bergerac" (the revised one nostril version) and Noel Coward's "Private Lives."

"They make much of the fact that Frank Capra is making a film — one that he would never really have made — 'The Twilight of the Scarlet Pimpernel,'" Williams said.

Ronald Coleman gets the title role, but then he breaks his leg, so Capra decides to come to Buffalo to see if the Hays are right for the parts.

"George and Charlotte have a real Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor kind of relationship," Williams said. "They're in love with each other, but George has a moment of weakness with a young member of the cast who ends up pregnant."

After they argue, George goes off on a bender before he realizes that he has to pull himself together because Capra is supposed to be in the audience.

Will George be sober enough to emote? Will Capra see "Cyrano" or "Private Lives" — or a disturbing combination of the two?

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how to go

THE NAME: "Moon Over Buffalo" by Ken Ludwig.

THE LOCATION: Showboat Majestic, 435 East Mehring Way, Cincinnati Public Landing.

THE HOURS: 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday; 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 9-24.

THE TAB: $15 adults,

$14 seniors/students.

THE PHONE: (513) 241-6550; www.cincinnatilandmarkproductions.com.