Kevin Zak wrote and directed Ginger Twinsies, the patience-trying spoof of the Nancy Meyers-directed movie The Parent Trap (1998). For even more strained fun, Ginger Twinsies is being promoted as a poke at Mark Waters’ Freaky Friday film (2003.)
If the name Kevin Zak is new to you, his program bio would ordinarily be the place to turn for illumination. But not here. The bio identifies Zak as the actress nominated this past Tony season for playing Madeline Ashton in the currently over-the-top Death Becomes Her. “She” (sic), the bio also infos, took on the role of Ivy Lynn in Smash, the cult tv series of a decade or so ago.
Apparently then, the Zak bio is intended to be a gag—and that much more of a joke if you know he is kidding a bio that Megan Hilty, who’s played both named roles above, used for an earlier production program in which she appeared. That time around Hilty gave herself (and presumed others) yuks appropriating a Meryl Streep bio.
You might ask why so much review-delaying is happening in what’s intended to be a direct assessment of Zak’s new work. The idea is to point out that the playwright’s bio is an in-joke, and readers will benefit from understanding that in-jokes are part of his Ginger Twinsies purpose. Not exclusively, but enough to let show-biz-wise patrons realize they’ve just joined the in-crowd while others around them haven’t. Why else have one character deliver a speech modeled on the above-named Streep as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada? Why else refer to a 1996 Imelda Staunton Guys and Dolls credit, or is he thinking of her previous Guys and Dolls 1982 outing?
Getting belatedly to the primary point, which is what does transpire during the long, long 80-minute comedy unfolding on a swell Beowulf Boritt set that features four doors. A set boasting several doors often signals “farce,” of course, and does here. Yes, farce is also afoot. (Wilberth Gonzalez’s many costumes also translate into production money well spent.)
Even more to the point, what’s going on story-wise is that Annie James (played by white actor Russell Daniels, hot stuff recently in The Imaginary Invalid) and Hallie Parker (played by Black actress Aneesa Folds) meet as athlete competitors at Camp Walden for Gworls (don’t ask) but shortly discover they’re red-headed twins separated at birth.
Hallie lives with Napa Valley vineyard owner Nick (Matthew Wilkas) and Annie lives in London with bridal-gown designer mom Elizabeth (Lakisha May) and dad Martin (Jimmy Ray Bennett). (N.B.: The Annie and Hallie casting is noted explicitly because jokes on race crop up in Ginger Twinsies more than once. Perhaps two or three of the genuinely funny quips in the entire script depend on race.)
Since Annie has only known parent Elizabeth, and Hallie has only known parent Nick, the twins are eager to acquaint themselves with the biological parent they haven’t known. So they switch. Annie travels to the vineyards, Hallie to London. (Hence the Freaky Friday spin.) Since this is a comedy of the farce variety, abundant mistaken-identity situations accumulate, many of them—it needs to be reported—elicit the kind of audience response often sighted in reviews as thigh-slapping.
One of the small collection of successful turns has Annie, attempting to master American English, run through a “Lock her up” exercise. Add to it, or don’t, Zak’s reliance of the f-word to get ticket buyers chortling. (Haven’t patrons in sufficient numbers yet figured out that the f-word and the s-word are the easiest, not to say the cheapest, stage laughs abounding everywhere nowadays?)
The most complicated Ginger Twinsies script twist involves blowsy Meredith Blake (Phillip Taratula), who’s fallen for Annie’s dad and is determined that he divorce Elizabeth and marry her. Her unrelenting connivances form a sub-plot that grows and grows until it becomes a significant, maybe even superseding, plot of its own.
From start to finish, all of the above occurs at a non-stop pace, directed by playwright Zak according to what seems like his conviction that he alone knows precisely the property’s demands. Not only are the cast on the qui vive from the first word, sporadically executing ensemble routines, but Zak has nudged them to yell every line at the top of their lungs so trippingly on the tongue that any number of his jokes(?) are lost in the gibble-gabble-gargle. At times it feels as if he’s created a contest to see who comes out on the speed-delivery top.
For the record, the actors are only providing the sounds and actions director Zak’s incessantly requests. To a performer, each evinces formidable energy. There is the worry, however, that the efforts asked of them eight performances a week could damage vocal cords. Here’s hoping they don’t.
Ginger Twinsies opened July 24, 2025, at the Orpheum Theater. Tickets and information: gingertwinsies.com
