FARCICAL MIX-UPS KEEP MULTIPLYING IN `IRS' PLAY; COMEDY SHOWS AT STAGE DOOR.

Byline: Victoria Giraud Daily News Staff Writer

When Sir Walter Scott wrote ``Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive

'' he must have been talking about ``Love, Sex and the IRS,'' playing at the Stage Door Theater in Agoura Hills.

Jon Trachtman (Eric Klain) is a web-weaver of the first order. He's continually getting himself and his best friend and roommate, Leslie Arther, (Matt Harbricht) into hot water. Leslie should know better since he's roomed with Jon since college days.

The financially challenged roommates are always looking for ways to save money. They are behind on the rent and are accomplished in finding ways to fool their landlord, Mr. Jansen (Steven Brown).

Jon's most daring subterfuge so far is his attempt to fool the Internal Revenue Service. For the past several years he's filed a joint tax return, claiming that he and Leslie are married. An IRS agent, Floyd Spinner (Ed Thomas), is skeptical and comes to investigate the supposed marriage.

Leslie is not beyond schemes of his own. He and Jon's fiancee, Kate (Stephanie Laff), are having a secret romantic fling, and he's ignoring his own longtime girlfriend, Connie (Chris Ellen Harris).

Before Agent Spinner arrives and to ensure their triumph over the IRS, Jon talks Leslie into acting the part of the make-believe wife. The large, manly Leslie, dresses in a red wig, and his amply endowed but fake chest protruding from his dress actually makes for the appearance of an attractive woman. But the image becomes silly the minute he starts struggling to walk in women's shoes.

Spinner, probably most people's idea of a lonely, frustrated IRS agent, is slender and wears spectacles, of course. He's got a lousy marriage and is used to confrontation. When Jon and Leslie are friendly and offer him a drink, he responds willingly. The more he drinks, the less he notices, and he misses hints of the roommates' hoax. He begins to get romantic and turns his attentions toward Kate. Thomas' animated and acrobatic performance is one of the highlights of the show.

After Spinner's arrival, mix-ups multiply in this amusing farce. Jon's mother, Vivian (Christina Hinds), unexpectedly shows up and instead of guessing that Leslie is really male, she assumes the worst, and is shocked to see her son living in sin with a woman who is not his fiancee. She succumbs to drowning her sorrows in alcohol, but before long she's sobered up enough to go out and find a justice of the peace, Agnes Grunion (Margot Rifenbard) to marry Jon and Leslie.

See the play to see how all this is resolved.

THE FACTS

WHAT:``Love, Sex and the IRS.''

WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 8:30 p.m. Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sunday, March 1 through March 7.

WHERE: Stage Door Theater, 28311 Agoura Road, Agoura Hills.

COST: $9 per person Saturdays; $11 Thursday and Sunday; Casa Rea Restaurant dinner and show, $14 per person.

INFORMATION: [phone].