The Crooked Codpiece Company figured the cat would be out of the bag sooner or later, so why not sooner?

 The Lincoln theater, known for staging small cast comedies, is back with two of playwright James McLure’s early scripts — “Lone Star” and “Laundry and Bourbon.”

The twist — Codpiece co-founders Tom Crew and Patrick Lambrecht will play two of the three female roles in “Laundry and Bourbon.” Company member Kristine Kapustka will perform the third part.

Codpiece, with help from the Angels Theatre Company, will open the one-acts Thursday at The Loft at The Mill.

Crew said they thought long and hard before taking on the roles, even running it by several theater people and professionals in the community.

“They think it can work, and we do, too,” Crew said. “We dress up as women, but we’re not playing it in drag. We’re taking these characters very seriously.”

Often performed together, “Lone Star” and “Laundry and Bourbon” helped launch the Louisiana-born McLure’s playwrighting career.

The one-act plays provide a humorous picture of life in the one-horse town of Maynard, Texas, where the women get drunk during the day and the men get drunk at night.

The comedies depict the effects of the Vietnam era on those who went and those who stayed home.

“Lone Star” premiered at the Humana Festival in Louisville, Ky., in 1979 before an off-Broadway run.

In 1980, “Lone Star” and “Laundry and Bourbon” were shown together as “1959 Pink Thunderbird” at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, N.J.

 In “Lone Star,” local high-school hero, Roy (Lambrecht), is back from the Vietnam War and reconnects with his younger brother, Ray (Crew), and friend, Cletis (Shawn Carlson). However, he is finding it difficult to return to the life he once knew.

“Laundry” features Roy’s wife, Elizabeth (Lambrecht), who spends her afternoons folding laundry, watching TV, sipping bourbon and Cokes and gossiping with her friends Hattie (Crew) and Amy Lee (Kapustka). The play chronicles how she’s handling her husband’s return from the war.

The two one-acts replace “The Mystery of Irma Vep,” Charles Ludlam’s campy tribute to gothic horror film that the Codpiece had planned to perform last month at the Lincoln Community Playhouse.

The play went by the wayside after the Playhouse released Crew as its education and communications director. The Playhouse will open its 2008-09 next week with the musical “Sweet Charity.”

As for “Irma Vep”?

“We still want to do it, but the set pieces would be quite difficult to pull off in the Loft,” Crew said.

Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.