Richard Jay Simon directs most plays at Mosaic, but this stellar work about two ambitious, jealous, female frenemies required the directorial hand of the fairer sex. So Simon called upon Margaret Ledford, resident director at Davie's Promethean Theatre, to helm this stunner, heralded by most area critics as one of the best productions of the year. Barbara Bradshaw, as the play's aging author and literature professor whose young protégé covertly mines her life for material, could probably read an entire Senate bill and make it compelling. But Ledford deserves credit for maintaining interest in every second of this play, from the way the two performers carried themselves to the silences between exchanges to the subtlest character-building gestures. That she can go from her last work, the hectic and ridiculous Cannibal! The Musical, to an intimate chamber piece such as this is a testament to one of the community's most unsung talents.