Review: The Lady With All the Answers by David Rambo. Produced by A Contemporary Theatre (ACT). Directed by Valerie Curtis-Newton. With Julie Briskman. Now through October 31.
Julie Briskman as “Ann Landers” in ACT’s “The Lady With All the Answers. Photo: Chris Bennion/ACT.
This is (really) going to be a short review because there isn’t a whole lot to say about ACT’s production of The Lady With All the Answers, David Rambo’s valentine to iconic advice columnist “Ann Landers”, aka Eppie Lederer. Some younger readers right now are running to their Google search bar, but everyone over the age of 30 is very much aware who Ann Landers was and what she meant to mid to late 20th Century culture. In its heyday, (back when people still read print newspapers) she enjoyed a reading audience of 90 million people; we are amazed today when a few million people look at the latest viral video on YouTube but Miss Landers and other columnists of the day reached that many people 365 days a year for 40 years. Her advice and acceptance on birth control, homosexuality, abortion rights, women’s rights, divorce and every other social movement of the times impacted the lives of millions of people. She was a Vox Humana of the last half of the 20th Century.
The REAL Ann Landers, aka, Eppie Lederer.
David Rambo’s play takes us to an evening in 1975 when Eppie Lederer is at home desperately seeking to finish the most important column of her life and being sidetracked by reminisces of her past glories with the audience as her willing accomplice in her writer’s procrastination. For an hour and forty minutes, Eppie charmingly recounts her childhood in Iowa, her marriage to her beloved husband Jules, the birth of her daughter and most importantly, the start of her career as “Ann Landers”. She recounts her funniest columns and sexiest and biggest controversies and most moving incidents in her career. She takes phone calls from her daughter and her husband and her sister, Popo, who in one of those odd twists of fate, ended up as her arch rival, competing advice columnist “Dear Abby”. Eppie asks us to take part in some surveys; who’s married and for how long; which way do we hang our toilet paper, (the column over that household controversy generated over 100,000 letters!) and she tells jokes and eats candy and dances to her favorite music from the forties. She does everything to avoid writing this difficult column because it’s the column announcing to her readers that she is divorcing her husband of 35 years. Ann Landers has long been an advocate of “make the marriage work!” and “Avoid divorce!” and she fears how her audience will react to this news. Her career could be jeopardized if her audience cannot accept advice from a woman who can’t make her own marriage work.
That sounds very dramatic, but in reality, this play is a light-hearted ode to a funny, charming woman with a lot of funny and warm stories to tell. There are emotional moments as Eppie deals with the end of her marriage and the writing of this column, and it’s hard to not get emotional when she describes visiting wounded troupes in Vietnam in the 1960’s, but we never stray very far from the humor and hearty, chirpy vitality of this woman and her cute stories about role-playing couples and confronting porn star Linda Lovelace on a talk show and describing to Chicago residents the meaning of the term, “Deep Throat”…It is a very lightweight night of theater; entertaining but not very significant with very obvious punchlines and not much in the way of dramatic structure or integrity. It’s designed to appeal to older audiences, looking for a clean, safe night of entertainment and to theater companies that need to round out seasons with a cheap, easy to produce show. Don’t get me wrong; I liked this play and enjoyed myself, but I’ll forget it in a week and have no need to ever see another production of it. It’s a Cracker Jack prize play; neat to look at for a moment, then you toss it away to never think of again.
But, I always remember Julie Briskman because she’s one of Seattle’s best and most endearing comedic actresses. She wowed me a couple years back in the Rosalind Russell role in ACT’s production of “The Women” and I’ve never forgotten her expert comic timing and natural born gift to play smart, witty and sometimes vicious women. She’s all by herself in this show and she doesn’t NEED any additional help to hold the audience’s interest; Ms Briskman is more than talented enough to hold our attention and keep us focused on the life of Eppie Lederer. Physically, the curvy actress bears little resemblance to the tiny advice columnist, but Ms Briskman, with the aide of a awesome helmet of hair, convinces us that she is the embodiment of a 60 year, thin, Jewish society matron living in the 1970’s. It is a very funny and natural performance, right down to the distinctive Ann Landers lisp. Julie Briskman is probably the biggest draw in convincing people to see this play. She alone is worth the price of admission.
Director Valerie Curtis-Newman does a fine job of staging the work on the tiny, cluttered set in ACT’s cabaret theater. The set itself, Eppie’s study in her high-rise luxury Chicago apartment, is excellent and captures the mood and style of the period and was well designed by Martin Christoffel. And, some kudos to the ACT props department for what must have been HOURS and HOURS of research and work to create/find the hundreds of letters used as props in a show about an advice columnist who receives thousands of letters a day. SOMEONE in a workroom at ACT probably went blind putting that together. ACT needs to give them a big bonus at Christmas.
Who’s this play for? Older people will appreciate it best, but it’s not without some charms for younger audiences who appreciate strong comedic acting. And, it’s the PERFECT show to take a visiting family member to! Mom and Dad are visiting from Walla Walla and you have tickets to go see a show at Neumo’s and you don’t know what to do with them? Send them to “The Lady With All the Answers”! Or, if Aunt Jane is in town on business and you need a safe outing? Same thing. You’ll be entertained and Aunt Jane will be happy you didn’t inflict an evening of Lesbian Folk Dancing and Poetry Reading on her at your favorite coffee house…not that there’s anything WRONG with Lesbian Folk Dancing and Poetry Reading…
Production photos-Chris Bennion/ACT
-Michael Strangeways
