Before the Internet brought strangers as close as a mouse click, Ann Landers helped 60 million newspaper readers feel not so lost and alone.
She was never afforded the same intellectual respect as, say, Alfred Kinsey, but during the era of supposed “sexual liberation,” perhaps no other American’s progressive common sense better helped the repressed and inhibited work out their confusions on such burning issues as abortion, Vietnam, homosexuality, infidelity … and which direction the toilet paper should hang.
From 1955-2002 — the Dark Ages when it came to open communication about sex — Landers’ column was America’s answer to a town hall meeting. Before Wikipedia, Google and Chacha, Landers fielded questions most didn’t dare ask their doctors, clergy, children or spouses. She saved troubled lives, she clarified polarizing political issues, and long before Dr. Ruth, she told the world to keep their judgments out of other people’s bedrooms.
David Rambo’s one-woman play, “The Lady With All the Answers,” is utterly charming — and for once I mean the word just as Webster intended it. It’s a nostalgic and human introduction to a seminal and controversial figure in pop-culture history.
The Little Theatre of the Rockies, now in its 76th summer season in Greeley, is Colorado’s oldest theater company. Its family-friendly offerings typically mingle University of Northern Colorado students and alums with professional guest artists. But this play is all on the winning Kerri Jill Garbis, who enthusiastically re-animates “Peppy Eppie” (Landers’ real name was Esther Lederer) with her pink pantsuit, bouffant hairdo and sassy Chicago dialect.
Garbis — think a grinning Marisa Tomei morphed with Mike Myers’ “Coffee Talk” host, Linda Richman — imbues the same warm qualities as an actor that Landers had as a writer, making the potentially inimitable … imitable.
She had Thursday’s largely senior audience grinning throughout like little kids.
Rambo, best known for “God’s Man in Texas,” mixes up the traditional narrative monologue structure by putting Ann in her sprawling Chicago high-rise, where she not only addresses us as if we’re sharing the couch with her, she conducts hands-up opinion polls on this topic or that (just as she did with readers).
We fall quickly in love with Ann — and the actor playing her — as she talks candidly of her childhood, her rivalry with her sister (Dear Abby) and, most movingly, of her 1967 tour of wounded American soldiers in Vietnam.
The setting of this play is meaningfully 1975, and Ann is working on the most difficult column of her then 20-year advice career. It’s a confession of a personal nature (based on real events). Ann must admit to readers that for once, the lady with all the answers has her own laundry to air.
It seems almost quaint now, given mores of the day, that what she had to tell readers in 1975 might well have brought down her empire.
Director David Grapes’ production is precise on details, down to the electric typewriter and carbon paper. It’s worth noting (and appreciating) that Zachary Keller’s effective apartment set, surrounded by audience on four sides of the intimate Norton Theatre, doesn’t compromise a single sightline.
But if anything, Rambo’s script is too modest in its dramatic goals. While the audience is in for one major surprise, it’s one our dear Ann Landers certainly already knows. The phone keeps ringing, and you keep hoping something might happen that will change the direction of the narrative and give Ann something new and unexpected to react to — but this is a straight-line play without a single right turn.
It’s also unfortunate that Rambo avoids the hottest of hot buttons: He never mentions, for example, that Landers favored the legalization of prostitution, or that she once outraged the pope and millions of other Polish people with a racist remark.
But, as Peppy Eppie might say back, “Watch it, Bub!”
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“The Lady with All the Answers” *** (out of four stars)
Presented by the Little Theatre of the Rockies at the Norton Theatre, in Gray Hall on the University of Northern Colorado campus, Eighth Avenue and 20th Street, Greeley. Written by David Rambo. Directed by David Grapes. Starring Kerri Jill Garbis. Through July 25. 1 hour, 35 minutes, includnig an intermission. 7:30 p.m. June 25, 26 and July 9, 14, 15 and 24; 2 p.m. June 27 and July 25. $6-$17. 970-351-2200 or
This weekend’s other theater openings
“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” An off-beat musical comedy about six awkward, ambitious adolescents who confront the pitfalls of puberty while spelling their way through the biggest night of their young lives. Through Aug. 22. Backstage Theatre, 121 S. Ridge St., Breckenridge, 970-453-0199 or
“Gunslinger: The Legend of Billy the Kid” The Cripple Creek summer tradition of classic, substantive melodrama returns with this fast-paced, 1906 tale. Events conspire against our 15-year-old hero, Billy — including the murder of his parents and his brief turn to outlaw. Through Sept. 18. Presented by the Thin Air Theatre Company at the Butte Theatre, 139 E. Bennett Ave., Cripple Creek, 719-235-8944 or butteoperahouse
“Guys and Dolls” Classic musical fable about a New York grifter who wagers he can get a dame to go with him to Havana. Songs include “Luck Be a Lady” and “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat.” Through July 3. Crested Butte Mountain Theatre, 403 Second St., 970- 349-0366 or
“Hair” The rock musical that defined the ’60s generation through a group of young bohemians struggling for generational and personal identity during the Vietnam War. Some nudity. Through Aug. 27. Lake Dillon Theatre Company, 176 Lake Dillon Drive, 970-513-9386 or
“The Ladies Man” In this fast-paced farce, freely adapted from “Tailleur Pour Dames” by Georges Feydeau, a little lie leads to mind- boggling chaos, several near catastrophes and an improbable succession of slamming doors. Through Aug. 28. Creede Repertory Theatre, 124 N. Main St., 719-658-2540, 1-866-658-2540, or
Complete theater listings
Go to our complete list of in Colorado, including summaries, run dates, addresses, phones and links to every company’s home page. Or check out our listings or
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