It is a rare treat to attend a play in which the playwright, director, actor, and set, sound, lighting, and costume designers are all on the same wavelength. Such is the case for One Thirty Productions' staging of The Lady With All the Answers.
Based on the life and letters of personal advice columnist Ann Landers, aka Esther Pauline 'Eppie' Friedman Lederer. In this one-woman show by David Rambo, Ann Landers (Gene Raye Price) holds forth center stage in the tastefully decorated office in her Chicago apartment, reading, answering, and filing letters for her book while telling the story of her life. She relates the improbable facts of how she became Ann Landers. She regales the audience with the unlikely tale of how she met her future husband while shopping with her twin sister for a bridal veil for her wedding to another man, a wedding to be shared with her twin. She makes frequent references to her twin sister 'Popo' (aka Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips) who got her own advice column six months later and wrote under the nom de plume of Abigail Van Buren (aka Dear Abby.) The two ladies seemed to possess an overabundance of sibling rivalry. Ann Landers says of her sister: "She puts her mouth in drive and her brain in park." She also confides the details of her heartbreaking divorce after 36 years of marriage.
David Rambo's script is the best one-woman play I have seen in many years. Gene Raye Price is a doppelganger for Ann Landers thanks to the spot-on costume design of Price and Marty Van Kleek, including Ms. Landers's dark brown flip wig. Price moves about the environs of her desk and file cabinet with an abundance of verve including a time-out for some calisthenics while often interacting with the audience. The Lady With All the Answers is 90 minutes of pure delight.
