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Dorsey tickles with Ann Landers' tales

By Bridgette M. Redman

Diane Dorsey stars as columnist Ann Landers in Stormfield Theatre's "The Lady With All the Answers." Photo: Sandra Debnar

One of the biggest challenges to doing a solo show is that no one can help when something goes wrong. So Diane Dorsey discovered during the Saturday night performance of Stormfield Theatre's "The Lady With All the Answers." While she stayed perfectly in character and came up with a lovely excuse, it's hard to convince an audience that an extended absence of the play's only character from the stage is part of the script.
Things were slightly off kilter for a time after that, with sound cues responding slowly and Dorsey losing some of the energy that she had shown earlier. However, she did recover, and by the end of the show was delivering a heartfelt performance evoking tears and laughter in almost equal amounts.
"The Lady With All the Answers" is an exploration of the life of Eppie Lederer, known much better as Ann Landers, the daily columnist who dispensed advice for just shy of 50 years. It's a delightful retrospective for those who remember reading her in the newspaper as she admonished people to stay married, explained how to hang toilet paper and took the pulse of a generation of 60 million readers. More than that, it is a look at a slice of life, an Americana that was not all sweet and innocent. It is a look at the turmoil of the times through the typewriter of one chronicler.
Eppie Lederer became Ann Landers in 1955, and when the play opens in the mid-'70s, Lederer is struggling with a column she clearly doesn't want to write. Instead, she plies the audience with samples of her popular letters, letters she is sorting out to put into a book. Dorsey quickly informs the audience that they will be a part of the show and that she knows they are not just readers of Ann Landers, but among the legions of letter writers who contact her to ask for advice, to upbraid her for past columns and to confide in an ear they can trust.
Dorsey creates a Lederer who is accessible and filled with high spirits. She is a passionate woman who is eager to make her world a better place. She loves her job and is quick to share the amusing quips, odd behaviors and unusual questions. She's in constant motion, and Dorsey does well at varying the pace while she shares Lederer's life story.
Playwright David Rambo writes a play that is wholly a tribute to the advice goddess. There are no overt character flaws, her mistakes are brushed over and even her personal tragedy is brought on by someone else and not through any fault of her own. Rambo wants us to enjoy the time we spend with Lederer and come away respecting the woman for the intense life that she lived and the selfless and generous personality that he infuses into the play's protagonist. Given that the play was written in cooperation with Lederer's daughter, Margo Howard, it isn't too surprising that the play is one big love letter to this larger-than-life Chicago personality.
While there were times early on when the show dragged, Dorsey kept those moments to a minimum. The second half banished the missteps and rollicked between tales of the sexual peccadilloes of her readers to the intense relating of her experience in Vietnam. Dorsey was strongest during the heartbreaking emotional moments, letting us see the pain in this extraordinarily strong woman and the determination that even in her despair, she would find something good, something to give and something to be grateful for.

REVIEW:
'The Lady With All the Answers'
Stormfield Theatre, 201 Morgan Lane, Lansing. Thursday-Sunday through June 5. $18-$24. 517-372-0945. http://www.stormfieldtheatre.org

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