Some actors start with makeup and work in. Others start with deep psychological analysis and work their way out. In the Milwaukee Rep’s brilliantly enjoyable 
The Lady with All the Answers, Laura Gordon seems to have started with a typewriter.
Just watch Gordon sit at a vintage IBM Selectric as Ann Landers (aka Eppy Friedman) in David Rambo’s play. You hear nothing but the whirr and clatter of that letter-embossed silver ball as her fingers fly over the keys. But every word registers on her face—a little self-congratulatory smirk at a well-turned phrase, a far off look at a wistful memory, a tight-lipped resolve at an idea that she’s been struggling to express for much of the evening.
Like the biographical plays that have come before, Rambo’s script is filled with little “I didn’t know that” factoids. Landers was behind the passage of a federal cancer-research initiative. Her husband started Budget Rent A Car. She was a close friend of Hubert Humphrey. But Gordon’s performance takes this characterization far beyond a Wikipedia summary of Landers’ life. The voice is dead on—a wide-open Midwestern accent with a touch of denture-related crackle on the S’s and Z’s. The helmet hair is perfect.
But Gordon channels the Landers spirit, as well—a tough Chicago broad with a gift for gab and sentimental streak that’s three feet wide. Rambo (and director J.R. Sullivan) wisely break the fourth wall early in the play. Why not? Landers lived for her readers. And who are the people surrounding her but those curious folks who want to live through her writing? Asking for a show of hands about everything from marital endurance to proper toilet paper roll placement, Gordon’s Landers is instantly likeable. And she uses her deft touch with the audience to mine the plays humor and heart for the rest of the show.
In today’s social media world, we are all advice columnists, doling out our opinions—knee-jerk and otherwise—on every topic from President Obama’s troop deployments to Tiger Woods’ driving habits. But we could all bear to emulate the homespun sagacity—firm conviction laced with tact and good humor–that Landers displayed throughout her long career.
Review- The Lady with All the Answers
Some actors start with makeup and work in. Others start with deep psychological analysis and work their way out. In the Milwaukee Rep’s brilliantly enjoyable The Lady with All the Answers, Laura Gordon seems to have started with a typewriter. Just watch Gordon sit at a vintage IBM Selectric as Ann Landers (aka Eppy Friedman) in David Rambo’s play. You hear nothing but the whirr and clatter of that letter-embossed silver ball as her fingers fly over the keys. But every word registers on her face—a little self-congratulatory smirk at a well-turned phrase, a far off look at a wistful memory, a…
