Love affair ripples out in Writers' 'Vengeful Redhead'

The thing about a venue like Books on Vernon - the even more intimate second stage occupied by the appealingly intimate Writers' Theatre - is there's nowhere to hide. Not for the actors, or for the 50 people who comprise a sold-out house at this black box theater tucked behind a Glencoe bookstore.

The drama unfolds within a few feet of audience members who are privy to the actor's most fleeting expressions. It's all very up-close and personal. At times uncomfortably so.

Yet I can't imagine seeing a show like this in anything but this kind of venue, where the connection between actor and audience is palpable, and more immediate and intense than any found in a larger theater. That connection has everything to do with the appeal of Writers' fine production of "The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead," Australian playwright Robert Hewett's cleverly woven domestic thriller examining the ripple effects of one woman's rash act.

The actress responsible is the chameleon-like Deborah Staples, a Wisconsin import and 16-year veteran of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, whose virtuoso performance in Hewett's one-woman show is nothing short of brilliant. I suspect Staples made eye contact with just about every member of the audience opening night, and I imagine none of them took their eyes off her. I know I didn't.

Staples plays seven characters - each meticulously defined - with surety, subtlety and a laserlike focus that suggest an actress at the top of her game. With a few swipes of a makeup brush, a quick costume change and the swapping of wigs, she transforms herself from detached physician to 4-year-old boy to savvy immigrant entrepreneur.

Writers' production reunites Staples with former Milwaukee Rep artistic director Joseph Hanreddy, who collaborated on that company's 2008 production of "The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead," which they've re-imagined for Writers'.

Hanreddy's sharp, resourcefully staged show unfolds on a smartly designed, deceptively institutional and highly efficient set by Linda Buchanan. Buchanan effectively hides the play's various locales - a suburban den, a corner bar, a child's room - behind panels which serve not just as backdrops, but as mini dressing rooms where Staples makes her transformations.

The play opens with suburban stay-at-home mom Rhonda, the titular redhead, recalling a terse phone call several months earlier from her husband Graham, announcing he had moved out of their home and intended to end their 17½-year marriage.

Rhonda immediately suspects another woman. Her suspicions are furthered by her best friend Lynette, the embodiment of a "desperate housewife." While brunette Lynette insists she knows "where to draw the line" when it comes to involving herself in her friends' lives, events here suggest that she has no real clue when to draw it.

Over the next two hours we're introduced to an array of characters, including a loutish husband, an elderly neighbor and a self-described minx from Minsk, blonde-haired Tanya, who Rhonda suspects is having an affair with her husband. To reveal more would spoil things. It's enough to say that Rhonda's decision to confront her husband's mistress has far-reaching consequences.

Hewett casts the audience in the role of reporter and sets up the scenes as a series of interviews, in which outside observers as well as participants reveal their interpretations of the scandalous events. He astutely weaves together eight monologues - with the first and last word reserved for the redhead - teasing out plot details from characters, several of whom display a staggering lack of self-awareness. By the play's end, we've got a somewhat clearer picture of events. Yet some ambiguity remains. As one character so shrewdly observes, "Nothing is what it seems."

“The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead”

★ ★ ★ ½

Location: Writers' Theatre at Books on Vernon, 664 Vernon Ave., Glencoe, (847) 242-6000 or writerstheatre.org

Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday; 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 and 6 p.m. Sunday through July 29. Also 2 p.m. June 27 and July 25. No 6 p.m. performance July 1 or 29. No performance July 4.

Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes with intermission

Tickets: $45 to $65

Parking: Street parking

Rating: For adults; strong language, mature subject matter