‘Answers’ captures Landers’ essence
For nearly 50 years, newspaper advice columnist Ann Landers aka Eppie Lederer was a daily guest in 60 million homes, dispensing her sage words of wisdom over the breakfast table.
She could be as stinging as a hot cup of coffee or as comforting as a piece of buttered toast, depending on the topic. And she covered them all — from settling the trivial argument over which way to hang a roll of toilet paper to throwing a lifeline of hope to a gay teen who was contemplating suicide. Landers was the “go to gal” for several generations, male and female, young and old.
In “The Lady With All the Answers,” playing now through Sept. 11 at The Old Globe’s Cassius Carter Centre Stage, local audiences have the opportunity to turn the breakfast tables and step into Landers’ home for a change. Only in this instance, she’s preparing to sit down and write what she says will be her most difficult — and most important — column ever.
It isn’t until deep into the second act that the audience learns exactly why this particular column will be different from the rest. For longtime Landers fans who remember the personal bombshell she dropped in June 1975, it will come as no surprise. For the rest of us, it’s a revelation and a wake-up call that no one, not even Landers, is immune to heartbreak.
“The Lady With All the Answers” isn’t just a glimpse into Landers’ world, it’s a full-fledged invitation. Through much of the show, Landers is sifting through 20 years worth of columns, reminiscing about some of her readers’ more startling revelations and reading aloud hilarious snippets, all of which she intends to publish in a book. Strolling around the circular stage, letters in hand, she recalls the woman who preferred to clean her home “au natural” until her minister stopped by unexpectedly for a visit. Or the man who dressed up like Tarzan and then waited in a tree for his dinner guests to arrive. His mortified wife signed her letter “Jane,” Landers confides with a chuckle.
Even without the visual effects of bouffant hair and a snazzy hot pink pantsuit with matching pumps, actress Randy Graff is Ann Landers in this one-woman show. Graff captures to perfection the columnist’s crackling wit and tremendous compassion for the human condition. She also uses the intimate setting of the Cassius Carter Centre Stage to establish a close rapport with an audience seated just a few feet away. “Now what kind of nut writes to a newspaper columnist?” Graff asks early on. “You, and you and you,” she says, mischievously pointing a manicured nail at several theater patrons while the rest of the audience erupts in laughter.
By the end of “The Lady With All the Answers,” even casual Landers fans will remember what made this midwestern woman such an American institution for nearly a half century. As legendary new anchor Walter Cronkite once put it so succinctly, “Eppie’s great contribution is giving us through her column a sense of community, a sense that we all share problems.”