Private Eyes

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Just promise me one thing, OK? Promise me you might lie to someone else, but you won’t lie to me?

Robert Kramer (Adrian), Theresa Adams (Cory), Robert Olguin (Matt), and Shannon Zimmerman (Lisa) in a scene from Private Eyes.

OK. I can do that. Well, I might slip in a few surprises along the way. Well, maybe a whole lot of surprises.

Easy response. Easy request, unless, of course, you’re watching Steven Dietz’s rollicking roller coaster play Private Eyes that not only climbs vertically but horizontally as well, at the same time spinning around through uncontrolled passion, calculated obsession, mismatched infatuation cloaked in reality and illusion. The always forever question is what is the play, what is the script, what is pretend, what is reality, and who exactly is who?

Private Eyes is a perfect example of a play that if it isn’t handled with an astute director’s eye for perception, and a high-quality cast who understands professional artistic nuances. It would be a complete total disaster.

This certainly isn’t the case at Miners Alley Playhouse with Terry Dodd occupying the director’s chair, that is, if he had time to sit in a director’s chair. With Dodd at the helm and a stunning cast of exciting artists, they grab Private Eyes by the throat, shake it for all its worth and come to a stop on their roller coaster ride with not a hair out of place and a smile on their face.

A play within a play within a play that chases trust and honesty up every tree it can find, with growling deceit, panting trickery, gnawing loyalty soaked in a beef broth of disloyalty, questionable dignity, surrounded by an agonizing wanting of trust, love and solidarity. Honest laughs are trapped behind every line, and this cast knows how to make the most of everyone of them. They also know how to change character identities in a blink of an eye.

The relatively bare stage with an appropriate set design by Rick Bernstein, Miners Alley Producer, the play shifts quickly from rehearsal halls to a café, to a psychiatrist office, to a café, to a rehearsal hall with a flip of a wig and a twist of a chair.

At the top, Lisa, beautifully portrayed by Shannon Zimmerman, tentatively arrives to audition for a play for the director, Matthew solidly played by Robert Olguin. She’s auditioning as a waitress, but she doesn’t know what he wants, and he won’t tell her. With tenuous strokes she reads her lines from a script. He chides her for not knowing how to waitress. She neglects to tell him she is one. Assuming a director’s over blown power, he delights in rattling her cage. When she tells him it is difficult to relate to a chair, he, with rolled disgusted eyes, agrees to read the script with her. No matter what she does, he feigns disapproval. The power shifts when Matthew saunters into a restaurant and Lisa is his waitress. With nothing to lose, and a stance of dignity, she grabs the opportunity to throw his lines back into his face. How delicious to see this uncaring unsympathetic bully get what’s coming to him, until Adrian storms onto the stage with a script in hand demanding they cut. Adrian played with enormous versatility by Robert Kramer, takes command. Now, that’s settled, we know where the play is going. Whoops! Wrong again.

Matthew and Lisa are very married, and the something missing in their relationship grabs her from the English director Adrian. Aha! A three way travesty of love, lust, passion, and treacherous disharmony dance around the stage with glint and glee.

Olguin reveals a macho confidence for Matthew until he is stopped dead in his tracks by a coy come hither waitress, Cory who knows how to play her cards pressed against her breast. Theresa Adams as Cory is darling, though she admitted no one called Cory darling before. But she is. She’s adorable in her slick moves, her change of wigs, and her alternating characterizations of perfidious pretense of one person playing another person playing another person. She’s cunning. She’s all business, she’s demanding, she’s crafty, while her various wigs give the hint of who she is. Just about the time you figure her out, she slides onto stage in another wig, another rhyme, another purpose. Her tempo, her timing, her body language expertly executed oils with stay away, don’t touch, I’ve got you where I want you, oh, yes, baby we can tango, to mean revenge.

Olguin grabs the stage with an air of ownership, then slips into vulnerable confusion when he meets with his psychiatrist, Frank who tries to keep him in line and focused. Played by Albert Banker, Frank wears empathy well all the while sporting a sweet secret in his eyes. He knows something no one else knows. Oh, indeed he does. Attentive and rich in his observation, Banker’s eyes smile and wink at the audience through the persona of Frank.

As Dietz plays with his malicious characters with a laugh and a giggle, lighting designer Karalyn “Star” Pytel plays with the light scheme in a dance all their own. Blending shades of dark and bright light, the effect is stunning, grim, hiding and revealing all at the same time. They seem to have a secret of their own they want to shout to the world.

Private Eyes is a fun play, a perceptive play, a designed to keep you wide-awake play, a very funny play. The characters don’t design their personalities to be malicious, conniving, destructive. They want what everyone wants: security and love. They ache for assurance and reassurance. They want success and stability. They want their star qualities to shine on stage and off. They just don’t quite know how to go about getting what they really want so they play with sparks and fire and reel when they get burned, all the while entertaining with their surprises and ready laughs.

In between scenes, dancers: Stephanie Prugh, Tim Laing, and Jeff Mercer tango their way through the music of Carmen emphasizing the eternal triangle of love torn asunder with indecisive hot sexual appeal. The dancers themselves aren’t as smooth in their execution as the tango begs for, but perhaps there is significance in their rough edges correlating with the rough edges of Matthew, Lisa, and Adrian.

Throughout the topsy turvy hopscotched play within the play within the play runs the all too serious thought provoking themes of love given and love deserved rambles the reminder that sometimes love just needs to be earned. To get respect, one has to give. Aye, there’s the rub.

Miners Alley does just that: it gives honored respect to Dietz’s writing, honored respect to his polished artistic cast, and honored respect to the characters on a desperate search for truth and honesty, and in the process provides an honest opportunity to laugh. This is one play you certainly don’t want to miss!