“The Lady With All the Answers” is all about connections

HARTFORD — Sometimes plays with just one actor can get tiresome, but this is not the case with the terrific, insightful, and entertaining comedy “The Lady With All the Answers,” about the life and times of columnist Ann Landers, by David Rambo, at TheaterWorks, running through Mar. 7.
Charlotte Booker plays the perky, practical, and down to earth homey woman with forthright directness, and just the right mid-west twang to her speech.
Set in 1975 in Lander’s cozy 1960s furnished living room, with sets by Adrian W. Jones, she invites you to learn all about her fascinating life, from her marriage to Jules, a man she knew for three months before wedding to her eventual divorce. All under the auspices of her simultaneously compiling chapters for her book.
We learn that Ann Landers real name was Esther Pauline Lederer, and her identical twin sister, Pauline Esther Lederer, started her advice column “Dear Abby” about six months after Esther.
Landers says that her sister helped her for a few months with her mail. “She was a quick study,” Landers says, with just enough edge to her voice to let you know she is perturbed, but is too much of a lady and too positive a person to bellyache about it.
We also learn that Hugh Hefner, also from the mid-west, would put on a suit only for his mother and Landers when she would visit the Playboy mansion.
“I’m a square, but I’m no prude,” she says, at one point in her career appearing on a local television show with Linda Lovelace, and spoke of the infamous porn film in direct and graphic terms.
If this play is any indication, Landers was one amazing powerhouse. Having made useful connections in Washington, D.C. early on, she used her rolodex to contact experts, such as getting a supreme court judge to give his opinion on one woman’s question of who owns the walnuts that fall onto one property from the tree on another.
“I always defer to the experts,” Landers says, and through the years, and thousands of letters, she became something of an expert in the American cultural herself.
There are probably as many reasons why we go to plays as there are people who attend shows, but for me, it is all about making connections.
Landers was also all about making connections, and helping others — personally reading and answering every single letter sent to her, whether it was published or not — No small task when she regularly received thousands of letters each week, most of which we learn she read while soaking in a bubble bath.
Booker is simply amazing and top notch with her conversational tone and convincingly, confident, approachable demeanor, assuredly directed by Steve Campo.
Her speech is peppered with amusing and corny sayings, such as: “I needed that like a giraffe needs strep throat.”
When she met her husband-to-be, Jules, a salesman in the bridal section of a department store, who eventually founded Budget Rental Cars, she says: “October 1955 — A date that will live in intimacy.”
We learn that this mid-west “everywoman” became a vocal advocate for abortion rights, gay rights, and was passionately opposed to the Vietnam War.
It’s difficult to imagine today, but before Landers, the word “homosexual” was not printed in newspapers she says.
She was also not into self-aggrandizement. Knowing Hubert Humphrey, who was vice president at the time, she visited military hospitals in Vietnam. There she sat with thousands of wounded men, took down their messages, and when she returned home she made over 2,500 telephone calls to their loved ones. She never publicized her actions, however, saying only “it just didn’t feel right.”
Even when her husband of 36 years left her for a woman younger than her daughter, Landers was dignified, positive, honest, and loving. Not that she was a martyr or a wimp either. Ever the mid-west practical gal, she recognized that perhaps because of their busy lives they lost their connection.
Landers never lost her connection or her concern with her public, though, and it’s fascinating to hear all about it in this marvelous, insightful, endlessly satisfying play.

THE LADY WITH ALL THE ANSWERS

4 Stars
Theater: TheaterWorks
Location: 233 Pearl St. Hartford.
Production: Written by David Rambo. Directed by Steve Campo. Sets by Adrian W. Jones. Costumes by Kenneth Mooney. Lighting by Mary Jo Dondlinger. Sound by Mike Lastella.
Running time: 95 minutes with one intermission.
Show Times: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:30 p.m. through Mar. 7.
Tickets: Unassigned seating is $39; $49 on Friday and Saturday nights. Center reserved seats $12 extra. $12 student rush tickets at show-time with valid identification (subject to availability). For tickets call 860-527-7838 or visit their website at www.theaterworkshartford.org.
ACTOR…CHARACTER
Charlotte Booker … Ann Landers
By Kory Loucks
Journal Inquirer