Advice and consent

“The more things change, the more they stay the same” is one of those truisms that is not always true. And it’s probably something that Eppie Lederer said at some time in the 47 years she wrote as columnist Ann Landers. She was known to drop the occasional cliché or bon mot, to be cute and clever and sometimes a wee bit snarky.

Which is exactly how Diane Dorsey plays her in Stormfield Theatre’s latest production, “The Lady With All the Answers.”

The one-woman show, directed by Stormfield founder and artistic director Kristine Thatcher, is anachronistic in its setting but refreshing in its optimistic tone.

The show will certainly appeal to an older demographic, those who lived during the Ann Landers years. The uninitiated may struggle to understand the cultural significance of this icon.

How can one explain to kids raised on the Internet that people didn’t always air their dirty laundry on “Jerry Springer” or “Dr. Drew,” or spew all of their most intimate issues out in Facebook or Twitter posts? You see, kids, in the old days we wrote letters on paper, mailed them in stamped envelopes to a woman in Chicago and eagerly scanned the newspaper for weeks to see if she responded. 

It would seem this play would not resonate with a broad audience. Yet, given the chance, it has the potential to grab the heart of all but the most jaded souls. The play is set on the night that Landers is writing her most difficult column, sharing with 60 million readers her most painful revelation.

As she procrastinates, she shares with the theatrical audience the story of her life. Landers details the history of her sibling rivalry with identical twin Pauline “Popo” Phillips, a.k.a. Dear Abby, explains how gumption got her the job as Ann Landers and reveals how writing the column made her a more open-minded person over time.

This is the beauty of the play: It is at once specific and universal. It is a tribute to the life of one extraordinary woman who touched millions of lives, yet it is also a study in socio-cultural-political cycles. As Landers describes her trip to visit wounded soldiers in Vietnam, one immediately thinks of soldiers similarly damaged by the Iraq War. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Yet some things don’t always stay the same, as Landers has discovered in her personal life. Author David Rambo has effectively structured the script to build tension regarding the big secret that Landers harbors, and when it is revealed, Dorsey drops it like a bomb; one is so quickly charmed by Landers that her pain becomes the audience’s pain.

As she excuses herself for intermission, Dorsey makes Landers look completely used up, devastated by the impending changes in her life.

She enters in the second act, reinvigorated by a soak in the tub, and launches into the best parts of the script, tackling the sexual revolution, gay rights and the power of the press to change societal norms. Her tale of appearing on a TV show to discuss the famous pornographic blockbuster “Deep Throat” is worth the price of admission by itself.

“Lady” is not your grandma’s play. Its investigation of the basic human needs for understanding, acceptance and love makes one realize that even though times change, people stay the same.