Network's 'Private Eyes' offers comical sleuthing

Courtesy of Performance Network Stephen Angus, John Neville-Andrews and Peggy Johns-Cambell perform in "Private Eyes."

Just as lies and deceit convolute the lives of the people which they involve, so this phenomena occurs in the play "Private Eyes." We witness the destruction of the lives of four people as the deceit of two characters spins all four into a web of suspicion, paranoia and ultimately, revenge.

Using the premise of a play within a play, this performance succeeds in intertwining the real lives of the characters and the roles that they take on in their professional careers. With the utterance of "Our biggest regrets begin with the most innocent of hopes," the stage is set for the complexity that awaits the protagonists.

Life is simple until Lisa is cast opposite her heartbreakingly innocent husband Matthew, in a two-character sketch. The pair, played by Peggy-Johns Campbell, and Stephen Angus, respectively, portray a seemingly content, married couple, whose lives are about to be drastically altered. Both actors are cast under the direction of theater and drama Prof. John Neville-Andrews, who fills the director chair as the amusingly immoral Adrian. Andrews is devilishly fun as the middle-aged director who appears to be suffering from a mid-life crisis. Having lost the excitement of life, he appears to exist on the brink of boredom. And what better way to emancipate himself from this unfortunate slump than to indulge in an affair with a younger married woman. He suffers from no scruples at the thought of lifting the wife of his co-worker from right out under his nose.

Lisa is convincing as a woman who, feeling the loss of the exhilaration in her life, strays from her vows in an attempt to fill the void. But as with most egocentric ventures, hers will leave her more alone than she has ever anticipated.

Put these two together and it's a sure bet that they won't spend their time playing bingo. As Adrian bluntly proposes an affair, he makes no effort to hide his intentions. "It's better to jump than wade in," he states, but once they've jumped, they can't save themselves from drowning.

The loser in this whirlwind of deceit appears to be Lisa's husband Matthew. Although Matthew is not oblivious to the philandering of his wife, his suspicions go unfounded due to his fear that she no longer loves him. He instead finds refuge on the couch of a therapist, who guides him to the doorstep of his fears. Although his desire for revenge seems genuine, he finds that he simply cannot bring himself to actually hurt the woman that he loves. His fantasies of vengeance remain dormant within the boundaries in which they originated, leaving him to deal with his anguish on his own.

One does not know how long the charade would have endured, had some outside force not intervened. It is likely that the affair would have fizzled out, leaving Lisa and Adrian to nonchalantly return to their former lives. But Adrian's past lurks up on him in the form of a private eye by the name of Cory. It appears that Adrian, too, has skeletons in his closet.

Terry Heck, hivate eye, Heck is pure entertainment every time she waltzes into each scene with her sassy sleuth get-up and heavily exaggerated accent. She later reveals herself to be the wife that Adrian so keenly forgot to mention. But unlike Matthew, Cory actually fulfills her vows of retaliation.

Playwright Steven Diez structured his play in a dichotomic fashion to convey the complexity of the characters and the mess in which they find themselves. Each scene's course of action could be applied to the play, or the actual lives of the characters. This element of surprise is revealed just when the audience believes they have it figured out.

Like Matthew, we are in constant limbo, never knowing the truth until it has already transpired. A scene that finds Lisa and Adrian in bed actually turns out to be Adrian demonstrating to Matthew the way in which a particular scene should be executed. This coexistence on two planes of reality gives the audience the opportunity to observe art mimicking life. Or is it life mimicking art?

"Private Eyes" will continue to run throughout February at Performance Network, 415 W. Washington. Dates are Feb. 18-21 and Feb. 25-28. Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are available by phone (734) 663-0681.

02-19-99