Director Geordie Johnson, a veteran actor at Stratford, saw The Blonde, The Brunette, and the Vengeful Redhead while visiting Australia, immediately thought of Stratford actress Lucy Peacock, and was so impressed with the piece that he insisted on getting the rights to direct it in Canada. No wonder. Robert Hewett's play is one of the most impressive single-actor works that I know of; and Lucy Peacock -- originally so beautiful and promising that she was early thrust into major roles at Stratford which she was barely ready to attempt -- has matured into a masterful actress perfectly suited for this virtuoso assignment. When they premiered The Blonde, The Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead in nearby London, Ontario, only a few months before it began rehearsals at Stratford, Hewett changed the settings from Down Under to Canada with, he writes, very few changes to dialogue. It was a knockout there and such a triumph at Stratford that the production is being repeated intact for Stratford's 2007 season.
The beautifully equipped but intimate Studio Theater is a perfect setting for this fluid play which makes its transitions between settings and characters with lighting changes and meaningful props or furniture pieces casually placed but hauntingly remaining onstage. These images are also reflected in slide projections overhead. Ms Peacock changes wigs and clothing partly in sight behind panels or scrim curtains or in very dim light, as she makes amazing transformations from ordinary housewife, to interfering neighbor, disturbed young boy, very elderly woman, rather sexy man, slutty blonde, and others. Several of those people also change in character and in how we perceive them. But the effect is that of a procedural action/mystery story unfolding, never an overtly showy acting exercise.
The plot begins with an ordinary-seeming housewife (the Redhead) distraught to hear that her husband is leaving her, and then so upset by her close-friend (The Brunette) neighbor's admitting that she saw the husband with a blonde, that the housewife goes to the blonde's workplace vaguely intending revenge. But the revenge has an grotesquely misplaced result; the close friend turns out to have her own treacherous motives; some innocent victims get bizarrely involved; and the resulting explorations of human behavior and choices is funny, awful, and ultimately satisfying. And, after playing some of the most challenging roles in Shakespeare, classical drama, modern masterpieces and even musicals, Lucy Peacock seems to have found the role of her life and lives up to it in every way.
