PRIVATE EYES is a comedy of suspicion in which nothing is ever quite what it seems. Matthew's wife, Lisa, is having an affair with Adrian, a British theatre director.
Or perhaps the affair is part of the play being rehearsed. And, finally, there is Cory—the mysterious woman who seems to shadow the others—who brings the story to its surprising conclusion. Or does she? The audience itself plays the role of detective in this hilarious "relationship thriller" about love, lust and the power of deception. |
Jason Jeremy, Sarah Meyeroff |
Sarah Meyeroff, Aaron Murphy, Jason Jeremy |
Richard Ryan, Jason Jeremy |
Cast and Crew for Private Eyes |
Adrian | Aaron Murphy |
Lisa | Sarah Meyeroff |
Matthew | Jason Jeremy |
Cory | Holly Silk |
Frank | Richard Ryan |
Production Manager / Stage Manager | Ted Hlavac |
Lighting and Sound Design | Tyler Null |
Associate Producer / Graphic Design | Peter Teaff |
Marketing / Publicity / Costumes | Mary Samson |
Crew | Eleni Zaharopoulos, Whitney Gafford |
Photographer | Peter Prato |
San Francisco Bay Guardianby Robert Avila |
Somebody in Steven Dietz's Private Eyes has a problem with the truth, but it would be unfair to tell you who since finding out is half the fun of this 1996 play about trust, suspicion, and betrayal among lovers (a venerable theme, to be sure, and a veritable subspecialty of this particular American playwright). Suffice it to say, then, that all is not as it seems when husband-and-wife acting team Matthew (a likeable Jason Jeremy) and Lisa (a gradually potent Sarah Meyeroff) begin rehearsing a new play under the direction of a handsome Brit (a solid Aaron Murphy) with a barely concealed fixation on his leading lady. By the time a mysterious woman in dark glasses (a sharp and magnetic Holly Silk) appears with a purse full of airline wine — not to mention a two-timing shrink named, unlikely enough, Frank (a gracefully comic Richard Ryan) — the layers of deceit have already been shuffled and reshuffled several times over. Directed with requisite snap by Stephen Drewes, Spare Stage mounts an indeed spare but worthy production of an enjoyable play whose theme and Chinese-box structure, while never quite cutting to the bone, effectively cross Harold Pinter's Betrayal with Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. |