Spare Stage: Private Eyes


           



Private Eyes

by Stephen Dietz

Directed by Stephen Drewes



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.
Or perhaps Matthew has imagined all of it simply to have something to report to Frank, his therapist.

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 and Sarah Meyeroff Sarah Meyeroff, Aaron Murphy and Jason Jeremy Richard Ryan and Jason Jeremy

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




Review of Private Eyes

San Francisco Bay Guardian

by 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.