A Multifaceted Performance

For the second time this season the Milwaukee Rep calls on a single actor to carry an entire production, as the company stages Australian playwright Robert Hewett's suburban mystery The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead. The show, opening this week, stars Rep Resident Actress Deborah Staples at the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater. Staples' varied roles will provide a contemporary look at the nature of love, anger and adultery from multiple perspectives.

In addition to the three title characters, Staples will portray four supporting characters as well. The production places such a premium on distinct characters that it should seem like a group of actresses taking the stage. Fortunately, Staples is up to the challenge. The talented California native enters her 13th year with the Rep having played a great many characters of different temperaments. Though Staples is the sole actress, audiences will be seeing seven distinct characters onstage.

Among others, they include Rhonda Russell, the titular vengeful redhead whose monologue opens the show. She has been described as an average, naïve suburban housewife, though this seems at odds with a character who goes berserk in a shopping mall. Look for Staples to mix the articulate, good-natured personality she portrayed in the female lead of the Rep's 2005 production of The Underpants with darker elements found in characters she has played over the past couple of seasons.

Dr. Alex Doucette delivers the second monologue. Although at first there doesn't seem to be much connection between this monologue and the one before it, Hewett's plot is soon revealed. Dr. Doucette is an upper-class woman whose turn onstage quickly adds another layer of complexity. Staples has always been fun in the role of an attractive, wealthy young woman, most notably in her memorable performance as socialite Caroline Bramble in February's Rep production of Enchanted April.

Audiences will also be treated to Rhonda Russell's neighbor, Lynette Anderson. One critic describes her as "trashy and manipulative," but there's more to this character than that. Anderson says she would never interfere in the business of other people, but is just as quick to point out that "there are exceptions" to this rule. Staples' portrayal will likely be the type of sweet, manipulative character we recently saw her play in the Rep's fall production of State of the Union, when she portrayed an adviser to presidential hopeful Grant Matthews.

Anderson could well provide the most interesting material; then again, the cast of characters isn't exclusively female, so other parts of Staples' performance may prove to be more novel than any of the main characters.

The Milwaukee Rep's production of The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead runs through Jan. 4, 2009, at the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater.