“The Detective’s Wife”

Highly Recommended  For those of you who were lucky  enough to see “A Steady Rain” written by Keith Huff, a play that went from Chicago to Broadway, the current World Premiere, now on stage in the very intimate bookstore theater of Writers’ Theatre, “The Detective’s Wife” is sure to please you. Huff, who has proven he can get into a mystery and  handle it with pure  human emotion, tells a unique story in this one. This is a one woman show that details the story of a woman who’s husband, a police detective has been shot and killed while in pursuit of bringing to rest an unsolved case from the 1980’s. The story is told in a narrative by Alice ( the amazing and wonderful Barbara Robertson) who details an amazing story about her husband and his work and what takes place in her life from the time of getting that “call”, the one feared by every cop’s wife, that he has been killed in the line of duty.

Alice has two grown children, a doctor and an assistant States Attorney and due to her husband’s prodding ,has her own business, a frame store and so as she tells us her story, she speaks as an outsider looking through the frames of life and sees it all as if she were removed from the events and is an observer. It is a very detailed script with ghosts and spirits and of course her husband’s soul, that amazingly is able to send her messages in order to solve his own murder.  There are some moments of humor within this tragedy ( there is a lot of “Hamlet” references, but as the story evolves, they do make sense). This is a mystery! There is no doubt about that and being a sit is, there are many things that cannot be divulged a sit would ruin the sory for you. The play s in two acts and is directed skillfully by Gary Griffin who can use the smallest of spaces and make a large presentation. The set by Kevin Depinet is a living room filled with books- mystery books, that it turns out were Alice’s addiction. She read mysteries and collected many of them. After her husband’s death, which caused her to lose her voice and put her in a state of shock, she observes things with a different eye and strange things take place allowing her to begin to unravel the mystery of his death, as well as the many other detectives associated with this particular case that has now been reopened by her husband.Huff has written this as a part of his police trilogy ( so we can anticipate the third Chicago police story , soon) and it is filled with thrills and certainly holds you attention.

What make this production complete is the music and sound by Rob Milburn and Michale Bodeen and special lighting by Heather Gilbert as well as some great projection work by Mike Tutaj and an enormous amount of props by Nick Heggestad. For those of you who have been to Writers’ Bookstore location ( yes, it is in the rear of the local bookstore) this is a very intimate venue ( around 60 seats) and so we, the audience are up-close with Ms. Robertson and get to watch her every gesture as if we were in the room with her and she was speaking to us one-on-one as she rebuilds her life after the tragedy. Her loss of voice has made her aware of other forms of communication and text messaging and e-mail are now part of her day. As the story goes on, we learn through her discoveries that there is much more to this case than meets the eye and with Huff’s writing,griffin’s direction and Robertson’s character building, you are in for a treat- two acts, one forty minute, the other 50 minutes of magic on stage. The ending will astound you!

“The Detective’s Wife” is scheduled to run through July 31st ( although I think they will extend it- but one cannot count on that, so don’t wait on this one) with performances as follows:

Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m.,Thursdays and Fridays at 8 p.m.,Saturdays at 4 and 8 p.m.,Sundays at 2 and 6 p.m.

NO 2 p.m. on July 3rd-No 6 p.m. performances on July 3rd and July 31st- Wednesday matinees at 2 p.m. on June 29th and july 27th

Tickets are $50-$60 and can be purchased at the box office located at 376 Park Avenue ( about one block North of the bookstore) by phone at 847-242-6000 or online at www.writerstheatre.org

The bookstore/theater is located at Books on Vernon, 664 Vernon Avenue ( which is considered ‘downtown” Glencoe. Lots of parking. Veronon is one block west of Green Bay Road and the theater is approx.4 blocks south of Dundee Road ( route 68)