Matthew J. Palm: Orlando Rep solves “Nancy Drew.”
With another mystery solved, an old-time radio announcer cries “Nancy Drew has done it again!”
And it’s fair to say, Orlando Repertory Theatre has done it again: Staging an entertaining piece of theater of high technical quality, an onpoint cast and a fun script that will appeal to children and the adults in their life.
“Nancy Drew and Her Biggest Case Ever” is the Rep’s latest. Pulling elements from several books in the long-running teen-girl detective series, the play presents surprise and danger around every corner — just like each chapter ended with a cliffhanger.
Surely I wasn’t the only kid curled under the covers past my bedtime with a flashlight, surreptitiously turning pages because I had to know what would happen next?
The affectionate play by John Maclay and Jeff Frank references the books’ familiar elements — Nancy’s faithful housekeeper, kindly father, besties George and Bess, even her trusty roadster — and spins an entertaining tale.
Adults will appreciate the nostalgia. Kids will like the nonstop twists: a car chase, a storm, a missing will, a kidnapping, a treasure map, a shipwreck!
Jillian Gizzi plays the young detective just as you would want her to be — focused, highly intelligent and compassionate with plenty of moxie. The production, sharply directed by Frank, amusingly underscores for adults what we missed as kids: How Nancy is almost too perfect to be true, how she wears the pants in her relationship with long-suffering boyfriend Ned. How if cellphones had been around in the 1930s, when her stories debuted, none of the plots would have worked.
A couple of onstage happenings seem silly: After Nancy mysteriously disappears, Ned and Bess are busy tidying up instead of looking for her. And one minor choice might puzzle longtime fans of the series.
Despite so much faithfulness to the books, the hairstyles on Nancy’s friends are all wrong. Bess is always described as a blonde, and George is known for her short, dark hair. Not so at the Rep, where Bess is brunette and George a redhead. Why would the Rep change those coiffures? Is something suspicious afoot? Impostors? I guess that’s a mystery for another day.