Review: FROM HER EYES ONLY Missteps in Its Journey to Double Oh Heaven!

FROM HER EYES ONLY/written & directed by Derek Jeremiah Reid/Edgemar Center for the Arts/thru September 25, 2015

In FROM HER EYES ONLY, multi-hyphenate Derek Jeremiah Reid revels with his charismatic stage presence and characterization of famed James Bond novelist Ian Fleming. Reid commands the stage with his effective scripted emoting and his quick-witted improv-ed one-liners (to the late-comers still entering at the half-hour post-curtain mark). Reid begins his show most promisingly with his Fleming delivering the pre-show instructions. Very clever. Actually Reid channels the suave, debonair Bond much more than the intended more cerebral, less dashing Fleming himself.

Reid wrote FROM HER EYES ONLY as an homage to Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me featuring the main female character of his novel Vivienne Michel (a game Amanda Ritchie) completely omitted from the film. Reid's Fleming introduces seven Bond Gals as each perform their brief monologues describing their relations with Bond, James Bond. Stand-outs include Louisa Faye as Policewoman Gala Brand and Patra Archie as Mary Goodnight. Both women grab their brief moments in their respective solo spotlights making you wish for more time spent with both of them. Faye has her comedic timing and double takes down pat while Archie's high expressive energy just infectiously overtakes the room. The other Bond Gals seem to be having issues with their various accents and/or their projection abilities making some of their narratives not completely intelligible. Although Roxanne Sinclair's Honeychile Rider seems to purposedly make you want to lean in to hear her better. Others include Esenya Abenova as Kissy Suzuki, Jessica Amlee as Pussy Galore, Josephine Hies as Mrs. Tracy Bond, and Katarzyna Kazmierczyk as Domino.

The succession of monologues abruptly change into complete scenes involving Vivienne Michel, illustrating her two love affairs (with French Derek (Dominique Dauwe) and German Kurt (Kenny Jensen)), her almost rape/hostage situation, and her inevitable rescue and seduction by Bond, the James Bond. Very convincing choreographed (un-credited) fighting between Reid and the two mobsters (played too realistically frightening by Daniel Lee Robertson and Dauwe). Although the gunshot sound effects made by toy cap guns did spoil the realism a bit.

Attending cops cleaning up the dead bodies aftermath (essayed by Mark Lee and Jensen) seemed to be added in as comic relief.

Director Reid needs to assist playwright Reid in re-arranging/re-structuring the monologues with the actual Vivienne scenes, while finding a more consistent common tone to the piece (tongue in cheek, hip, or dead serious. Comedy sketches or one-act drama). The mobster scene with Vivienne totally jars and at odds with the two campy sketch comedy-ish scenes with exaggerated French and German accents preceding it. The appealing Ritchie transitions from comic skit to high drama more smoothly than the situations presents themselves. Missed opportunity to showcase a different perspective from Fleming's original - the woman's point of view in the Bond fantasies. These Bond Gals' stories sound pretty much the same as Fleming's version. All the women fall for Bond, James Bond.

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