Nothing escapes the ears of Amanda Tears

What's not to like about a teenage sleuth? She's spunky, she's cute, she's endlessly resourceful and always well-dressed. No mystery is so convoluted, no adolescent angst so overwhelming that she can't resolve it in the course of a television episode. Enter "Amanda Tears, Teenage Detective," an amusing and provoking deconstruction of the teen-drama genre that kicks off Red Eye Theater's 25th season.

High-school student by day, amateur detective by night, Amanda tools around in her sporty convertible delving into the mysteries beneath the surface of the community of Beehive, Calif. With her snappy slogan, "nothing escapes the ears of Tears," and a walloping dose of cold-blooded confidence, she's a screwball combination of Nancy Drew and Sam Spade.

Amanda's current project is investigating the disappearance of her best friend, Tina. The bigger mystery might be why everyone in Beehive, including the police chief, Tina's father and Amanda's on-again off-again boyfriend, is bent on stopping her from snooping around.

Playwright Gregory S. Moss pokes sly fun at a number of targets in this short piece, including the mystery genre, TV and the virtual world. Amanda may walk in the footsteps of Nancy Drew, but when she frequently drops the F-word, blithely identifies her math teacher as a pedophile or helps her tough-guy pal deal with his secret desire to wear prom dresses, it's clear she's a 21st-century gal.

Red Eye Theater's production, directed by Steve Busa, adds further layers to the work and the way it plays with our assumptions about the virtual world and TV conventions. As Amanda, played with aplomb by Amelia English, dashes about following clues and tossing off hard-boiled lines like "No time for tears, Tears," she occasionally zones out, to the accompaniment of hissing static. An invisible but omnipresent narrator, played by Miriam Must, admonishes her to "Snap out of it!" with increasing frequency and impatience.

Liz Josheff's spare scenic elements visually enhance the two-dimensional television setting of this production. Scenes are defined by projections against a screen at the back of the stage; thus cartoon-like drawings of houses designate a neighborhood, while a silhouette of a man holding a spatula conjures up a restaurant kitchen.

"Amanda Tears" runs just over an hour, and the denouement doesn't completely fulfill the promise of this piece. Issues with the script aside, however, Red Eye's quirky, intelligent, tongue-in-cheek production makes for an entertaining ride.

Lisa Brock writes regularly about theater.