McDermott -- At the Daylesford Theatre -- January 13 Bermudians have succumbed to O'Keeffe madness! First they flew to a National Gallery exhibition of Georgia O'Keeffe's heretofore neglected Bermuda drawings that concludes a successful run at the end of this month.

Then they packed the tiny Daylesford Theatre on Friday night to catch the single local performance of "O'Keeffe,'' American actress Lucinda McDermott's witty, often moving one-woman show on the artist.

As the title would imply, "O'Keeffe'' tries to paint as complete a theatrical picture of its celebrated subject as is possible in just under two hours.

Surprisingly -- and despite some inherent flaws in the construction of this ambitious work -- it succeeds.

For one thing, McDermott overcomes the universal perception of O'Keeffe as a time-weathered sage by telling everyone right off the bat that the artist will be in her late twenties during the evening's incarnation. It's a wise move too. Full of broad gestures and skittish intensity, McDermott conveys a very youthful persona, suggesting a woman who has more to say about the world through her art than can easily be contained on a roomful of canvases.

Furthermore, the actress-playwright courts potential disaster by confining much of her treatment of O'Keeffe to the first half of the artist's life, though she does conjure up the New Mexican settings that would become synonymous with O'Keeffe in her later years and in posterity.

As a result, the viewer does manage to get a fairly complete portrait of the woman.

Of course, New Mexico was the place to which O'Keeffe eventually retreated.

Before and even after Taos, there were many struggles in her life, and McDermott touches effectively on each of them.

Foremost among these struggles was her love-hate relationship with her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, the "father'' of modern photography. Already famous when they met, Stieglitz cemented his life-long bond with O'Keeffe when he hung some early drawings of hers at 291, his legendary New York gallery.

That act established her as an artist, but it also began a cycle of gratitude and resentment in O'Keeffe that culminates in the play with her anguished cry: "Was it me or was it Stieglitz?'' During the process of answering that question, McDermott's O'Keeffe gains some insights, especially after Stieglitz's death in 1946.

As the artist says towards the end of the play, for example, "I have chosen to not let the things I cannot help destroy me.'' Simply and sadly stated, it is a profound conclusion to a profound journey, and we as viewers are glad -- or at least the audience on Friday seemed to be -- that McDermott has taken us along for the ride.

DANNY SINOPOLI LUCINDA McDERMOTT