Steve On Broadway (SOB)

The Lady From Dubuque (The SOB Review) - Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, United Kingdom

*** (out of ****)

Enjoying the West End revival of The Lady From Dubuque, an Edward Albee work that only lasted a mere twelve performances on Broadway before closing back in 1980, I was struck by how perfectly it would fit within the repertoire of today’s Steppenwolf Theatre. As it's about life, death and the dignity that can be found in each, it's a pity this piece hasn't been dusted off earlier.

With an affluent thirty-something white American angst, the play begins with the conclusion of a boozy parlor game in the well-adorned post-modern living room of Jo (Catherine McCormack) and Sam (Robert Sella). But the game soon gives way to reveal that Jo is gravely ill.

She is clearly not taking her malady lying down. In chronic pain, she doesn't suffer fools and eviscerates everyone in her path, including her guests and her husband. Each of them must suffer her in return. And try as they might, they barely succeed.

It isn’t easy.

One guest, Lucinda (Vivienne Benesch), ends up sprawled on Sam and Jo’s front lawn sobbing; Lucinda’s dutiful husband Edgar (Chris Larkin) implores the frail Jo to go out and apologize, which she grudgingly obliges to do. The remaining guests leave, allowing Sam to finally carry Jo’s fragile body upstairs and put her to rest.

Enter Elizabeth (Maggie Smith) and Oscar (Peter Francis James)(pictured). Almost as quickly as they appear, the curtain falls on Act One. Who are these mysterious people? Why have they come calling in the middle of the night, anyway?

In a classic “conundrum wrapped in an enigma,” Albee’s play evolves from one about the pain of life into one celebrating the wonder of death. No matter how we try to prevent it from happening, it will happen.

The acting in this Anthony Page-directed ensemble piece -- that also includes an outstanding Jennifer Regan and Glenn Flescher as the one would-be married couple Carol and Fred -- is first-rate. Thanks to Page’s deft hand, the pacing is swift, but subtleties abound, especially in the inherent humor found in Smith’s portrayal of Elizabeth, the titular character, as well as in Regan's surprisingly sweet and underestimated Carol.

Whether Elizabeth and Oscar are the personification of the “Angel(s) of Death” or the not-so-“Grim Reaper(s),” it becomes clear that it is Jo’s time to leave her misery, and she does so willingly despite Sam’s feeble attempts to evict these strangers from his home. The relief we see in Jo’s embrace of death is both touching and heartwrenching.

She has come home and made us see that even as we all must die, it need not be ugly, but a beautiful thing worth embracing when the appropriate moment comes.

This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).

Lady: Did Critics Sing The Blues? (March 21, 2007)

Revival Of Albee's Lady From Dubuque Opens (March 20, 2007)
Dame Maggie Smith Confirmed for London Albee Revival (August 30, 2006)
The Dame as a Lady: Maggie Smith to Return to the Stage? (June 30, 2006)

Last evening, the West End revival of Edward Albee's The Lady From Dubuque opened at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Most critics seemed genuinely taken with the performance by Dame Maggie Smith, but were mixed -- or negative -- about the show itself.

In his four-out-of-five-star review of what he calls a "silk-smooth production," Michael Billington of The Guardian has praise: "I was simultaneously tantalised, intrigued, and entertained....But a work dismissed as obscure in 1980 now seems politically prophetic....Albee's cryptic jeremiad about the state of the nation is delivered with immense style. Maggie Smith, enigmatic in black as the lady from Dubuque, perfectly blends choric irony with compassion for the dying....the great thing about a play in which nothing is ever resolved is that Albee leaves the audience the dignity of interpretative choice."

Taking the middle ground is Nicholas de Jongh of the Evening Standard, who in providing three out of five stars, offers this: "How it mystifies and irritates, disturbs and affects, but leaves you in the dark - provoked and unsatisfied!...It is Dame Maggie Smith's undimmed allure, though, rather than Albee's play that will insure The Lady From Dubuque, in Anthony Page's otherwise poorly acted production, lasts far longer over here. Dame Maggie discards most of her fabulous bag of comic manners and mannerisms to become the mysterious Lady, Elizabeth, radiant with wintry compassion and a flair for mocking disdain. She rediscovers that register of serious, heart-felt emotion she famously employed as a centenarian in Albee's Three Tall Women."

Describing the show as "an arch mix of sub-Pirandello and recycled Albee," Paul Taylor of The Independent provides a mixed review: "This belated London premiere, though spirited and stylish, is not going to persuade many people that The Lady of Dubuque is an Albee gem rescued from unjust neglect....Smith has a lot of sly fun with the role, seamlessly combining an air of mischievous ladylike puzzlement ("Pink hair? On purpose?") with quizzical hints of implacable purpose and metaphysical depth ("Oh, we exist. Worry about yourself," she majestically informs the distraught Sam)."

Offerings up just two out of five stars, The Times' Benedict Nightingale pans the production: "[T]his is a play that teases, tantalises and, without either arresting or exactly boring you, leaves you wondering what the hell it’s on about: which is maybe why it flopped on Broadway in 1980, lasting 18 previews and 12 performances, and has waited 27 years for its London premiere....But despite the best efforts of Anthony Page’s fine cast, I remained pretty much unimplicated and, worse, uninvolved throughout."

The limited 14-week engagement of The Lady From Dubuque ends on June 9.

This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).

Revival Of Albee's Lady From Dubuque Opens (March 20, 2007)

Dame Maggie Smith Confirmed for London Albee Revival (August 30, 2006)

The Dame as a Lady: Maggie Smith to Return to the Stage? (June 30, 2006)