Theater Reviews

Sep 30, 2006 - Nevada Repertory's compelling version of Albee's "The Lady from Dubuque"

By By Jack Neal

Why a compelling play such as "The Lady from Dubuque" by Edward Albee, one of America's most celebrated living playwrights, should remain in the shadows for so long is as much a mystery as the play's dialogue is provocative and entertaining.

"The Lady from Dubuque" was first produced in 1980. At long last this penetrating play has made its way to Reno. It's one of Albee's most accessible pieces. The Nevada Repertory Company's beautifully modulated "The Lady from Dubuque" opened Friday night (9/29/06) at Reno's Redfield Studio Theater.

A play that deals with life, friends, love, pain, existentialism and death, has something for everyone who has thoughts beyond the most superficial. In a handsome, perfectly cast production with sensitive, affecting direction having something for everyone lands with poignancy in the minds and hearts of audience members, the so-called fourth wall, a wall ripped away by a shrewdly written play. Bob Dillard's equally shrewd direction completes the process of inclusion for action and language that comes in and out of focus, then almost in focus again for one utterance after another that addresses the human condition.

"There's only one thing that counts. Who am I?" "Life, liberty and the pursuit of the unattainable." "To see nothing, to hear nothing is to be nothing." "He wants everything back the way it never was." A sampling of Albee's not-so absurdist dialogue never fails to intrigue.

The action swirls around Jo (Jennifer Crenshaw) a sophisticate with a razor tongue that devastates. Jo is in the last throws of an incurable illness, which only makes her barbs more hurtful. Sam (Bradford D. Ka'ai'ai), Jo's husband, is in a classic love-hate relationship with his wife. Once past his exchange of bitchy trivial pursuits with Jo, Sam sides with love and the pain love brings over impending loss.

Lucinda (April Clelia Grenot) and Edgar (John S. Simpson) are the bumpkin friends who provide love for Jo and Sam and get abuse in exchange. Carol (Greta Wasserman) and Fred (Ryan Palomo) are an attractive, dysfunctional couple - she's sweet, he's cruel – whose conflict only keeps the wounds of Jo and Sam's war open and raw. Elizabeth (Sheryl Adams) and Oscar (Ben Onyx Dowdy) are the interlopers into this edgy series of confrontations who bring something unusual and special to Jo and Sam's upscale existence.

Crenshaw (Jo), in a role Bette Davis would have gone on suspension for, is splendid. Kai'ai'ai's Sam is at once abrasive and tender. His performance is assured and solid. As the play's most vulnerable couple, Grenot (Lucinda) and Simpson (Edgar) are a triumph of understatement in the line of fire. The attractive, kindly, mistreated Wasserman (Carol) could not be better. Palomo (Fred) could not be worse, which makes him very fine, indeed.

I'm not quite sure how to spin approval of Dowdy's often over-the-top acting, he's the late arriving Oscar, except this time out over-the-top works shrewdly well. Among this host of splendid characterizations comes the play's most indelible portrait. In what could be a performance of a lifetime (in the play's context and in an actor's life) Adams is an inspired Elizabeth.

David Seibert's set is exceptional. Larry Walters lighting enhances all it illuminates. The musical underscoring, largely by American composer Ned Rorem, is brilliant. Michael Fernbach's sound designs are unnoticed, which means they're just right. Michelle Spencer Davidson's costume, hair and makeup designs are flawlessly correct.

"The Lady from Dubuque" is one of The Nevada Repertory Company's finest presentations.

The Nevada Repertory Company's "The Lady from Dubuque" (a trim two hours with intermission) can be seen at the Redfield Studio Theatre, 900 North Virginia Street, Reno, Nevada, Friday and Saturday, September 29 and 30 (2006), and Wednesday through Saturday, October 4-7 (2006) at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, October 8 (2006) at 1:30 p.m. For information call 775-784-4ART or 1-800-225-2277.