And just who is the lady from Dubuque?
Unknown and unexpected at her arrival, she gradually reveals more and more of herself as the second act of Edward Albee’s "The Lady From Dubuque" rolls across the stage at the Kranzberg Center, where the Muddy Waters Theatre production opened over the weekend, to run through June 28.
And though we really don’t learn much about the lady, played stylishly by Kirsten Wylder, the dying Jo (Sarah Cannon) soon bonds with her as her friends and husband (Joshua Thomas) gape in confusion and disbelief.
Muddy Waters’s system is to devote each season to three plays by a single writer, and the season concludes in November with "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Given Albee’s style, it has presented a lot of drama on some small spaces. Before the title character arrives, the stage is, as Shakespeare once said, "filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing." And we hear a lot of ranting and raving from 2 ½ couples, none of whom seem old enough to be so bitter and cynical. Jo, the other half couple, unleashes a considerable amount of vitriol, but also curls up and screams when bouts of pain attack. Cannon does an excellent job, dominating the stage but avoiding going too far over the top.
As too often shows in his plays, Albee has little regard for women. Carol (Emily Baker) and Lucinda (Patty Ulrich) are caricatures from the early days of television comedies, as are their boorish husbands. Joshua Thomas’s accent as Sam, Jo’s husband, demands some sort of explanation but does not receive it.
Robert A. Mitchell, always a welcome presence on a local stage, is simply terrific as Oscar, the traveling companion of our title character. Witty and sarcastic in proper amounts, playing the race card appropriately and perfectly, he’s an ideal partner to Wylder, his off-stage wife, in their first joint appearance on a local stage. When they’re around, the play sings.
Cameron Ulrich directs, with a proper respect for the playwright’s language, though if the play is set in the present, as the program promises, the reference to Richard Nixon grates. As usual, however, Albee delivers a lot of bitter humor and wry commentary, plus a literary swipe at the Midwest.
At the Kranzberg Center, through June 28.
-Joe