Albee's "Lady From Dubuque' on Broadway

"Who am I?" The question is asked repeatedly in Edward Albee's corrosive comedy-drama, The Lady From Dubuque, now receiving a razor-sharp revival at the stunning new Signature Center in New York.

Albee isn't one to apologize for repetition. His themes— the American family, truth and illusion, loss, and human identity"“ are iterated over and over throughout his more than 25 plays.

Albee has been writing plays for more than five decades. But The Lady From Dubuque holds a special place in his prodigious oeuvre. It was written in 1980 at a low point in Albee's life, received scathing reviews and closed after 12 performances in New York— because, Albee believes, it was the third play in New York that season about death.

"Critics didn't want a tough play about the subject," he told me recently. "They wanted a safe one."

It's widely believed that the denouement of The Lady caused Albee to flee from New York to Houston, where he remained in "critical exile" (as his friends called it) for more than a decade. The Alley Theatre there gave him a home, as did the University of Houston, where Albee launched a distinguished teaching career.

Then artistic director Jim Houghton of the Signature in New York— the very same theater that's now producing The Lady— offered to devote his 1993 season to Albee's lesser-known plays. The very next year (1994), Albee made a triumphant comeback with Three Tall Women, which earned him his third Pulitzer, to be followed by The Play About The Baby (2001, a Pulitzer finalist), then The Goat (2002) and, most recently, Me Myself & I (2008).

A new Albee play that was supposed to have been performed this year at the Signature is still in development. "It just wasn't ready," says Albee, who continues to work on it at age 83.

Lesson for Maggie Smith

So instead Albee and Houghton decided to revive The Lady, which had languished for almost 30 years (with the exception of a brief production at Hartford Stage Company, and a few others in Europe).

I saw a London revival in 2007, directed by Anthony Page and starring Maggie Smith, and as much as I adore Dame Maggie (who doesn't? especially with her recent triumph in "Downton Abbey"), I think Jane Alexander (under David Esbjornson's astute direction) has made a more interesting choice in her ethereal interpretation of the extremely challenging title role.

After all, how do you play the personification of the Angel of Death in a witty and sympathetic way? Alexander knows how, and she has lifted this play and its difficult subject matter into the land of surreal, provocative and entertaining black comedy.

Parlor games

The Lady opens with a vintage Albee drawing room scene"“ so familiar that at first we feel we're watching Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Hosts Sam and Jo have invited their friends— Couples B and C— for an evening of drinking and parlor gaming. "Who am I?" goes the game of 20 questions they're playing"“ a game that quickly degenerates into the kind of scorching marital conflict that made Virginia Woolf a classic.

All too soon, we get hit with hostess Jo's issue: She's dying of cancer, and having a desperate time of it. Couples B and C stand by helplessly as the marital war games crescendo amidst Jo's cries of agony (delivered convincingly by Laila Robbins).

After the exhausted couples have dispersed, two new, mysterious visitors arrive. Although they introduce themselves to a bewildered Sam at the top of Act II as "Elizabeth" (presumably the lady from Dubuque) and "Oscar," we never know who they really are.

Elizabeth declares herself to be Jo's mother, who has come to help her die. Though Albee never comes out and calls her the Angel of Death, she appears to be just that, performing her job gently, lovingly and successfully. Oscar, the sidekick who helps Elizabeth "get the job done" (that is, Jo's dying), never explains his identity, either, just as Albee never explains why he specifies that the role be played by a black actor.

Love, beneath the surface

But although dying may be one of the circumstances of the play, it's not its central theme. It's as much about identity as it is about death.

"I don't know who I am," laments Sam, who categorically denies Elizabeth's identity.

"Then how can you possibly know who I am?" says Elizabeth.

It's also a play about rights"“ in friendship, marriage and family. And it's a play about love"“ a subject buried so deep beneath the scorched landscape of Albee's plays that we often miss it. Finally it's a play about what's real and who's real.

As for the identity of the Lady from Dubuque? It's another one of Albee's absurdist jokes, one that he never explains, like the title of Virginia Woolf. (This one actually comes from a remark made by the New Yorker's founding editor, Harold Ross: "This magazine is not going to be written for the little old lady from Dubuque.")

Along with Margaret Edson's Wit— another deeply moving, thought-provoking revival about death this season— The Lady From Dubuque is ultimately a play about truth. Like George in Virginia Woolf— who says, "Truth and illusion, Martha, you don't know the difference"— the characters in The Lady repeat the same chorus of answers: "Everything is true…. therefore nothing is true…therefore everything is true."

The gift of this provocative revival transcends the play itself. Albee's courage, tenacity and dogged will to write sets a shining example for the younger generation of writers in our success-driven, celebrity culture "“ writers who yearn for the quick fix of a hit, and who retreat (or quit) when they don't get one. Unlike Tennessee Williams, who never recovered from a spate of bad reviews, Albee has persevered. Now he and his Lady are back, receiving the recognition they both richly deserve.