Featured Review: The Lady from Dubuque

Featured Review: The Lady from Dubuque Another sojourn in the suburbs with Edward Albee (cf. Everything in the Garden, reviewed elsewhere in this section), and yet another golden opportunity for those whose life goal is to see every Albee play ever written. This 1980 meditation on loss, pain and death begins as fun and games (or, as Albee phrases it, "your nice, average, desperate evening") but soon devolves into a theatrical quilt in which the author baldly stitches together situations and even lines from his earlier, better-written plays. It's hard to discern Albee's purpose in writing this work. If he's trying to allay our fear of death, he fails, because this is Albee at his most astringent and unpleasant. If it's solace you seek, check out the 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday or even Bergman's The Seventh Seal. Although there's nothing overtly wrongheaded about this Muddy Waters staging, neither does it illuminate an already dim work. Through June 28 at the Kranzberg Arts Center, 501 North Grand Boulevard (in the Big Brothers Big Sisters building). Tickets are $20 ($15 for students and seniors). Call 314-540-7831 or visit www.muddywaterstheatre.com. 

Click here for a complete list of St. Louis stage capsules.