The Lady from Dubuque

There's much to appreciate about the message at the muscular heart of The Lady from Dubuque, particularly David Esbjornson's fluid staging, the ease of which only serves to cast the two visitors with more menace. (Ever seen the film Funny Games? It's a bit like that, in that the calm veneer simultaneously masks and reveals the horror.) And Signature Theatre's revival boasts a terrific ensemble: not just the deeply wounded Hayden, utterly relaxed Alexander, scene-stealing James, and mighty Robins (who one can easily imagine doing true justice to Wit), but also Thomas Jay Ryan and Catherine Curtin as an annoyingly meddlesome couple. (It's much harder to get a read on C. J. Wilson's brutish Edgar and his more-than-a-floozy girlfriend, played by Tricia Paoluccio.) But much of the show's second act revolves around blind hysterics and an unfocused script that makes the first act's fourth-wall-breaking winks seem out of place. Albee notes that he lets the characters speak; perhaps he should have stepped in as an editor, then.

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