Review: "Three Tall Women"

The playwright Edward Albee shot to fame in the early 1960s with his masterpiece Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe? He followed that up with other successful plays, including the Pulitzer Prize-winners Seascape and A Delicate Balance (oft revived on Broadway). But in the 1980s and early 1990s, his plays fell into critical disfavor, and Albee was viewed as a once-great, now mediocre talent. 

Three Tall Women in 1994 marked his comeback, snagging Albee a third Pulitzer Prize.

A very "meta" play featuring three women simply named A, B, and C, it's an examination of aging and the pain of life. In the first act, A is an old women being looked after by B and working with C, a lawyer, on her legal and financial matters. A is a loud, crass woman, torturing B with her bad behavior and largely ignoring C's concerns. Then A has a stroke -- and we literally go inside her head as B and C become A at earlier times in her life, and we learn more about the story of A's background and her broken relationship with her son. It is, in some ways, a nihilistic play as we learn that the happiest moment in any person's life is death -- but that we should always remember what joy (no matter how little) we have had.

The production of Three Tall Women currently on Broadway has become the event of the season as it marks the return of Glenda Jackson, the brilliant British actress, to the New York stage after 30 years (she spent 23 of those last 30 years as a member of the British parliament). Jackson plays A, and commands the stage as only a monster talent like she can. She is loud, vulgar, funny, narcissistic and, ultimately, sympathetic. Jackson blasts humanity into A, making us rattle her wake, and her performance is both a tour-de-force and a gale force of great acting. Seeing her on the stage was something I'll never forget. It's her show all the way. 

 The other two actresses, Laurie Metcalf (from Roseanne and the wonderful film Lady Bird) as B, and Allison Pill (from The Newsroom) as C, support her well. While A is the star part, B and C are vital in reflecting her, both as separate characters and as part of her. Metcalf brings her easy charm to B, making us remember why she won two Emmys for Roseanne -- she's naturally funny, comfortable and confident in both her parts. Pill has always been a good screen actress but she's even better on the stage -- her part, and her performance, have a mystery that makes you almost wish the play was about her, although it would be a very different play. 

 All of the parts are well written. Albee's plays are always rather over the top with people yelling at each other at top volume but he strikes at what makes people tick and, in Three Tall Women, he does it very well. Go see this if you can, you won't forget it.