Theater Review

Intriguing plot doesn't fail in 'Three Tall Women'

By Jacquelyn Chou
Staff Writer

Great drama has the power to bring both laughter and tears to an audience. Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize winning "Three Tall Women," which is now playing at the Music Center's Mark Taper Forum, does both, and very well indeed. Not nearly as well-known as Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," "Women" nevertheless has every bit as much literary and artistic merit as it or any of the dramatist's other work. Through his brilliant portrayal of the evolution of one woman's personality, Albee calls attention to death, change, and human fallacy.
There is a surrealist distortion of time in this work, which presents three disparate stages of a woman's life simultaneously in a sort of conversation across eras. The entire play takes place in a bedroom, where the three women tell each other about their lives and crises. The plot isn't terribly complicated, taking as its subject matter the kinds of problems we can all relate to. Marian Seldes plays "A," the woman at age 92, who dwells on the past and, suspicious of the world robbing her and plotting against her, emblematizes the deep fears of those near the end. Though she is distrustful and bad-tempered, we learn to sympathize with her as we discover that her husband has passed away and that her son has abandoned her. As the play progresses, "A" learns to accept death as "not just a theory but a reality." In her case death has not only a literal but a symbolic meaning--it brings with it a loss of hope and trust in others.
Michael Learned plays "B," the woman at the prime age of 52. At that time she is charming and confident, providing a real tension when she reveals an angst driven by feelings of emptiness and unfulfillment. Christina Rouner plays "C," the woman in her youth--a 26-year-old lawyer who declares that she will never become like the other two, but whose future is somewhat predictably foreshadowed as she starts resembling the other two women in word and deed. As the play comes to an end, it is "C" who gains the deepest insights about what life may hold in store.
Not only is "Three Tall Women" thoughtful, it is hilarious and sensual; surprising indeed for a play with a 92-year-old protagonist. The house erupted in laughter as "A" described in vivid detail her sexual experiences, hooking the otherwise dismissive "B" and "C" with an intriguing yarn. In his dialogue, Albee captures the much of the humor of human fallacy.
"Three Tall Women" owes part of its success to its excellent cast. Each actor moves with grace, making each a powerful stage presence, and there is a tasteful sense of timing and rhythm in all three that brings out the humor in Albee's brilliant script. And, in the fondest realization of all, there is real chemistry between these three talents.
Perhaps the most gut-wrenching moments in this play occur as each actor confronts her own deathbed. The acting is immaculate, with changes in age effectively telegraphed. Marian Seldes, who plays "A," is so intense in her storytelling that she draws the audience into every little detail she describes. Michael Learned has a natural and relaxed grace which brings to life the character "B." Christina Rouner, who plays "C," is a little too tense at times and occasionally loses connection with the other actors. She could have shown the self-consciousness of the young lawyer with more subtlety by focusing more on simply delivering her story to her fellow actors. Overall, though, the deathbed scenes are a haunting reminder of Sartre's epigraph: "I become my own obituary."
The technical aspects of the play are simple. Costuming nicely delineates the separation in age between the three women, and the costume changes between acts lend much to the evolution of these three women. Interestingly enough, a program note tells us that the actor playing the estranged son does so in jeans and a wool coat worn by a young Edward Albee, lending a nice autobiographical touch to this production."