A touch of magic

As soon as she arrives everything falls apart. Dame Maggie Smith’s appearance in Edward Albee’s 1980 play The Lady From Dubuque marks the point when it all goes wrong. This isn’t her fault. She’s the most watchable and effective thing on stage and even now, on the fringes of old age, her lazy twangy sexy drawl still has a touch of magic. But her part is a dud cheque. We’ve spent the first act watching a group of drunken sophisticates swapping caustic banter. Sam’s wife Jo is suffering from some lethal disease which frees her from all social constraint and prompts an enjoyable, if undemanding, hour of drawing-room comedy. Enter Elizabeth. She claims to be Jo’s mother even though she looks nothing like her, and Jo, conveniently pole-axed at just the right moment, is too zonked to verify the identification. Sam asks for explanations but Elizabeth gives maddeningly imprecisely answers.