Edward Albee's "The Lady from Dubuque" relief cloaked in mystery and surprise

In Edward Albee's 1980 play "The Lady from Dubuque," Jo is entering the final stages of a fatal illness, and her friends want to know how they can help her.

But with friends like these, who needs enemies?

Most of us wouldn't suffer the longtime pals who huddle around Jo and her distraught husband Sam for an evening, let alone years.

The first order of business, then, when approaching Seattle Repertory Theatre's high-profile revival of "Lady from Dubuque," is to orient yourself to Edward Albee-land, where the vicious ripostes can zing as profusely as the booze flows, and friends are often of the fair-weather ilk.

If you can accept that, Rep honcho David Esbjornson's crisp, attentive mounting is, for all the play's blatant artifice and venom, an intriguing, stingingly funny chapter in the important oeuvre of Albee — whose better known (and better) plays include "Three Tall Women" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

Set in the late 1970s, "Lady from Dubuque" prefigures the rise of the vapid, 30-something "yuppie" and includes knowing topical references to Richard Nixon and the first wave of how-to books about death and dying.

These matters are personalized at a suburban cocktail party, where a game of 20 Questions is unfolding on designer John Arnone's sleekly posh, jumbo-scaled living room.

The identity game, which mirrors a larger American identity crisis, swiftly reveals the mettle of its players. One is belligerent, bigoted Fred (excellent Hans Altwies), whose blasé girlfriend Carol (Chelsey Rives, a gifted Seattle newcomer) casually refers to him as a "redneck."

The scapegoats in their contentious little circle are drippy Lucinda (Kristin Flanders) and her mild spouse Edgar (Paul Morgan Stetler), mocked mainly for being a nice guy.

As for Jo (Carla Harting) and hubby Sam (Charlie Matthes) ... well, they can dish it out too.

As in "Virginia Woolf," Albee's "Lady from Dubuque" features a vigorous round of an ugly pursuit known as "Get the Guest." As in his "Play about the Baby," this work's characters pull in the audience, by addressing them directly.

And as in "A Delicate Balance," the power dynamic among intimates is discombobulated by the strange demands of uninvited visitors.

But if Albee ever cribs, it's only from his own highly distinctive cache of more than 30 produced plays. And knowing the historical context in which he wrote "Lady from Dubuque" deepens its impact.

Remember that in the late 1970s, sentimental fatal-disease-of-the-week movies were trendy. Albee's astringent script bucked the trend, by depicting Jo's torment more realistically, along with her desperate need to have Sam admit she's waning and let her go.

Sam's tutors in the process are the odd interlopers Elizabeth and Oscar (marvelous Myra Carter and terrific Frank X). More issues of identity arise, as witty, wise Elizabeth insists in a tony British accent that she's Jo's mother, from Dubuque. Oscar, her dapper, black consort, defies racist stereotypes by wielding his rapier wit, suave dignity and cultural superiority.

Albee doesn't resolve who these people, or phantoms, truly are. Nor does he need to. His point seems to be this: In one's hour of greatest need, succor can arrive in strange packages.

No playwright knows how to weld a laugh to a cringe better than Albee. And when the mood shifts, as ailing Jo spews her rage and pain on her nearest and dearest, the hairpin turn into desperate anguish is handled deftly by Esbjornson and company.

But in 1980, "Lady from Dubuque" was trounced by Broadway critics. Does the Rep's mounting prove it was a wrongly maligned masterpiece? Not entirely.

The constant bickering in the first act gets rather tedious. The odd doings in the second act can seem choppy and pretentious. And the core of dependency, which would keep such bad relationships steaming along for decades, is not well-illuminated.

But there's more here, and Esbjornson tracks down every nuance, comic and tragic, in a script that does keep surprising you. And with one exception (Matthes, a too boyishly bland Sam), the actors find what is best in this Albee outing and run with it.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com