By MARK LOWRY
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH - This week, we've been forced to reconsider topics such as death and tragic fate.
Through a stunning production of Edward Albee's Three Tall Women, Circle Theatre asks us to think about death and life - and everything in between - more critically, and in a way that is ultimately comforting, even uplifting.
The 1994 play, which earned Albee his third Pulitzer Prize, is the work that put Albee back on the map, having gone through decades of critical and audience disfavor. It's highly autobiographical, using his adoptive mother as a model for the titular characters, simply called A, B and C.
A (Jeanne Evans) is a 92-year-old woman at death's door, looking back at her life. B (Anne-Lynn Kettles) is her 52-year-old caretaker, and C (Nicole Case) is a 26-year-old lawyer handling A's estate.
In the second act, Albee's device is revealed: they are all the same woman, in different life stages, interchanging past, present and future tenses.
The youngest defiantly denies that she will ever become the intolerant woman that C is; B is optimistic but still bitter that her only son (Tim Demsky, appearing as a young man representing the playwright) suddenly left home one day; and C is enjoying the games, knowing how it all ends.
Women follows Circle's stagings of Albee's two other Pulitzer-winning plays in previous seasons, A Delicate Balance and Seascape. It would have been unimaginable that Women could have been any better than those sublime productions, but remarkably, it is. That's probably because this show is full of Albee veterans. Kettles and Case were in Circle's A Delicate Balance, Evans has done Women before, and director Susan Sargeant helmed Seascape.
All involved have nailed the rhythms and musicality of Albee's words and pauses, carefully listening to each other and offering with rare chemistry the wonderfully smart characterizations of a woman at three distinct moments in her life.
Evans plays C beautifully, never going overboard with old-age mannerisms and injecting her with a sly and omniscient sense of humor. Kettles perhaps has the toughest role, having to look at two sides of her life - one she knows and one she's afraid of - and capably pulls it off. And Case gives her best performance on this stage, matching her two, more experienced colleagues in every way.