MAGGIE SMITH IS THE LADY FROM DUBUQUE

Posted on Nov 25, 2006 | By London Theatre Direct

Dame Maggie Smith to star in Edward Albee''s classic

Dame Maggie Smith and Catherine McCormack are set to star in Edward Albee’s The Lady From Dubuque in March 2007 at the Haymarket. The press night has not yet been confirmed.

The Lady From Dubuque is one of Albee’s lesser-known plays, having closed on Broadway in January 1980 after only eight previews and 12 performances. The play will be directed by Anthony Page who was responsible for the revival of Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? earlier this year with Bill Irwin and Kathleen Turner, who won Best Actress this afternoon at the Evening Standard Awards for her performance.

Smith stars as the eponymous lady from Dubuque. A young couple, Sam and Jo, played by Catherine McCormack, host a party for two other couples where they play party games including Twenty Questions. When the evening ends early, it becomes apparent that Jo is dying from cancer. A woman arrives claiming to be Jo’s mother from Dubuque, Iowa, but Sam, who knows Jo’s mother to be a small woman with purple hair from New Jersey, is understandably suspicious…

Smith was last on stage at the Haymarket in David Hare’s The Breath Of Life alongside Dame Judi Dench in 2002. She has won two Oscars for The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie and California Suite and has been nominated for Gosford Park, A Room With A View, Othello and Travels With My Aunt.

Catherine McCormack is currently starring in The 39 Steps at the Criterion, where a cast of four play nearly 100 roles.

[source: SOLT]