STAGE REVIEW 'Three Tall Women' isn't short on talent

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author also wrote 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'
By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The pain and disappointments of getting older and all the petty things we mortals obsess about along the way are what the Oakland Center for the Arts players examine in the serious drama "Three Tall Women."
Written by Edward Albee, also author of the better-known "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," the Pulitzer Prize-winning play reflects the playwright's fatalistic views.
With a single set and just three speaking roles, "Three Tall Women" tells the story of woman who married for money, raised a spoiled and ungrateful son and lived a miserable life despite her wealth.
His own life
Ironically, the story is based on Albee's own life; the woman is his adoptive mother, and he is the wayward son.
In the end, the woman says her happiest moment is in dying because it meant "coming to the end of it all."
Depressing? Let's just say this is not the play to see if you need something to cheer you after a bad week.
But the three actresses performing the second show of the downtown theater's 2003-2004 season deserve accolades for bringing their occasionally likable and often-imperfect characters to life.
The three parts are identified only as A, B, and C, and the audience eventually learns that they are all the same woman, portraying three different life stages. W. Rick Schilling is the director and set designer.
Cast members
Kathleen Gabriel of Canfield plays the dying 92-year-old widow whose experiences and foibles are the centerpiece of the dark drama.
No mushy sentimentality here. Gabriel plays the woman as proud, bigoted and angry with an occasional ornery streak. Although the actress is many decades younger than the part she plays, her makeup, hairstyle and mannerisms work together to make her believable in the part.
Gabriel's drama credits include regional and professional dinner theaters in the Chicago area, and she acts, directs and teaches for several local theater venues. She was last seen on stage in the Oakland's "The Laramie Project."
B character
Elizabeth Rubino, a theater student at Youngstown State University, plays the middle-aged B character, who theorizes that from age 16 on "it's all downhill for all of us."
Rubino's role is less dramatic than the other two, but she does a credible job portraying the 50-something part.
Rubino also appeared in "The Laramie Project" and recently staged her own cabaret act at the Oakland, "Ballads & amp; Belters." Her r & eacute;sum & eacute; includes stints as a youth theater director and teacher, leading roles in community theater and commercial voice-over recordings.
A young C
YSU graduate Lindsay Moyer plays the young, naive character C, dreaming of a happy and romantic future. She is effectively effusive, determined never to become what she sees in the older characters.
Moyer most recently worked with the local theater group 34 West, is a YSU theater veteran and has been part of several Salem Community Theater productions.