In Lulu's Last Stand, an elderly matriarch, Abby (Irene Roseen), brings her three adult daughters (Christine Joelle, Julie Lancaster, Elizabeth J. Carlisle) together at the family house in Georgia (fabulous set by Meghan Rogers) and drops a news bombshell on them. "Your father," she tells them, "was secretly married to three other women." How Abby, Bailey, Charlene and Lena cope with this shocking revelation forms the basis of Lulu's Last Stand, a play now in its world premiere at Theater Forty.
The life these women have lived was based on a lie. They are turned inside out by the realization, to such an extent that their ties to each other are strained to the breaking point.
Author Veronica Di Pippo writes good female characters and pits them against each other to good effect, but she can't come up with enough drama, enough narrative drive and suspense, to sustain audience interest over the long haul. Her play, in my opinion, would have worked much better if the bad-boy patriarch were still alive and had to face up to his transgressions in the here and now.
Di Pippo tries to save her story by bringing in one of the wives -- Margaret (Valerie Ross) -- late in Act Two, but she's there largely for comic, not dramatic, effect. Too little, too late.
What Lulu's Last Stand does have going for it, though, is the skilled acting of its cast and the uniformly superb production values. The music, lighting and costumes are as praiseworthy as the set. Too bad the play comes off as humdrum.
