Edward Albee's 1971 play, All Over, about a family and friends waiting for the patriarch to die, is full of exposition, some of it interesting. As directed by Emily Mann, the piece consists mainly of old- fashioned, careful declarations by the highly professional performers, with everybody ACTING, and no real conversations. Emotional risings and occasional laughings are carefully stitched into the proceedings, and good, bright lines do pop up, but even if some of the stories told are engaging, a play that is almost all exposition tends to be static and boring. The show plateaus out in Act Two, and just as the characters wait for the old man to die, we wait for the play to end. Thank goodness for Myra Carter as a quirky nurse—she's alive and is the one real spark. Near the end, the percolating rumbles that spit out puffs of heat throughout the play burst forth into steaming volcanic vapors as Rosemary Harris does great grief in her 11 o'clock number.
