Best Of 1980

The Lady from Dubuque. Edward Albee's latest work is his best since Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In a typical Albee setting--the living room--three couples trade laceratingly funny insults and wait for the lady from D., i.e.., the angel of death.

A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine. A saucy, stylish musical that spoofs the golden age of the silver screen. All Marxophiles will adore the Ukrainian resurrection of Groucho, Chico and Harpo.

Home. In a picaresque odyssey, a black Southern farmer is exiled from his bucolic birthright to a Northern city of torrid lures and abject nightmares. Guiding him safely back home is Playwright Samm-Art Williams, an imagistic poet of prose wedded to infectious humor.

Mecca. Conflicting cultures and conflictive lives detonate in the oppressive heat of a Marrakesh tourist resort. If one wants guidelines to the rich cross-cultural resonances in this drama, ample hints may be found in E.M. Forster's A Passage to India and the works of Paul Bowles and Graham Greene. E,A. Whitehead's play was the most neglected of the year and, conceivably, the finest.

Mass Appeal. Bill C. Davis' drama sets an ardent seminarian on fire for the Lord against his mentor, a burntout, aging priest who has lost his vocation in complacency, Milo O'Shea etched the old priest on the canvas of indelible theatrical memories.

The American Clock. If ever there was an apt laureate for the Great Depression, the role belongs to Arthur Miller. Here he dissects that national trauma by relating it, directly and most movingly, to his personal family history. Miller's sister, Joan Copeland, an actress of uncommon integrity, played the mother and gave the evening a transfusion of emotional vibrancy.

A Life. Ireland's Hugh Leonard translates a man's anguishing pain into poetry and the lilt of mocking laughter.

Coming Attractions. Laughing all the way to and through the bunkum, Playwright Ted Tally has written a sizzling satire about how media peddlers can translate punk killers into instant goldbug celebrities.

Amadeus. Was Mozart poisoned by a rival? Britain's Peter Shaffer draws a cunning eternal triangle with God at the apex, music in the air and Byzantine intrigue everywhere. There are sumptuous performances by Ian McKellen, Tim Curry, Jane Seymour and Nicholas Kepros.

True West. Sam Shepard's best play since Tooth of Crime (see above).

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