The first question to ask is an obvious one: Why "tall?"
The simple answer is that Edward Albee's adoptive mother -- the woman whose life served as the inspiration for the play "Three Tall Women" -- was of greater than average height, and her stature was just one more fact to include in this theatrical portrait.

But there is little about Albee's work that could be called simple or obvious, even a play that draws so directly from his own life as "Three Tall Women." To think that Albee used the word "tall" purely to describe a physical characteristic is to miss the whole point of this play, which Heller Theater is presenting as part of the Tulsa Performing Arts Center Trust's SummerStage Festival.

A tall woman -- a tall anything, really -- immediately captures the attention, draws the eye to her. She stands out from the crowd, without making any effort to be noticed. The mere fact that she exists compels those around her to pay heed to her.

That is exactly the effect that "Three Tall Women" has on the viewer. Pay attention to these women, Albee seems to be saying, because in what they say and do, you are going to see yourself.

Never mind that Albee's plays depicts a very particular woman in a very particular situation: a woman (Rita Boyle) in her 90s -- 91 or 92, depending on who's doing the telling -- widowed, without friends or family. She's got money, quite a bit of it, to pay for the cook and the chauffeur and the practical nurse (Claudia Teipel) and the woman from the lawyer's office (Susan Webb), who there with a new sheaf of business papers for her to sign.

But A (all the characters are named only with letters) is also losing her mind -- to age, to pain, to Alzheimer's -- losing control of herself. "I used to be so tall!" she wails at one point. `Why have I shrunk?` When B, the nurse, gently reminds her how the spine compresses with time, A lashes out with, "I used to have a spine, I don't have one anymore.`

It's only in moments of memory that she comes back to lucidity, describing scenes in a life that seems incredibly alien to C, the young woman from the law firm: riding horses, the pursuit of beaux, the calculated efforts to marry well, the struggle to keep up appearances at all costs.

Then, A falls silent, the victim of a stroke. Up to this point, "Three Tall Women" has been brilliantly, brutally real look at how people deal with age: A's confusion and fear, B's cheerfully cynical pragmatism, C's uncomprehending horror. But when the women return for the second act, they have been transformed from individuals to A at different stages of her life. And it is here that "Three Tall Women" achieves its phenomenal, almost lacerating power.

A is still in her 90s, moving about stiffly but clear of mind and sharp of wit. B has become A at age 52, a woman made brittle by the battles she has fought and won. And C is what A was at age 26, just experienced enough in the ways of the world to know that she still possesses a modicum of innocence -- enough to point to the unconscious figure in the hospital bed and declare "I will not become... that." .

As if she has any choice. Or does she? How would we react if we were suddenly to confront, face to face, our younger selves, our older selves? What if we could converse with what we were, what we will become? Could we accept the ways we have changed, the things we sacrificed, the things to which we clung tenaciously?

This is when The Son (Randy Chronister) appears, bearing flowers, saying not a word as he sits by the sickbed, as the women talk. C is enraptured at the sight of the son of whom she has no knowledge, B can barely restrain the hatred and pain of betrayal, while A puts the young man in his place with a few knife-sharp words.

The three actresses are superb. Albee's language works in much the same way as music -- phrases repeated, elaborated on, themes re-emerging and interweaving -- and Boyle, Teipel and Webb make these words sing. Boyle makes A a figure of sympathy, rather than pity: her handling of A's bawdy tale of the diamond bracelet is priceless. Teipel shifts smoothly from the nurturing B of the first act, to the domineering B of the second act. And Webb is excellent at portraying the two levels of innocence in the two versions of C.

They have been guided in these outstanding performances by Cyndi Vetter's sensitive, unobtrusive direction. Together, these four women have made "Three Tall Women" a thrilling evening of theater.

"Three Tall Women" continues with performances through Aug. 19 in the Liddy Doenges Theater of the Tulsa Performing Arts Center. For tickets, call 596-7111.

NOTE: "Three Tall Women" contains adult language and is not recommended for children.