In 2007, David Lindsay-Abaire won the Pulitzer Prize for his drama Rabbit Hole, presented last season at the Actors Theatre Playhouse as a staged reading. This season, the playhouse presents his first play Fuddy Meers as a main stage production with performances Thursdays thru Saturdays for four weeks beginning July 22.
Fuddy Meers debuted in 1999 at New York's Manhattan Theatre Club to rave reviews. After its run in New York, the play went on to become a favorite at regional and community theaters around the nation and professional productions around the globe.
It is a comic and often head-spinning play peopled with bizarre but likeable characters. There is Claire, the woman at the center of the play who suffers from psychogenic amnesia, which means she wakes up every morning not knowing who she is or what has happened in the past. Her husband Richard appears to be patient and loving but is he? Their son Kenny, angry and sullen, smokes pot and talks trash to his parents. Then there is the strange man with a limp, a lisp and a facial deformity, a mother whose speech is garbled from a stroke, a faux policewoman, and an escaped convict with an alter-ego hand puppet. No wonder Claire is confused!
Fuddy Meers gets its title from Gertie's attempt to say “funny mirrors,” the kind you find in a funhouse that distort reality and are oddly disturbing, much like the unlikely assortment of quirky, but likeable, people in this play. They get confused, they use bad language (parents are strongly cautioned), they lose their way, they don't always understand each other, they strive to love and be loved; in other words, for all their enigma and drama, they are a lot like the rest of us. For that reason alone, this farce with heart reminiscent of theater of the absurd is well worth experiencing on several levels.
Director Terri Storrs - whose previous directorial forays at the Actors Theatre Playhouse include The Dresser, A Hotel on Marvin Gardens and Catholic School Girls - says, “There is a depth to this play that intrigues me, in addition to the wacky and comic aspects. No one is who they seem, and there are always barriers to their ability to communicate. There are terrible moments of clarity sandwiched between others of silliness. The play takes people out of themselves, gives them a chance to laugh but also to feel and think.”
The cast features Nan Mann, Jim Bombicino, Christopher Kelly, Peter Eisenstadter, Nancy Groff, Gregory Lesch, and Jenny Holan under the direction of Terri Storti. Tickets on Thursdays are $12 (Students $6), Fridays $15 (Students $7.50) and on Saturdays all seats are $15. Curtain for all 12 performances is promptly at 7:30 pm, with no one admitted to the theater once the play has begun. For more information, contact the box office at 877-666-1855, or visit www.Actors-Theatre.Info.