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REVIEW: Iowa Summer Rep’s ‘Fuddy Meers’ is manic mayhem

07-21-2008 | Fine Arts

By Loren Keller

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“Stability,” observes one character about halfway into David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Fuddy Meers,” “is a fragile figurine.”

That’s especially true for Claire, the play’s psychogenic amnesiac who wakes up every morning in an unfamiliar world and is forced to piece together her past in a present populated by a bizarre mix of characters with agendas of their own.

Kristy Hartsgrove plays Claire with a mostly sunny if confused disposition in the last of three Lindsay-Abaire plays presented by Iowa Summer Rep 2008. Despite the frustrating limitations of her memory, she’s clearly the sanest character in the bunch.

The world created by Lindsay-Abaire and inhabited by Iowa Summer Rep actors on the play’s opening night last week is about as distorted as the play’s title, itself a stroke-impaired mispronunciation of “funhouse mirrors,” might suggest.

Comic confusion abounds in this well-staged, Marx Brothers-influenced farce featuring a tight group of seven actors, or eight if you count the foul-mouthed sock puppet voiced by schizophrenic prison escapee Millet (both played by Jason Grubbe.)

The sock puppet is only slightly cruder than Kenny, the surly, pot-smoking teenage son of Claire played by a young-looking Rollin Perry, who delivers lines like “asswipe!” with hilariously caustic disdain.

First-time Iowa Summer Rep actor John Watkins looks and behaves like a deranged spastic in his standout performance as the Limping Man, a half-blind, half-deaf characters afflicted with ghastly facial disfigurement and a lisp.

Actors William J. Watt (Richard), Jennifer Fawcett (Gertie) and Elena Passarello (Heidi) round out the cast, each bringing a disciplined sense of comic timing to physically demanding roles in a play whose characters are more finely drawn than its plot, which leaves a few loose ends hanging but manages to stay just this side of cartoonishness.

Music played before the play and during intermission — which included the songs “On the Run” by Pink Floyd and “Burning Down the House” by the Talking Heads as a well as a somber piano ballad by Tom Waits — may provide some hint of the plot; Gary Wright’s “Dream Weaver” is the appropriate song on the car radio during the play.

So what, if anything, is playwright Lindsay-Abaire saying about the American condition in “Fuddy Meers”? It’s a little hard to tell from this absurd tale of memory loss and distortion, but perhaps our confusion is the point.

Iowa Summer Rep's "Fuddy Meers" is scheduled for 8 p.. performances in the West High School auditorium on July 23, 24, 25 and 26. Tickets are $24 with discounts for students and seniors, and available at the door an hour before each performance, online or by calling (319) 335-1160 or 1-800-HANCHER.