By TOM SIME
We all long for a fresh start sometimes, but consider
Claire, heroine of the comedy Fuddy Meers. She
suffers from a form of amnesia that causes her to wake
up every day with no memory of the day before. That
idea, encountered in a TV report on mental disorders,
launched playwright David Lindsay-Abaire on a comic
rampage. Fuddy has been compared to the work of
both David Ives (All in the Timing) and Quentin
Tarantino (Pulp Fiction).
Fuddy, a hit off-Broadway, is now making the
rounds of the regionals. Circle Theatre is the first in
the area to present this hot new play.
Sara Weeks stars as Claire, whose husband, Richard
(Terry D. Seago), must patiently explain to her every
morning who she is, why she doesn't remember anything
and that the disagreeable, pot-smoking teenager in the
house is their son Kenny (Grant V. Denney).
Despite all of Richard's precautions, Claire is
vulnerable when a "Limping Man" (Gray Palmer) crawls out
from under her bed and claims to be her brother. He's
accompanied by Millet (Scott Milligan), a slow-witted
thug whose hand puppet, Hinky Binky, has a mind and foul
mouth of its own. The duo – trio? – spirits Claire away
to a shack inhabited by her alleged mother, Gertie
(Dorothy Sanders), whose garbled speech gives rise to
the title when she tries to say "funhouse mirrors." Just
wait until she has to call 911.
The Circle production will feature the instrumental
score written for the play by Tony-winning Broadway
composer Jason Robert Brown. Mr. Brown has described his
music in what sounds like a synopsis of the play itself
– "America gone haywire – a pile of cultural icons that
are blurred and out of definition."
Published in The Dallas
Morning News: 01.26.01