Nothing is too insensitive or bizarre for surreal frolic

01/28/2001

By Lawson Taitte / The Dallas Morning News

FORT WORTH – Like convoluted plots? Like politically incorrect jokes? Like zany action? Fuddy Meers is just the ticket.

Circle Theatre gave the North Texas premiere of David Lindsay-Abaire's 1999 comedy Saturday. The script steals its gimmicks from all over the place, but its atmosphere of phantasmagoric farce is all its own.

Mr. Lindsay-Abaire's premise is that his heroine, Claire, wakes up each morning a complete amnesiac. Her husband, Richard, greets her with coffee and begins his explanations anew. To save trouble, he has compiled a book to guide her through the day.

On this day, though, as soon as Richard goes into the shower, another man pops up to rescue Claire from his clutches. The upshot is a chase drama complete with prison escapes and kidnapped cops.

What makes Fuddy Meers truly outrageous is that each character has some kind of handicap. The half-blind and half-deaf fellow lisps. One man can communicate his true feelings only by means of a foulmouthed hand puppet. The stroke victim gives the play its name by mispronouncing a couple of other words.

George H. Brown's direction has to draw some order out of all this. You wonder at first why Sara Rankin Weeks, as Claire, interrupts the breakneck pace to muse at various points. After all, her colleagues keep up the farcical frenzy.

Gray Palmer, for instance, turns in a magnificently funny performance as the limping, lisping man. It's the sort of role Steve Martin would have tackled when he was younger and fresher, and Mr. Palmer's broad but precise accent and silly walks can stand up to that comparison.

Scott Milligan's puppet-handed felon is similarly sharp. April Stroud-Johnston and Dorothy Sanders do wonderful work as well, keeping the laughs coming.

But finally the play takes a more serious – you can't very well say darker – psychological swerve. You understand what Mr. Brown and Ms. Weeks were preparing us for from the beginning. Terry D. Seago as the husband and Grant V. Denney as the son actually manage to dredge up some poignant moments by the end – though a slapstick joke is never more than a moment away.

PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

Fuddy Meers, presented by Circle Theatre, 230 W. Fourth St., Fort Worth, Thursdays through Saturdays through Feb. 24. Tickets $15 to $25. Call 817-877-3040.