Despite the often-hilarious twists and behaviors of its characters, there is as much sinister as there is comic about Fuddy Meers. What makes it also mysterious is that we find out who is who and what is what just as does heroine Claire. (Nimble Jennifer Plants relives and relearns with catching enthusiasm.) A victim of psychogenic amnesia, she loses her memory in sleep and awakes each morning to husband Richard's explanations (including a photo album with captions). This a.m., a lisping Limping Man, his burnt ear covered with a ski mask, says he's her brother Zack, come to whisk her back to mother. She (Gertie) gives the play its title because a stroke has affected her speech.
Twisting her mouth, eyes bulging, Nicole Hess is more convincing as a menaced mother than the author's implied message about her and Claire's family being like a funhouse where they see and are seen via funny mirrors. While Claire eagerly tries to uncover her past, the other characters run from theirs. It's notable when Jed Alcher as Richard blows his cool, because he usually covers up anxieties so well. Scott Casper's intense Limping Man, on the other hand, almost impossibly manages to gain a bit of sympathy (and not from being stabbed) despite his threatening manner. As his sidekick, Millet, Damon Bonetti gives the illusion of experienced ventrioloquism as he uses a puppet, Hinky-Binky, to express suppressed feelings. He, too, switches with ease between likeable and not.
Claire's son could not seem more the typical rebellious, pot-smoking, foul-mouthed teenager than Bryan Barter's faded jeans clothe. Kim Kennedy Blair convinces as a traffic cop whose real character first comes forth due to claustrophia. Like almost everyone but Barter (obviously out of his teens) and the more mature Aicher and Hess, the players' ages don't fit their roles. But acting works better than makeup, and we often forget the performers are mostly younger students.
Having previously seen this play in the round, I really appreciate here the multilevel set: Falls from a tree seen through a window weren't effective before. For revelatory automobile rides, two side stages work well. Is the last drive reaching toward a happy ending? Dunno. A mystery.
