Fuddy Meers - Acting Edition
by David Lindsay-Abaire
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Book Summary Information
Author: David Lindsay-AbaireEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-01-01
ISBN: 0822217511
Number of pages: 72
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service
Book Reviews of Fuddy Meers - Acting Edition
Book Review: Relentlessly Unfunny
Summary: 1 Stars
These days playwright David Lindsay-Abaire is best known for his 2007 Pulitizer Prize-winning play RABBIT HOLE--but before that play he was widely recognized as the author of FUDDY MEERS, a semi-absurdist peopled with zany characters acting out a zanny plot. The play opened in New York in 1999 to mostly positive reviews and proved an audience favorite; it was soon a popular ticket around the country; and it won many awards along the way. None of this, however, prevents FUDDY MEERS from being one of the most relentlessly unfunny comedies I have ever had the misfortune to encounter.
The story, such as it is, focuses on Claire--a woman who suffers from a rare form of psychogenic amnesia. Each morning she awakens without the faintest idea of who she is or where she is, and over the years her husband Richard has prepared a book for her use, a book that tells her name, where her slippers are, that she likes coffee, and so on. This morning is like any other--until to two unexpected things occur. Claire asks what caused her amnesia, a question she has never posed before. Then, when her husband is in the shower, a man crawls out from under her bed and tells Claire that he is brother Zack and he has come to rescue from her abusive husband Richard. Zack induces Claire to run away with him to mother Gertie's house, where Claire will be safe.
Zack has an outlandish speech impediment; he has a limp; and we also discover that his ear is almost burt off and much of his face is scarred. When they arrive at mother Gertie's, they discover she is in little better condition: she has had a stroke, and although her cognitive abilities are unimpaired, she suffers from aphasia--a stroke symptom in which the patient is prone to "word salads," using a mixture of wrong words and nonsense words when she tries to speak. What with Zack's speech impediment and Gertie's aspasia, the script quickly develops a feel that is akin to a cross between Alice and Wonderland and A Clockwork Orange, and the arrival of Zack's friend Millett (who has a hand puppet given to spouting naughty words) hardly helps matters. But fortunately, Frank and Claire's son are on the way--having paused to kidnap a policewoman who pulled them over for speeding--and soon everyone arrives at Gertie's house and begins to argue about identity. Is Zack really Claire's brother? Is Frank really Claire's husband. Exactly who is this becrazed, hand-puppet weidling man, and what is the strange police woman really up to?
The description sounds intriguing, funny, maybe even laugh-out-loud hilarious. Well, it isn't. For one thing, there are only two likeable characters in the play--Claire and Gertie, and of course you can't understand a word Gertie says. The language, and the way Lindsay-Abaire uses it, becomes increasingly frustrating as the play progresses, and when the truth is exposed it doesn't seem to be to any actually point. We really don't find out what happens to Zack, Millet and his puppet, or the becrazed policewoman. Does Gertie regain control of her language? No. Is Claire cured of her amnesia? There's a faint suggestion that she might, but nothing more. And so it ends.
FUDDY MEERS is frequently described as "absurdist," but this isn't the absurdism you'd expect of Sartre, Genet, Ionesco, and the other great writers who worked in that genre. No, this is just situation comedy with stock characters and weird things thrown in that we're supposed to find funny, and none of it has any actual point, philosophical or otherwise. The play doesn't end so much as simply stops, and that's that. Now, it is true that playscripts are not really intended to be read by the general public--a play is intended to be seen on the stage, and a play that reads badly often plays extremely well. But in spite of its popularity, I can't help but feel that this isn't the case with FUDDY MEERS. It just isn't funny. Indeed, it is relentlessly unfunny. I would even go so far as to say that it is vile beyond description. Go see a production if you must, but don't expect too much--and stay as far away from the script as you can get.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Summary of Fuddy Meers - Acting Edition
When Fuddy Meers opened at the Manhattan Theatre Club in the fall of 1999, it earned the kind of raves that a promising young playwright dreams about. Writing in the New York Observer, John Heilpern called him some kind of comic genius. And after its sold-out run at MTC, the play moved downtown to the Minetta Lane Theatre for an open-ended commercial engagement.Fuddy Meers revolves around an amnesiac, Claire, who wakes up every morning as a blank slate, on which her family must imprint the facts of her life. On this particular day, the shenanigans begin with Claire being abducted by a limping man who claims to be her brother trying to save her from her evil husband. They drive to the home of her mother, who has had a stroke that left her aphasic (her attempt to say funny mirrors provides the play's title. The ensuing mayhem is both deliriously funny and oddly touching.
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