FUDDY MEERS. To 8 May.
FUDDY MEERS: David Lindsay-Abaire
Birmingham Rep: Tkts 0121 236 4455
Transfers to Arts Theatre London May 2004
Runs: 1h 50m, one interval
Review: Rod Dungate, 20 April 2004
Everything you could want in a play
What a highly accomplished piece of writing Fuddy Meers is; about everything you could want in a play funny, serious, a plot (abduction, mystery, thriller, horror even) that's always on the move. Moreover, a company of actors who though sheer commitment to their characters change a wildly plotted and characterised play into one that could almost sit in the centre of psychological realism.
The story centres around Claire, a young woman who has lost her memory; however, she builds up her story each day only to lose all the memories overnight while asleep. The whole play has a the nightmarish quality of something like Huis Clos. Lindsay-Abaire then puts us inside Claire's world by creating around her a the nightmare she has to live through. Katie Finneran (Claire) is outstanding; she looks like the girl next-door and moves through her nightmare at times like a disinterested observer learning her story as we learn it too. With an infectious laugh she charms the pants off us.
Lindsay-Abaire is writing about dysfunction, about non-communication and he pushes his play to the edge. One man has a lisp, another speaks through a puppet and brilliant (so brilliant) one, Gertie, the elderly mother, has 'difficulty putting sentences together' because she's had a stroke. L-A's themes could be encapsulated in this exchange: 'Would someone tell me what's going on?' pleads Claire in the second half. Calmly, with gentle authority, Gertie begins to explain: 'Ida gnome mower, Clay. Evatin row when Za feh oda tee.' (I don't know any more, Claire. Everything went wrong when Zac fell out of the tree.) Julia McKenzie is truly magnificent. She is tiny, unassuming, speaks her strange language with such simple honesty it tears your heart out; she does not comment on her performance but is totally at one with it yet with consummate skill never misses a comic second.
This is a uniformly strong company, but I must mention the joy of watching Matthew Lillard's Millet, the escaped con who converses with his hand held puppet, Binkie, whose own back story must lie somewhere near Sesame Street marvellous.
Director, Angus jackson, has ensured a cracking pace that increases our disorientation though it's always, you feel, tightly under control.
Claire: Katie Finneran
Limping Man: Tim Hopper
Richard: Nicholas Le Prevost
Millet: Matthew Lillard
Gertie: Julia McKenzie
Heidi: Charlotte Randle
Director: Angus Jackson
Designer: Lez Brotherston
Lighting: Neil Austin
Music and Sound: Alex Gallafent
Dialect Coach: Penny Dyer
2004-04-21 09:34:30