By Katie Schleiss
Imagine waking up and realizing that you cannot remember your own name. You look around the room and have no idea where you are. The people who claim to be your family are complete strangers. You cannot remember what happened yesterday, or the day before yesterday. And, when you wake up again tomorrow morning, you are in the same boat as yesterday.
Sounds like a nightmare. But, this is reality for Claire, the protagonist portrayed by junior Stephanie Bayne in the newest play to hit Mago Hunt. Performances will be tonight, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and at 2 p.m. Sunday.
"Fuddy Meers," David Lindsay-Abaire's off-Broadway comedy, is full of shocking twists and turns. This play never goes quite where you expect it; nothing is what it seems and the audience is constantly left questioning and entertained.
Rather than following predictable routes of other amnesiac protagonists, such as Drew Barrymore in "50 First Dates" or Goldie Hawn in "Overboard," this play is inventive and fresh. Rather than knowing the truth behind Claire's dilemma, the audience is just as bamboozled as Claire is from the surrounding mayhem and deepening mysteries.
Claire has severe amnesia and awakens every day with no memories. She is literally a blank state and has to rely completely on other people for any concept of who she is and where she has been. The people who she relies on for information, mostly men, don't tell her the truth for various reasons.
Every morning, her husband explains her condition and has even created a memory book full of pictures and instructions to guide her through life. She is chipper and bright, but needs help to acquire the information she needs to remember who she is.
However, her daily routine is interrupted when a limping man in a ski mask who claims to be her brother suddenly abducts her. But is she really kidnapped, or rescued? Her brother claims that her husband really wants to kill her and he takes her to their mother. As it turns out, her husband has a mysterious past that she doesn't know about.
However, she has trouble communicating with her brother and her mother. Her brother has a severe lisp and her mother, who has recently suffered a stroke, speaks in gibberish. Further adding to the motif of misguided communication is the brother's accomplice, an ex-con who speaks through an alter-ego hand puppet.
Poor communication prevents her from getting the information she needs to remember her old life. Everyone in the play has a communication problem, but bad communication is a metaphor for her ruined memory and the struggles Claire goes through. She has to sort through all of the confusion she endures while trying to put the pieces of the puzzle of her life together. However, throughout the course of the play, revelations from recovered memories and slips made by those who are concealing information from her slowly begin to piece information together.
"Being a contemporary woman, she wants to define herself," said Jay Edelnant, guest director. "But when she does this by using the men in her life, this creates problems."
Claire's reliance on men resonates strongly, representing how women in modern society have a tendency to judge their worth and based on how men perceive them. In Claire's instance, this idea is taken literally. She has no identity until the men in the play tell her what happened to her.
Although this play is full of comedic moments, there are also darker revelations that are surprising and somewhat shocking. Don't be fooled by Claire's sunny demeanor and chipper personality. Like the play, what starts as innocent and sweet eventually starts to transform into darker comedy characteristics of the Sopranos.
The performance of the actors is especially remarkable when the physical challenges of playing these characters are taken into consideration. There are a lot of meaty challenges for these actors. Simply talking in the manner required for characters with lisps and walking with limps, like sophomore Philip Orazio is his portrayal of the Limping Man, and strokes, like junior Emily Douglas's role as the stroke-victim grandmother, convincingly throughout the duration of the play requires skill and dedication.
Edelnant is currently on leave from the University of Northern Iowa and his friendship with Professor Mindy Logan is what brought him to the University. "Fuddy Meers" was selected in collaboration with the faculty here because it was comedy, in contrast with the more serious upcoming play "Stop Kiss."
"This is a show that college students really enjoy," Edelnant said. "This play is something I associate with college, because people are changing are searching for their identities."
