Playwright: David Lindsay-Abaire
At: Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway
Phone: ( 773 ) 549-1815; $18-$22
Runs through: Nov. 9
The literary contagion known as The Quirks was first noticed in America during the Beat era, but only became widespread after 1981, the year Beth Henley's Crimes Of The Heart took the Pulitzer Prize. Like measles, The Quirks are rarely fatal, most young authors surviving them unscarred and going on to write plays of discipline and substance. David Lindsay-Abaire's Wonder Of The World, however, represents this scourge at its most virulent.
The story's premise is commonplace enoughMrs. Cass Harris is dissatisfied with her life and embarks on a journey of self-fulfillment. But then Quirks begin to surface like hives: Her whiny husband is revealed to do gross things with the heads of Barbie dolls. On the bus to Niagara Falls, Cass meets another runaway wife, Lois, who plans to commit suicide with the help of a barrel. A mysterious couple turn out to be detectives hired by the persistent Mr. Harris. The tour-boat pilot whom Cass fancies is a widower, his wife having suffered a concussion engendered by a CostCo-sized jar of peanut butter.
Did I mention the woman with Female-Pattern Baldness who sells her wig to Cass? And the Medieval, the Native-American, and the Goth-themed restaurants? The pre-show footage of the 1953 Marilyn Monroe-Joseph Cotton film entitled Niagara? The jellied trout? The yarn store in Buffalo? By the time Lindsay-Abaire brings on a marriage counselor tricked out in clown drag ( she volunteers at the hospital, you see ) who bullies everyone into playing The Newlywed Game, we don't give a damn what happens to any of these people. And that's still before Cass and Lois barrel-surf the rapids in a Thelma-and-Louise Dash For Freedomor something.
The actors in this Profiles Theater production are capable enough at playing big-and-broad while still keeping control of their material, with Lisa Rothschiller ( in full white-trash mode ) as the stubborn Lois, and Joe Jahraus as the squeaky-clean Captain Mike providing welcome pockets of stability. But the breakneck speed at which Darrell W. Cox paces this unedited stream of Quirk-infested flotsam only compounds the clutter, distancing, and ultimately losing, our comprehension and our sympathies.
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