Out of Their Minds?

MAYBE life is just an elaborate joke that everyone is in on but you. Maybe when you turn around, everything behind you disappears. Maybe English is just a gibberish language that only you really understand. Maybe reality is just a dream.

Woman in Mind

By Alan Ayckbourn

Directed by Brent Eller

Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8:20

Maybe not. But if you think we might be living in a godless, meaningless dream world or if you just didn't think Hair was enough of a trip, you should check out Alan Ayckbourn's Woman in Mind this weekend at the Currier House Fishbowl.

Reid Cottingham dominates this bizarre drama as Susan, the troubled title character, who is losing her grip on reality. Susan hates her life. And why shouldn't she? Her husband, Gerald (Mark Brazaitis) is a befuddled priest more interested in his historical study of parish life since 1386 than in sex. Her son Rick (Andrew Ott), who has always been afraid of women, is now a member of a London sect devoted to parent hatred, which doesn't make her feel any better. Aside from the uptight Gerald, her only companion is her antagonistic sister-in-law, an incompetent Cornish cook with a reincarnation fetish.

So it is no surprise that, after a close encounter with a garden rake, Susan develops hallucinations of grandeur. In her imaginary world, her garden is five times bigger and her driveway is ten miles long. Her fantasy husband, Andy, does the cooking, and, "incidentally, loves (her) more than words can say." Her vacuous daughter is talented and beautiful, and appreciates her mother (now a noted author) as Rick never did. Her brother is affable and protective, generously offering his services to dispose of the unappreciative Gerald.

Cottingham's first-act sarcasm is brutally funny, and the show moves along nicely under Brent Eller's direction. The plot is perfectly symmetrical. Will Susan choose reality with a family that doesn't love her, bland Marsala wine and a black lunch table? Or will she opt for the illusory world of dreams, champagne, a family that treats her like a goddess and a pristine white table with fine china? We feel for Cottingham, who has captured Susan's despairing loneliness and repression behind her cynical facade.

THE second act seems like the product of a very sick mind and is weird beyond all expectations. Neuroses become paranoia. Fantasies start to impose on reality. Symbols start to contradict themselves. And finally, reality explodes. As Andy points out, "Nothing is what it is. No one is who he seems."

Jy Murphy, John Ducey and Valerie Mulhern, who play the imaginary husband, brother and daughter respectively get funnier as the show loses its comprehensibility. Their comic timing is especially good in the puppeteer scenes, where these apparitions induce Susan to do their bidding.

As Dr. Bill Windsor, the awkward, understanding bridge between fantasy and "reality," Jim Marino gets the job done. Brazaitis completely immerses himself in the drama's insanity. But he also adds a religious dimension to Gerald's comic cluelessness, a serious conflict that, of course, evaporates by the drama's chaotic conclusion.

However, Cottington's refined dramatic skills and subtle comic timing hold the show together as she edges towards full-fledged paranoia.

Did the devil make her do it? Who cares? Don't try to read too much into every frog, dog and December Bee motif in Woman in Mind. It's just fun to watch. Even sober.

Mark my words.