Photo Flash: First Look at Rubicon Theatre Company's FUDDY MEERS

Rubicon Theatre continues the company's 21st "Coming of Age" season with the hilarious and harrowing, politically incorrect comedy FUDDY MEERS by playwright DAVID-LINDSAY-ABAIRE. In this outrageously funny roller-coaster ride of a play, Claire, an amnesiac. wakes up each day having forgotten the details of her life. This morning, like all mornings, her seemingly devoted husband Richard greets her with a cup of coffee and a scrapbook of memories. But when he steps away, a limping, lisping man claiming to be Claire's brother pops out from under her bed and says he is there to save her. He takes her to her mother's home in the country, where Claire meets a naïve man with a foul-mouthed puppet, discovers her husband and son have kidnapped an aggressive lady cop, and comes face-to-face with her past.

FUDDY MEERS is helmed by Rubicon Artistic Associate Jenny Sullivan. The production stars returning Rubicon veterans PRECIOUS CHONG (Dancing at Lughnasa, The Glass Menagerie) as Claire and company member Joseph Fuqua (King Lear, Incognito, All My Sons-Ovation Award) as Claire's chipper husband Richard. Stephen Caffrey, best known for his three seasons as actor and director on "Tour of Duty," (recently seen in The Cripple of Inishmaan for Antaeus), plays Limping Man. Louis Lotorto, whose numerous credits include King Lear and The Tempest at Rubicon and An Enemy of the People at Ahmanson) plays the mild-manner Millet, whose darker side is expressed through his puppet Binky. Tracy A. Leigh (Obie and NAACP Award recipient, Baby Dance: Mixed at Rubicon) appears as Puerto Rican cop Heidi, who harbors a secret. SERYOZHA LAPORTE, a graduate of PCPA Theaterfest, plays his first leading role on the Rubicon mainstage as Claire's troubled teen Kenny. And Deedee Rescher (multiple seasons with Laguna Playhouse) make her Rubicon debut as Gertie.

"In this wild and wacky laugh-out-loud comedy, nothing is what it appears to be," says Rubicon Producing Artistic Director Karyl Lynn Burns. As one of the actors in the play recently remarked, the play 'feels like a cross between 'Sesame Street' and David Lynch."

Director Jenny Sullivan considers FUDDY MEERS to be even more timely now than when it was first written by Lindsay-Abaire in the late 1990s. "Claire's amnesia," says Sullivan, "has been a necessary way for her to escape from the reality of her incredibly complicated life. Through the process of the play, she begins to recall and reclaim her past, but finds that dealing with quickly-changing accounts of her story is an exhausting journey."

"I think so many of us today can relate to Claire's feeling of being overwhelmed and confused by conflicting information," continues Sullivan. "Hopefully this production will provide some perspective on our current dilemma and our longing for an objective truth."

Set design for Rubicon's production of FUDDY MEERS is by JIM PRODGER, lighting design by MIKE BILLINGS, costume design by Pamela Shaw, sound design by KENNY HOBBS, set dressing and prop design by T. THERESA SCARANO, and fight choreography by YVANS JOURDAIN. The Production Stage Manager is Dale Alan Cooke.

FUDDY MEERS opens March 16 with low-priced previews beginning March 13. The production continues through March 31 at Rubicon's home in Ventura's Downtown Cultural District, 1006 E. Main Street (the corner of Main and Laurel)..For tickets, call 805.667.2900 or go to www.rubicontheatre.org.

Photo Credit: Jeanne Tanner Photography