From the start of the University of Alabama’s latest comedy, I had one question: What the heck is aspic?
According to “Wonder of the World,” it’s a reddish glob with fish chunks in it. It’s mushy, not particularly nutritious and, unfortunately, all that Kip Harris can offer his wife to save their perfect, suburban marriage. Yet, even in the face of his pleas, his wife is still a bottle of sunshine.
“I just want to kick you in the face!” she says, all smiles.
And so begins the peppiest midlife crisis in history on a set painted in fluffy white clouds. Bucket list in hand, Cass Harris (Abby Jones) strikes out for Niagara Falls, where she puts in with a suicidal alcoholic (Rebecca Kling), starts a tryst with a tour boat captain (Jake Green) and is hounded by a couple of bungling private detectives straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon (Tommy Walker and Amber Gibson), all while director Jimmy Kontos leads us down a Warhol-inspired wonderland of sitcom kitsch, oversized junk food and a projection screen that displays postcard vistas in the background.
It covers playwright David Lindsay-Abaire’s dark underbelly, as well as a Girl Scout troop in a weapons plant. See, Cass has secrets, terrible secrets. Or so it seems.
The dialogue nails a balance between Mamet-style black comedy and genuine charm, and the UA team keeps firmly in step. Jones gives her tactless vagabond an almost uncanny schoolgirl effervescence. Walker and Gibson drum up wonderful screwball chemistry, Thaddeus Fitzpatrick simultaneously plays waters from three different theme restaurants and Kling should get some kind of award for eating the better part of an aspic on stage.
But while Jones’s mirth is infectious, she tends to play off the script’s attempts to surface Cass’s real turmoil, making them just another part of the charade. Cass lets references to lies and betrayal slip through her prattle, but these are vague, and because all we actually see of poor Kip is a ringer for Spongebob Squarepants, the opening scene in which she brushes off her pleading husband gives her a malicious air that she never quite manages to shake.
But it doesn’t really matter, because all the exciting dark tension that festers below the first half turns out to be as exaggerated as its sitcom veneer. The big secret of Cass’s marriage is pretty weird (hint: it involves Barbie heads) but not sinister enough to pull her much further up the moral high ground. Fortunately, what really lurks inside her is more interesting: not heartbreak or betrayal, but deep selfishness. She sees everyone around her as nothing more than a checkbox on her bucket list.
It has potential, but once the show’s rotten cats are out of the bag, it can’t seem to figure out what to do next. A large portion of Act II has the ensemble sitting around a hotel room for some tedious character development sprayed with a shellac of cheap gags. Attempts at redemption are overpowered by nihilistic, even absurdist statements about fate and futility, and just as the characters start to figure themselves out, Lindsay-Abaire sends everything into existential chaos (for reasons that are beyond me) and then asks us to care again for the climax.
But it’s still probably the funniest thing you can see this weekend. It’s packed with laughs, the characters are endearing and production wise, it’s as good as it gets. But in the end, just like Cass, “Wonder of the World” can’t seem to figure itself out. It’s a jumbled, disconnected narrative and thematic pieces. Though somehow, this seems to be exactly what Lindsay-Abaire intended.
At one point Cass’ alcoholic friend tells the heartbroken Kip to stop looking at the individual dots and see the big picture. The big picture of “Wonder of the World” isn’t a pointillist masterpiece, it’s a blob of aspic.
