We Put the F.U.N. in Funeral (Review)

Teenagers look critically at the grownup world, perhaps because they know they'll be there themselves before long, and they often don't like what they see. The School for Creative and Performing Arts students who put together We Put the F.U.N. in Funeral certainly fall into that number, and interpret their title in the most ironic sense.

This is a Fringe Next production and has only two performances. Fringe Next, now in its third year, is a collaboration of Cincinnati Fringe Festival with SCPA and has produced several surprising, interestingly pointed and well-conceived works from those talented people at school in the OTR neighborhood. This is the most ambitious of those I've seen, but  it doesn't quite realize its ambitions represent a worthy cause.

SCPA has the luxury of a large cast, not practical for most Fringe productions, and so it pulls in nine actors for this classically three-act work, which actually winds up in 45 minutes. Act One is a pretty ghastly Christmas, lining out the family fault lines (drunken uncle makes waves), but a funeral isn't yet necessary. Trey (Norb Wessels) is our narrator as well as participant in the action, and so he speaks directly to the audience about his concerns and distresses. In Act Two the funeral is in place for Trey's father, who has died heroically following his line of work, fire fighting.

Act Three moves on to require heroic action from our narrator (one of the few sympathetic characters) to save the drunken uncle's life, and suggests that despite everything (everything now more understandable by expanded narration), he will comply. Meanwhile, we have come to know the family members: ditsy grandma, shrill aunt, young people wanting to be anywhere but here.

The talent fostered and developed at SCPA is formidable. Fringe Next is a natural adjunct to Cincinnati Fringe and an encouraging reminder that creativity is a potent segment of the human psyche. The script was written by Hannah Regan, who also served as producer, and Jimmy Stratman, doubling on lights and sound. The two are also listed as directors of the production, along with Audrey Hehman. Katie Maurer is the grandma who has lost her marbles and other cast members are Megan Turner, Eric Zimmer, Maggie Hehman, Maria Hehman, Aaron Schilling, Grant Lyons and Sarah Buckley.