The Whole Famndamily
GREX at Open Circle Theater, 429 Boren Ave N, 985-1019
$10-$12. Through June 15.

It was hard not to think of Kids in the Hall while Heather Newman appeared and reappeared as several different characters, both male and female, with alarming frequency during Patrick Scott's new play, The Whole Famndamily. Newman portrayed everything from the gossipy, weed-pulling suburban neighbor of homemaker Jean Davidson to the geeky-cool best friend of Jean's teenage-son-with-a-secret Davis Davidson. Watch- ing her morph from character to character was impressive and occasionally hilarious. The rest of the play was funny enough--but not nearly as funny as the belly-laughing theater types in the audience seemed to think.

The premise was comical enough: A seemingly squeaky-clean family falls to pieces after the studious daughter announces at the dinner table that she's become a vegetarian. Her jock brother Chuck decides it's time to make his big announcement: He's gay. Dad can't deal, and Mom, who finally has something to do, joins PFLAG and expects her homo son to become her best friend and confidant. Wanting out of the dysfunction limelight, Chuck informs his adopted brother Davis that he's black. Now Mom's wearing an African headdress and Dad's worried that his black son will start singing hiphop instead of the show tunes the two have been bonding over their whole lives. Davis, meanwhile, secretly yearns to be an astrophysicist. All the while no one is worrying about daughter Kirsten, who sent up the initial red flag in the first scene with her sudden diet restrictions.

Those of us who grew up "the perfect one" in a meat-eating but troubled family know that becoming a vegetarian is the beginning of a whole other kind of forthcoming family freakout. Maybe that's why The Whole Famndamily wasn't so hee-hi-larious for me. But, again, the rest of the audience sure seemed to be enjoying itself.