By Setarreh Massihzadegan
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

In their fourth and final show of 2007, the Linden Ponds Players whisked the audience as far off as the 50th floor of an unfinished skyscraper, but never far from the amusing idiosyncrasies of everyday life.

The play-reading group performed Laughing Matters, three short comedies on American life, for a full crowd in the Linden Ponds performing arts center, with the spotlight on forgetfulness, identity crises, and incompatible roommates.

While introducing the comedies, producer/director Frances Galton said, “They  all have one thing in common—they don’t get along.”

Keeping their ‘faculties’
Laughing Matters opened with “Faculties,” a comedy written by Galton, who—before founding the Linden Ponds Players—was the artistic director of a theater company in New York City for six years.

In this one-act play, Grandma (Florence Hunter) believes Grandpa (George Walker) has “gone out to pasture” when he falls asleep in his porch chair, prompting an argument between Grandma and her daughter Lucy (Peg Woodard) over how to dispose of his body.

That is, of course, until he wakes up, to some disappointment from Grandma, who was looking forward to having her hair done for the funeral.

“Comedy has to be played straight in order to get the comedic effect,” Galton says. “They’re doing a very good job,” she says of the cast. Audience members, whose laughter was audible throughout the hour-long performance, seemed to agree.

Secrets revealed
In “Mere Mortals,” written by David Ives, three construction workers reveal their true identities over bagged lunch. Joe (Joe Campanelli) was actually Marie Antoinette in a past life; Charlie (Brad Seager) was the “Lindbergh baby”; and Frank (Dick White) was the son of Czar Nicholas II of Russia.

Language barriers
In the last of the one-act comedies—Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple”—mismatched female roommates entertain two men from Spain.