Anyone arriving at the ATM lounge in Usdan Friday at midnight would have been surprised to find a carnival well underway. As old-timey vaudeville music played in the background, participants made balloon animals, juggled, handed out cotton candy and danced with audience members as they made their way into the small space. The silliness and sheer randomness of the whole situation turned out to be perfect preparation for the Free Play Theater Cooperative's inaugural show, Summer Evening in Des Moines, written by absurdist playwright Charles Mee and directed by Katie Nadworny '09. Though the time and location of the show seemed unusual at first, they ended up fitting right in with a play in which the characters rode in on a chair rack, simulating a boat, and whacked inexplicably at balloons with croquet mallets. The show was set in a bizarre amusement park that opens up into a whole world, and, accordingly, the production was visually stunning, involving colorful, carnival-esque elements and wild dances (one of which even involved audience participation). The staging embraced the unusual content of the play, using every part of the atypical room so effectively that it was easy to forget that the space was not intended to be a theater.

Somewhere between the carousing and balloons there was actually a plot, although the play was so wonderfully disjointed that it was often difficult to follow. The play follows Benny (played by Aaron Arbiter '10 with charmingly pathetic sweetness) as he enters into the amusement park and courts Ella (compellingly played by Allison Vanouse '09). In this new world Benny meets Nancy and Morton (Erica Geller '09 and Mohit Gourisaria '09, both of whom played their complex characters with touching emotion), whose daughter Darling (Laura Lorand '09) feels smothered and runs away to find some excitement.

These characters were part of an extremely strong ensemble including Vikram (Meredith Ives '09), a frustrated tour guide, Bob (Zohar Fuller '10), a psychopathic pizza delivery boy, and Jorge (played flamboyantly by a perfectly-cast Austin Auh '10), Darling's sensual love interest. Alex Fleming '09, who played Edgar, a ventriloquist, gave an admirable performance in a difficult role for any actor without ventriloquism training; his scenes where only he and his two puppets were onstage were especially charming.

Sure, the plot was baffling, but in this play, it was not the story that mattered but the frustration of characters, all trying to break free of the confines of society. The audience didn't need to know why the characters suddenly and passionately threw water balloons at the windows, because the emotions and anger behind their rants during the scene were so clearly conveyed that the point was made. In every scene, the conflict between breaking the mold and staying "normal" was apparent. As Morton said, "Frankly there is a thing called normal./I didn't make it up./I might not like to be normal myself/but I have to be normal, like it or not." From Darling's quest for stimulation to Vikram's aggravation with the meaninglessness of his job, this conflict was at the center of the play. The FPTC's production framed it beautifully with an outstanding spectacle that was not only good fun, but good theater as well.