By Jackie Demaline
Enquirer staff writer

In Wonder of the World, playwright David Lindsay-Abaire, who employs absurd, the grotesque and the laugh-out-loud humor in pursuit of the truth, has nothing smaller than the meaning of middle-class American life on his mind.

His thesis is, loosely, "Life is chaos, roll with it because if you don't, you're over a barrel, and your barrel is heading for Niagara Falls."

So it's no coincidence that Wonder is set at Niagara Falls, and it's not surprising either that Know Theatre Tribe, which loves to surprise and tweak its audiences, would hit upon Wonder as perfect summer entertainment.

The action opens on Cass (Devon Campailla) leaving husband Kip (Jeff Groh). Groh gives a big comic performance as an Everyguy who loves his wife. But it turns out that after seven years together she has happened upon his howler of a sexual deviancy. (Whatever you think it is, you're wrong.)

Cass decides that she never knew Kip at all, and, by the way, there are some other things that have bothered her. So Cass, who doesn't have a full box of crackers herself but means well, gets aboard a bus with a list of 267 things she has always meant to do - and she's going to start doing them at Niagara Falls.

Luckily for Cass, and for us, she meets a lot of very, very strange people along the way. In Abaire World, characters always have patently unbelievable back-stories, and by the end they are somehow all inter-connected with magnificent logic.

So there is alcoholic Lois, made completely adorable by Molly Binder, intent on committing suicide. It's a gem of a performance.

There are Karla and Glen (Adrianne Underhill and Jim Stump) who formerly owned a yarn store but are trying their hands at being private detectives. There is Captain Mike, the always terrific Chris Guthrie, a widower who operates a tour boat and falls for Cass.

And there is everybody else, played by Amanda Monyhan, who can always be counted on to shine her own light on a stage. She's very funny playing a trio of waitresses serving dinner simultaneously in three theme restaurants, but she's even better conducting a demented group therapy session in her clown suit.

It's all under the adept direction of Christine DeFrancesco, who delivers big on Know's small stage.

Most of the action plays out in a crummy motel room, the kind that hasn't been remodeled since the Sixties.

If it had a window, it would be small, streaked and facing a parking lot. Set designer Luke Brockmeier nails it.

Wonder of the World, through Aug. 21, Know Theatre Tribe, Gabriel's Corner, Sycamore at Liberty, Over-the-Rhine. 300-5669.

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E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com