“Fabulation, or, the Re-Education of Undine” – Written by Lynn Nottage. Directed by Dawn M Simmons. Presented by The Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 140 Clarendon Street, Boston through October 9.

by Michele Markarian

There’s nothing yielding or hesitant about the seemingly unstoppable Undine (Lyndsay Allyn Cox), owner of a boutique public relations agency with high-profile clients in New York.  She speaks to her assistant Stephie (Brittani Jenese McBride) brusquely, brushes off the warnings of her accountant (Barlow Adamson), and seems unconcerned about the flight of her suave and sexy husband, Herve (Jaime José Hernández). Undine’s self-centeredness gets kicked up a notch when she realizes that Herve has absconded with all of their money and she’s unexpectedly pregnant. With her office, apartment and bank accountant liquidated, Undine has nowhere left to go but home – to the family in Brooklyn that she claimed had died in a fire fourteen years ago.  Undine’s real name is Sharona; she chose Undine when she renounced her family, in an admiring nod to the social climbing Undine Sprague in Edith Wharton’s novel Custom of the Country.   Unlike Wharton’s ruthless Undine, Nottage’s Undine finally learns gratitude and humility, after an unfortunate series of events brought on by her own ambition.

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