Meet David Lindsay-Abaire, 31, who wasn't even 30 when his Fuddy Meers was anointed by The New York Times as A Thing To See. Starting Thursday it will be a thing to see in Cincinnati, as Cincinnati Shakespeare embarks on a collection of carefully chosen regional premieres.

        Fuddy Meers is a perfect example of the strange comic world view of Mr. Lindsay-Abaire, whose work is grave and joyous, real and lunatic, blithe and enigmatic, hopeful and ironic.

        Son of a factory worker and a fruit peddler, South Boston native Mr. Lindsay-Abaire writes comedy. He lists Monty Python and the Marx Brothers, The Honeymooners and Charles Dickens, screwball comedy and Eugene Ionesco among his influences.

        Not a lifelong theatergoer, he was writing absurdist comedy before he knew it was a genre. “I don't think I'll ever not look at the world in a skewed way,” he says.

        Harrowing and hilarious Fuddy Meers is about amnesiac Claire, who loses her memory every night when she goes to sleep and spends her days trying to reconstruct her life, which is peopled with bizarre characters.

        “It's a parable about a woman who wants to forget her life, about people trying to forget who they are but needing to remember what they've done,” ventures Mr. Lindsay-Abaire.

        “It's basically a whodunit — nobody's been killed, but Claire is a detective following the clues to putting her life together. By the end, she knows who did what to whom.”

        He'll be back off-Broadway later this season with Wonder of the World. Next for busy Mr. Lindsay-Abaire, “I think I might be writing about growing up in South Boston in the '70s and forced busing — that's a ghost that's still prevalent.”

        He sees a “Kaufman and Hart-type comedy. If you're going to attack racial issues, I figure I'd better write it in a way people would like to see.”

        He pauses. “Somebody could write it seriously. But I'm not the man for that job.”

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