MARINE CITY, Mich.–We have all been there: the family road trip. Whether it was a visit to Grandma and Grandpa’s, boring museums or a trip to the Grand Canyon, the family road trip has always been a source of excitement, dread, mishaps, arguments and unexpected adventures. Leaving Iowa at The Snug Theatre conjures memories of all those things and more, generating laughs along the way.

Imagine a family function, and the inevitable moment the conversation becomes, “Remember that time we drove to _____ and . . . .” Leaving Iowa opens with just such a memory: the Browning family—Dad, Mom, Sis and brother Don—is heading home from a trip through Iowa, Dad fighting drowsiness at the wheel and insisting they are not lost.  The story then skips ahead to the current day, and we see adult Don making the decision to take one last, short “road trip with Dad”—to deliver his late father’s ashes to his childhood home. Don promises Mom and Sis he’ll be back by dinnertime, and his adventure begins.

The show continues to alternate between Don’s current odyssey and his memories of that long ago trip, where much of the hilarity of the show occurs. We are privy to the “family vote” determining the vacation destination (Dad gets two votes), the tearful tantrums of Don and Sis in protest, and Mom scaring them into submission by screaming, “The fun starts now!” They pack up the Krispy treats, the View-Master, the Pez dispenser and the Polaroid instant camera and set off. Don and Sis are almost continually fighting in the backseat, making faces at each other, poking, slapping, and definitely not reading the books Dad has given them for the trip. We discover that Sis is a bully of a sibling, a master manipulator who knows how to push Don’s buttons, then play the innocent victim, crocodile tears and all, while Don cries and insists, “It’s not fair!”

At this point, you should be thinking about every phrase your parents said to you about a thousand times while traveling: a) “Stop it, you two!” b) “I’ll give you something to cry about!” c) “That’s it, I’m pulling over.” d) “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?” etc. There is plenty of drama, too, like Dad daring to pass an RV in the path of an oncoming truck, and the encounter with the super scary, one-handed farmer who lives on an ancient Indian burial ground. Don and Sis finally have some fun when they beg Dad to make an impromptu stop; after all, Dad enjoys being “unpredictable.”

Meanwhile, adult Don’s trip with Dad (in his urn) is also fraught with mishaps. Don discovers that his father’s childhood home has been converted into a grocery store parking lot. What to do? He decides to call home and lie to Mom and Sis, at least until he can come up with another plan. Then the car breaks down, and Don must rely on local hospitality. Doing so sparks a forgotten memory of that trip in his youth, and inspires Don to honor his Dad with a final resting place that fulfills one of Dad’s forgotten wishes.

A great deal of the success of this production, directed by Jay McCulloch, is due to the superb casting. Both Don (Matt Siadak) and Sis (Mandy Logsdon) have mastered sibling rivalry in such a believable way that some of their funniest moments take place in the background, or do not involve dialogue. Logsdon, in particular, convincingly uses an expressive quivering chin and scowl just as a manipulative child would. Additionally, they switch from their child to their adult personas with ease. Mom (JM Ethridge) also uses the very facial expressions we have all seen on our own mothers, especially when Dad (Patrick O’Lear) does the unthinkable while Mom is at her turn driving. Admit it—sometimes a Mom doesn’t need to say anything at all to let you know just how furious she is.

Perhaps the most impressive roles, unexpectedly, are those of Multiple Character Gal (Maggie Alger) and Multiple Character Guy (Joey Carrier), who together portray twenty different characters (maybe more, I lost count) and go through a dozen or more costume changes. From multiple Browning relatives to farmers, mechanics, hotel clerks and guests, diner and museum staff, and even an Amish couple, Alger and Carrier effectively appear as distinctly different personalities, accents and all, each time they enter the stage.

Some shows entertain us by taking us to places we’ve never been and situations we’ve never seen. Leaving Iowa entertains precisely by reminding us of places we have been, which maybe weren’t so funny at the time but always make us laugh in retrospect. Audience members of all ages will be able to relate to (and laugh at) the Browning family, which makes this a true family comedy.

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