“I live in an indie movie."

So declares Kelly K. Kelly, the main character of Hard Day’s Night, a wonderfully entertaining new play by Vicki Vodrey currently playing at the New York International Fringe Festival. And given Kelly's family, the comparison to the quirky disfunction of indie ensembles certainly makes sense. Her mother Kate (Erin Amanda Anderson) stuffs their living room with Mickey merchandise and boxes of dead pets’ ashes, keeping company with her dearly departed ‘fur babies’ while leading a Disney-driven life that Kelly's father Ken (Milton Elliott) goes along with, but doesn’t quite understand. Meanwhile, Kelly's sister Kirby (Melissa Diane Martin) is the typical self-absorbed popular girl, treating her ‘uncool’ sister with disdain, and her grandfather’s ghost, Kelly believes, has taken up residence in their basement.

But living in an indie movie, Kelly (Lizzie Stewart) tells us, is not as fun as it looks onscreen, and she rebels against her family with a baggy, all-black wardrobe and obsessions with musical theatre and The Beatles. On her parents’ 20th anniversary, Kelly initiates her ultimate plan for rebellion: speaking only in Beatles lyrics until “something changes.” (For instance, upon being asked if she has plans tonight: “I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in…”) When Kate’s friend Jenn (Jessica Ryan) and her younger husband Jason (Jeff Ronan) come over, though, that change arrives, as relationship problems are laid bare and Kelly finally finds someone to tear down the walls she’s built up.

This quirky premise of Disney obsession, pet remains, and Beatles lyrics (which Jan Simon has woven into the dialogue quite impressively) makes for some excellent entertainment; a funeral ceremony for Kate’s cat—involving a bubble gun and “Circle of Life”—is particularly memorable. But the play, directed by Samantha Tella, uses these eccentricities as the foundation for what ends up being an incredibly human, engaging, and relatable piece about how we relate to each other and the—perhaps odd—coping mechanisms we turn to when we can't.

The plot takes a bit to get going, but the unconventionally charming play keeps the audience’s attention for the entire 90-minute running time, due to both the quick-witted dialogue and the performances of the universally wonderful cast. Stewart is the perfect protagonist as Kelly, with a balance of dead-pan intelligence and self-consciousness that makes her journey of self-acceptance feel believable and exciting. Anderson is also great as Kelly’s endearingly eccentric, if sometimes clueless, mother, and Ryan strikes the perfect hilariously obnoxious note as the overly gregarious Jenn. With this peculiar premise, it would be easy for characters to become caricatures defined by their eccentricities, but it’s a testament to the writing and actors that this is not the case. Hard Day’s Night has an offbeat setup that, yes, would feel a bit more at home in an indie movie than real life. However, the human tale of relationships and acceptance that blossoms out of this peculiar foundation is one over which we can all—to quote a certain musical group—“Come Together."