By: Jon Behm
 |
So it is in Looking For Normal, a dramatic piece by Jane Anderson, currently being staged by Artisphere Theater (in partnership with Torch Theater) under the direction of Terry Lynn Carlson. Normal’s protagonist is a middle aged John Deere employee who believes that all his life he has been a woman trapped in a man’s body. While sex changes aren’t exactly a social untouchable in our culture anymore, Anderson’s play examines the conflict involved when it happens to your family rather than someone else’s.
Fred Wagner’s Roy is the father of two and is well loved by his wife. When he confronts his family with his decision to go through with an operation he gets mixed reactions. His wife Irma (Sally Ann Wright) is understandably confused in her emotions towards the man she loves and she plays the dichotomy of affection and anger towards her husband well. Son Wayne (Randy Schmeling) is mostly just angry, but portrays a bitter young man so skillfully that one can feel the angst coming off of him in waves. Rounding out the family are Roy’s parents (the charming and hilarious combination of Larry Roupe and Anita O’Sullivan) daughter Patty Ann (Taylor Bolstad) and the ghost of Roy’s free-spirited bisexual grandmother Ruth (Maureen Perry). John Middleton has a small role as Roy’s boss, but steals every scene he is in without effort.
Where the play succeeds is in its ability to take gender crisis into the home—anyone’s home. The roles are portrayed skillfully enough that our empathy towards them grows into a bond, and as an audience we generally feel as if we are going through the same crisis as the characters. The commentary by Perry’s Ruth is a nice touch as well, offering an alternative to Midwestern sexual mores, the ones believed in by Roy’s family as well as the ones we are most comfortable with as a Midwestern audience. On the other side, Garry Geiken’s Reverend Muncie represents the more traditional values of the church—however misguided the ways in which he applies them.
The encouragement of audience empathy is precisely what makes Normal such an emotionally stirring piece. At times, perhaps, it strays a bit into soap opera territory while trying to keep the audience’s feelings captive. However, in the end I was genuinely touched by the characters’ plight, and I don’t think that they went overboard. More than a few left the theater with less than dry eyes, and however you may feel about Aristotelian drama, I think that most could agree that the subject of gender crisis is almost by necessity a very emotional one.
Location Info:
Minneapolis Theater Garage
Artist Info: ARTisphere Theater
Share this story:
Article comments powered by Disqus