STAGE REVIEW : ‘Normal’ Doesn’t Mean Plot (but the Characters Excel)

Playwright Don Gordon of Irvine has an easy way with characters. It’s not the plot that attracts in “Normal Doesn’t Mean Perfect,” Gordon’s comedy that opened at Illusion’s New View Theatre in Fullerton over the weekend. The too-familiar story line, about a henpecked husband seeking love and life in a young woman’s embrace, isn’t in the spotlight here. The characters are.

These are odd, likable people (well, wife Winnie isn’t that likable) with human flaws. It’s easy to forgive Gordon the occasional cliche. Even when his writing isn’t all that fresh, we’re still diverted by what these folks are going to do.

Especially Leonard, an Orange County Walter Mitty who longs to have some control over his life. He fantasizes while wearing a Barney Fife police get-up, searches for intellectual conversations in the park and wonders how he ever ended up in the dead zone with Winnie, a wife who accuses him of hysterics when he even raises his head to defend himself.

Winnie’s a hard nail, a shrew with real drive. She’s equally comfortable screaming at Leonard to hurry up in bed and the Mexican gardener who dawdles at the hedge. Winnie likes things her way. Leonard’s been seeing things her way for so long that he’s not sure what his way is.

Until he meets the dark, vaguely dangerous Diane during his daily park visit. Their tilted romance starts slowly--they seem like complete opposites at first--but soon enough they find they share a damaged yearning for a fuller experience. Love doesn’t come easy (Diane even pulls a knife on him at one point). But it does come.

When Winnie finds out, sparks fly, of course. Maybe too much. At times, “Normal” deals in the kind of dippy domestic energy that might have made up half an hour on “Love American Style.” Everybody chases everybody else around and the jokes get leaden, such as when Leonard lies about his military service and Diane asks him his “rank,” and he replies, “Yeah, we hardly ever washed.” Thud.

But Gordon does come up with sharp lines as well (Leonard gets some of the best ones, the aforementioned clunker notwithstanding). He also maintains a crucial human element. Diane, it turns out, grew up in the ghetto where she saw her share of murder victims. It was a place, she tells Leonard, where they played “autopsy” instead of “doctor.” Leonard reflects on Winnie being a virgin when they married and wistfully says, “Y’know, I think she wants to be one again.”

“Normal” moves smoothly at Illusion’s primarily because director Steve Wilber keeps the modest production from lagging and gets valuable performances from his three-person cast.

James Johnson as Leonard is particularly good. Sort of a cross between Bud Cort and Don Knotts, he moves ingratiatingly from self-conscious bumbling to equally self-conscious bravado. No matter how foolish, Leonard’s intentions are always honorable, even a little heroic, and Johnson communicates that integrity while getting us to laugh at Leonard’s foibles.

As Diane, Renee Basford is a punk with feelings, a kid who talks an antisocial streak but is eager to connect. Basford gives her both hard edges and soft curves.

There isn’t anything pliant about Winnie, and that’s how Connie Misen plays her--at least until the very last scene, when she’s allowed to go a little nuts and does a wild, funny turnaround with the character.

‘NORMAL DOESN’T MEAN PERFECT’

An Illusion’s New View Theatre production of Don Gordon’s comedy. Directed by Steve Wilber. With Renee Basford, James Johnson and Connie Misen. Set and Lighting by Jeffrey Ault. Plays at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 5 p.m. Sundays through April 23 at 3030 N. Brea Blvd., Fullerton. Tickets: $7 to $10. Information: (714) 990-9605.