STAGE REVIEW : ‘Norman, Is That You?’ Revives Ebony Showcase

The Ebony Showcase, L.A.’s oldest black theater and teetering on the edge of foreclosure, has come storming back to life with a surprisingly funny production of that pre-AIDS gay chestnut, “Norman, Is That You?”

This is Ron Clark and Sam Bobrick’s comedy about a blustery father and a gay son emerging from the closet. Though it quickly expired on Broadway, it ran seven years at the Ebony (1971-78), where it became the most popular production in a theater founded by Nick and Edna Stewart in 1949. The Stewarts are still manning the fort, fighting off creditors with this final gamble at pulling their theater back together.

They hope success will strike twice at the Ebony (where a Korean-language theater festival is also under way). I reviewed the debut of “Norman, Is That You?” at the Ebony 20 years ago and expected the play to be terribly dated. I was wrong.

Like “La Cage Aux Folles,” “Norman, Is That You?” is not gay dramatic literature but a down-home, simplistic comedy for straight audiences who can laugh and feel worldly at the same time. Because it’s pre-AIDS, “Norman, Is That You?” is almost quaint. But some things never change, like macho fathers and gay children.

Can we still find this dilemma funny? It is here, thanks mainly to director William Knight, who also doubles as the catatonic father and whose superb timing and brisk pacing keep the laughs coming.

“I was a gay blade in my youth too,” boasts the father unwittingly when he thinks his son has a woman in his bed.

The plot is not cliche-free, but it’s as light as a souffle. It remains problematic whether gay audiences will find it so funny. The gay son’s lover minces about in red satin pajamas in a cuddly performance by Mark B. Ropers that’s overbaked and too precious. It’s the kind of performance that smacks of a heterosexual perspective and the only misstep in an otherwise strongly acted and designed show (the apartment interior by designer John Lewis is the most lavish set in memory at the Ebony).

The sly, understated topicality here is that the lovers are interracial. The family is black, but the titled Norman’s live-in partner is white, as we learn in a humorous moment when he arises from his bed sheets early in the play. (During the show’s 12 performances on Broadway in 1970, with Maureen Stapleton and Lou Jacobi, all the characters were white.)

It’s interesting how this revival is tilling the same interracial soil as the feverish new movie “Jungle Fever.” Yet in the play, nobody talks or seems aware of color. Racism is never an issue--white-and-black is a sublime given. “Norman, Is That You?” is thus not a mindless comedy but a fantasy.

Knight’s bewildered and cuckolded father, aghast to learn that Alexander the Great and songwriter Stephen Foster were gay (in one of the play’s funnier running gags), is surrounded with solid support. Lending flavor are Craig Thomas as the son, Elma V. Jackson as the understanding mother (back from the Ebony’s original production of “Norman”) and beauteous Dawn McFarlin as the languorous, leggy cover model of a Park Avenue hooker, whom Dad brings upstairs for his son and winds up with himself.

Yes, it’s that kind of play. What works is that you kind of care about these people.

Norman, is that still you? What happened to the revolution?

* “Norman, Is That You?” Ebony Showcase, 4720 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles. Fridays,8:30 p.m. ; Saturdays, 10 p.m. ; Sundays, 3 p.m. ; through June 23. Thereafter, Fridays-Saturdays,8:30 p.m., Sundays, 3 and 7:30 p.m., indefinitely. $17.50-$22.50. (213) 936-1107. Running time: 2 hours.