Crossing Over Lightly in ‘Normal’

Crossing from one gender to another is such a dramatic journey that it’s surprising there haven’t been more plays on the subject.

Jane Anderson’s “Looking for Normal,” getting its world premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, manages the task of covering one such journey with a light touch, yet without making fun of the protagonist or anyone else. It also offers a compassionate and convincing case that human ties can transcend gender.

If the play finally seems a little pat around the edges, it’s still engrossing, full of sharply written exchanges and with an especially revelatory performance from Laurie Metcalf as the wife of the man who wants to become a woman.

In order to demonstrate that transgender feelings can crop up just about anywhere, Anderson created a character who fits the usual profile of “normal” a little too precisely. Roy is 45, a happily married father of two--a boy and a girl. He lives in a small town in Ohio, where he works in quality control at a John Deere plant.

The casting of Beau Bridges emphasizes this middle American standard. In a Times interview, Anderson said Bridges is “a wonderful choice” because she wanted “a comfortable guy’s guy.” Bridges projects that quality, effortlessly.

The problem is that under the surface, Roy is supposed to be extremely uncomfortable. Yet Anderson gives Bridges surprisingly few opportunities to directly express his repressed, decades-long agony. As the play opens, Roy has already seen a psychiatrist--who isn’t depicted--for a year. He soon tells others about his condition, but without many details. We hear about Roy’s headaches, and we learn from others that as a boy, he liked dolls and was once caught cross-dressing. But the script could use a louder cri de coeur, in Roy’s own voice.

Bridges does succeed in cleanly delineating the comfort level of his three turns in women’s clothes.

The play isn’t about Roy as much as it is about the impact of Roy’s odyssey on those around him--and this is where it shines.

Roy’s wife, Irma, knew something was amiss--she prods Roy into seeing their minister in the first scene. But she had no idea of the specific cause of Roy’s headaches and declining libido. Metcalf’s reactions are the most dynamic moments in Ron Lagomarsino’s staging--from her initial fear and trembling to her sardonic rolls of the eyes to her breathtaking loss of composure to her touching final statement. The fact that Irma, not Roy, has that last monologue reveals Anderson’s priorities--but Metcalf’s performance is so vital that she makes Anderson’s choices seem like brainstorms.

The script is especially trenchant in its analysis of the way Roy’s bombshell hits his 13-year-old daughter, Patty Ann (Becky Wahlstrom), who is exploring womanhood for the first time, along with her father. Patty Ann doesn’t appreciate the rituals of her gender and can’t imagine that her father wants to cross over. Wahlstrom and Bridges share brief commentaries on those rituals in one perfectly tuned scene, and Wahlstrom delivers her monologues--full of anatomical details--with a dry, wry touch.

Playing Roy’s young adult son, who has a harder time coping with his father’s changes than anyone else, is Beau’s son Jordan Bridges. His monologues have a harder edge than Wahlstrom’s, but he keeps his cool until an explosive Thanksgiving dinner, where Anderson resolves the conflict far too easily, slightly undermining the actors’ performances.

Roy’s rapidly aging father is undergoing his own transformation, which Jim Haynie handles with superb verisimilitude, and Marjorie Lovett as Roy’s mother smoothly embodies Ohio decency and restraint. Kelly Connell and Dougald Park exhibit flawless timing as, respectively, the flustered minister and Roy’s boss, who has woman troubles of his own.

Then there is Roy’s dead grandmother (Michael Learned), who speaks only to the audience, offering historical perspective. She’s useful in breaking up the flat Midwestern surfaces, but her flamboyance is overwritten. During World War I, she left husband and toddler and ran off to Paris, sampling romance with every shade of gender and age (even Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo) and joining the Resistance. Learned brings authority to this role, but the character remains a caricature and a device.

Not so much, however, that it dims the real achievements of this brisk and accessible dispatch from the transgender front.

* “Looking for Normal,” Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 4 and 8:30 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends May 6. $21-$43. (310) 208-5454; (213) 365-3500. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

Beau Bridges: Roy

Laurie Metcalf: Irma

Jordan Bridges: Wayne

Becky Wahlstrom: Patty Ann

Michael Learned: Grandmother Ruth

Kelly Connell: Reverend Muncie

Jim Haynie: Roy Senior

Marjorie Lovett: Em

Dougald Park: Frank

Written by Jane Anderson. Directed by Ron Lagomarsino. Set by Scott Bradley. Costumes by Walker Hicklin. Lighting by Michael Lincoln. Music by Lewis Flinn. Production stage manager Elizabeth A. Brohm.