Norma and Wanda

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Norma and Wanda is wacky and farcical, with plenty of physical comedy and hilarious one-liners, but lurking behind the seemingly silly facade lies a universal truth you won't expect. The Purple Rose's intimate space and set designer Dan Walker's cutaway view of a typical prim midwestern home both allow for a delightful, fly-on-the-wall view of this bizarre yet hauntingly familiar get-together. It's an amalgam of every emotion, confession, and resolution at every dysfunctional family gathering I've ever attended. It's hilarious and scary, all at once.

Things start off with two sisters each awaiting the arrival of someone the other doesn't want to see. Sweet, compliant Norma (Michelle Mountain) is waiting for her husband, Mel (Jim Porterfield), to come home. Mel, who is locally notorious for his homemade sausage ("It's the combination of the high quality of my meat and pork fat"), openly hates Norma's sister Wanda (Sandra Birch). Understandably nervous, Norma is making peanut butter balls for the town's annual Baby Jesus Memorial Brunch while the uninvited, unwelcome Wanda (wearing an audacious blue dress and leather moccasins) roars and plows her way across the space like a steam train while she waits for an old classmate turned town thug, Paulie Perkins (Grant R. Krause), to report back after "doing" her no-good boyfriend.