This preview originally appeared in the MetroWest Daily News on Sunday, May 1, 2005.

Questioning 'Normal': Hovey Players explore impact of sex change on a family

By David Brooks Andrews / Daily News Correspondent

The Hovey Players don't flinch at taking on difficult topics, even if it means risking success at the box office.

They're certainly not flinching with their upcoming production of "Looking for Normal," by Jane Anderson. It's about a man, Roy, who announces to his wife, Irma, after 25 years of marriage, that he's a woman trapped inside a man's body and wants to have a sex change operation. To intensify the drama, Anderson sets the play in rural Ohio and has Roy working in a John Deere factory.

As soon as Kate Tonner read the script, she knew that she wanted to play Irma, even though she couldn't imagine any couple facing this dilemma. And the Natick resident has been thrilled ever since landing the role.

"I like the fact that I get to play all the emotions," said Tonner. "Not just a happy wife or a sad wife, an angry wife or a frustrated one. I get to play a real woman going through all those emotions."

Tonner admitted that it's difficult to wrap one's head around the problem that Roy faces. She said that the play is not sensational or provocative but is about a family facing extreme problems and attempting to work their way through them.

"I like the play because it shows that when two people love each other, if they work at something really hard, they can get through it," Tonner said.

The show includes the struggles and reactions of the couple's two children -- one grown and the other going through puberty -- Roy's parents, his boss, their minister and his deceased grandmother, who was a sexual rebel herself following World War I. The play takes place over the course of a year and ends just as Roy is about to go in for the surgery.

Roy is played by John Tierney, whom Tonner described as "all male and a secure man."

"You can see he's a gentle person when you look in his face and eyes," she added.

Jere Babst, also of Natick, plays Frank, who's Roy's friend and boss at the John Deere plant. When he learns of Roy's intentions, Frank approaches Irma romantically but not wanting to deceive Roy.

Babst said that the challenge of the role at first was to figure out why he's even in the play. "I decided that Frank exists to be one more trial for Irma, to be a temptation to her, to offer her a normal life as an alternative," he said.

Although Babst's own role is fairly small, he has kept busy observing the other performances.

"As an actor, the roles of Roy and Irma are absolutely fascinating to me because of all that they have to deal with, which is so far from anything I've ever experienced," he said.

An actors' director

To prepare for the production, the cast not only read several books on the subject of the play, but they met with a transgendered person, a man who's had a sex change operation, and the woman who was his wife and has remained with her after the change.

Babst said that the couple's experience is very similar to Roy and Irma's in the play.

"The wife went through various stages from disbelief to anger to acceptance," said Babst.

The change has been very hard on their daughter. And about half their friends left them. Like Roy and Irma, the couple was married for approximately 25 years before the change. And they've remained together for another six years. Often a spouse will help a partner through the transition, but it's rare for a couple to stay together afterward.

Babst said the transgendered person they met with has no problem passing as a woman. Although she had to go through intensive image consulting to learn how to walk, shake hands, put on makeup and wear her hair in ways that are consistent with other women.

Both Tonner and Babst are delighted to be working with the show's director, Michelle Aguillon. Babst called her an "actors' director," someone who understands the process of creating a role from years of experience as an actor herself.

He said that many community theater directors tell you what to do and how to say your lines, but Aguillon establishes a goal and then allows her actors to figure out how to get there.

"I love it when directors say, 'This is what I'm looking for,' and then trust you to find the way to give it to them," said Babst. "Michelle allows us to make choices, explore and have fun. If a rehearsal's not fun, what's the point. I don't do this to be tortured."

"Michelle never misses anything," said Tonner. "When she sees or hears a nuance (in your performance), she doesn't tell you what to do, but asks you about it. With her, there's a real collaboration between actor and director. She lets you question everything. 'If that's how you feel, then let me see it,' she says."

The need to act

Tonner first became involved in community theater years ago when she was a young housewife. Her first husband was off starting a business and she needed something to do. "I got into theater, because I couldn't raise plants and the League of Women Voters wouldn't take me," she said.

Her 38-year-old son, Sean, who's a foreign car mechanic, tells friends that the lullabies his mother used to sing him were show tunes. He jokes, "I'm the only straight guy I know who knows all the words to musicals."

Her 33-year-old daughter, Heather, who produces spots for Fox television specials, says that she grew up in a playpen during her mother's rehearsals.

Now Tonner is married to Michael Tonner, who also acts, directs and currently is vice president and treasurer of Hovey Players. They have a 13-year-old son, James, who comes to see their performances but hasn't shown any interest in performing himself. "I started playing ingenues, then sex kittens and now mothers and grandmothers," said Tonner. "The mothers and grandmothers are much more fun than ingenues, because they have more depth; are much meatier roles."

This is Babst's first show with the Hovey Players, but he's acted with a number of other companies, including Sherborn Players, the Gazebo Players of Medfield and the professional Wellesley Summer Theatre. He started the Natick Ensemble Theatre, which no longer exists.

Babst said that acting is a compulsion for him, and that he loves being in front of people in ways that can affect or change them. As a result, he's also served as an auctioneer at his church, done stand-up training and taught acting classes. His wife, Gail, is very supportive of his acting, but has no interest in performing herself.

"I'd like people to come away from this show realizing that marriage is stronger than things that might test it," said Babst, acknowledging that he can't think of anything more trying on a marriage than one of the members deciding to have a sex change. "If you're opposed to the subject matter, I'd say don't come see it. Leave the seats for those who want them."   

"Looking for Normal" runs through May 21 at the Abbott Theatre, Joel's Way, 9 Spring Street, Waltham. Tickets cost $15, $13 for students and seniors, and can be reserved by calling 781-893-9171.

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