The Norbals

David E. Kemp, former drama professor at Queen’s University, is the
author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

Brian Drader is an actor, ascreenwriter, and an award-winning
playwright. The Norbals, winner of the Herman Voaden National
Playwriting Competition, is an affectionate comedy about a loving but
thoroughly dysfunctional family. Mom is a batty Gracie Allen type who is
constantly identifying her friends by their illnesses while viewing her
family through rose-colored glasses. Dad is addicted to his camera.
Middle son Bee wants a sex change and is in love with Connie, a lesbian.
Son Danny and his wife are penniless would-be yuppies. Sons Randall and
Sean are a narcoleptic and a morphine addict, respectively.

The Norbals is very funny, but Drader never lets the wild, wacky, and
often biting humor intrude on the play’s quieter moments. He also
never allows his characters to become one-dimensional. The underlying
message of The Norbals is that love overrides all blemishes.