Dustin Bronson, Sally Wingert, John Paul Gamoke, and Jay Eisenberg

When the curtain rises on the first act, we are greeted by a spectacle of total domestic chaos, a living room and kitchen run together that makes Pee-wee's Playhouse look like a Martha Stewart showcase. Set designer Joseph Stanley and properties designer Abbee Warmboe have created a work of haywire genius, looking like the total inventory of a Goodwill resale shop was strewn about in totally random manner. In the midst of this we see Paige (Sally Wingert), dressed in wildly clashing print tunic and pants, and her husband Arnold (John Paul Gamoke), incapacitated by a stroke and wearing a frilly sleeveless dress, a lace skirt through which we can see his tighty whities, a pink clown's fright wig, and his face smeared with clown make-up. The image is shockingly, absurdly disordered.

Into this lunacy, son Isaac (Dustin Bronson) arrives home after three years of marine service in Afghanistan. Isaac was in the mortuary unit, his duties being the collection of body parts in order to gather remains to be sent to loved ones. He seeks refuge in the orderly, functioning home he left behind, and is appalled by the scene he steps into. He knew of his father's stroke, but not the severity, or that his mother seized the opportunity to further emasculate Arnold, rebel against the yoke of wifely duty and husbandly abuse, and take charge with a vengeance. On top of that, Isaac discovers that his teenage sister Max is undergoing hormone treatments to change to a male, with a nascent beard sprouting out of his face. Max instructs Isaac on how to talk about the new multiple-gendered ("a whole alphabet of genders") "hir" instead of him or her, "ze" in place of he or she, to describe a world that is not bifurcated by gender.

The remainder of Hir is a battle of wills between Isaac, seeking a return to order, both in his familial home and in the behaviors associated with gender, and Paige, jubilant in her new freedom and belief that she is now in control, though to be in control over chaos raises its own problems. Mother and son battle over Arnold. Paige insists that he deserves to be dominated and degraded for the years of abuse he heaped upon her. Isaac, though also a victim of Arnold's abuse, cannot stand to see his father treated like a bothersome house pet: to wit, Paige's practice of spraying Arnold with a squirt bottle when he utters an unwelcome word, as one might spray a cat who ventures onto the sofa. Max is a youth searching for meaning and identity, and is caught in the middle, between Paige's strident insistence on busting the boundaries of convention, and Isaac's pleas to restore those same boundaries.

Hir confronts us with absurd situations, but the writing is whip smart. Taylor Mac gives voice to each character (granted, Arnold's voice is limited to single words, grunts, and hang-dog stares) that convinces us that each one believes him or herself totally reasonable. As we learn bits and pieces about each character—Arnold's declining morale after the loss of his job, Isaac's dishonorable discharge, Paige's new job with a not-for-profit, Max's dreams of living on a commune of gay anarchists—we discover things about each person that make sense, that could be real, even evoking sympathy ... were they not pushed to extremes. Moreover, statements like "experimenting is what people say they are doing when they don't want to admit they're wrong," or Max's assertion that his mother "is not home schooling me—I am home schooling her!" give us plenty to think about.

Sally Wingert brings a burst of non-stop energy to Paige, an unchecked freedom that, having broken the domestic bounds imposed on her as a wife and mother, has given in to total abandon, acting out her every impulse no matter how vile, stating every thought no matter how hurtful. Though she places no controls on herself, she is determined to control everyone in her orbit, to be as monstrous as Arnold had been monstrous to her. Her insistence that her children use correct grammar in the face of her scorn for social convention is both pathetic and delicious. Wingert makes this misguided, wounded, wretched person a source of constant hilarity, a comic train wreck.

Of course, Sally Wingert is known to create magic with any role—Cabaret's Fraülein Schneider one month, the holocaust survivor Rose the next, then Maria Callas conducting a Master Class. It would be too easy for her to dominate the proceedings and throw Hir off balance. Fortunately, her castmates each match her in creating a full character, and Niegel Smith's direction allows each member of this terminally dysfunctional family to be as fully realized as Paige.

Dustin Bronson gives Isaac a sympathetic edge, pushed to extremes in response to his freak show of a family, struggling to keep up with an impossible rate of change. Jay Eisenberg gives Max the painfulness of a youth who doesn't fit into society's molds, trying valiantly to project certainty while being completely untethered. John Paul Gamoke doesn't have much to say as the drug addled Arnold, but his body language and facial expressions capture a famished soul betrayed by his own past. When he does speak up we are convinced that his old self still lives within the psychic prison Paige has built around him.

I mentioned the audience response to the scene before them each time the curtain rises. I won't tell you what to expect when the curtain lifts on act two, but I do hope you will have the opportunity to see for yourself. I would not wish upon anyone to be part of this family—even to live next door to them—but they do raise questions worth giving thought to, while giving the laugh muscles a serious workout.

Hir continues at the Mixed Blood Theatre through March 22, 2015. 1501 S. Fourth Street, Minneapolis, MN. Tickets are $20 for reserved seats, Radical Hospitality seats free at the door prior to performances. For tickets call 612-338-6331 or visit mixedblood.com.

Writer: Taylor Mac; Director: Niegel Smith; Producer: Mark Valdez; Set Designer and Technical Director: Joseph Stanley; Costume Designer: Trevor Bowen; Lighting Designer: Karin Olson; Properties Designer: Abbee Warmboe; Assistant Lighting Designer: Tony Stoeri; Fight Choreographer: Annie Enneking; Production Coordinator: Cody Braudt; Stage Manager: Raul Ramos.

Cast: Dustin Bronson (Isaac), (Jay Eisenberg (Max), John Paul Gamoke (Arnold), Sally Wingert (Paige)

Photo: Rich Ryan

- Arthur Dorman

Also see the season schedule for the Minneapolis - St. Paul region