By Charlene Baldridge
SDUN Theatre Critic

Norman is God’s Gift. He wants nothing more from life than to make all the women in his family happy, including his wife, Ruth. Those women would include his spinster sister-in-law, Annie, and her sister-in-law, Sarah.

As meticulously detailed by recent Lifetime Achievement Tony Award-winner Sir Alan Ayckbourn in his 1973 trilogy of full-length comedies titled “The Norman Conquests,” Norman is the world’s most deluded and inept wooer. With overlapping action set in three locations in the same house over the course of one hilariously disastrous weekend, each of the three parts—“Round and Round the Garden,” “Living Together” and Table Manners”—stands alone. See them one at a time in any order, or see all three performed in one marathon day through Nov. 7 at Cygnet Theatre’s Old Town Stage. All are co-directed by Artistic Director Sean Murray and Resident Artist Francis Gercke.

Promising to make her “very happy,” Norman (Albert Dayan) has arranged to take Annie (Jo Anne Glover) away for an adulterous tryst. His workaholic wife, Ruth (Francis Anita Rivera), remains in London, believing Norman has gone to a conference for assistant librarians. Instead of meeting Annie as arranged, Norman comes to the large country house where she tends her aged, unseen mother. For a couple of years Tom (Danny Campbell), the affable but vacuous local veterinarian, has half-heartedly courted Annie.

Annie’s excitable brother Reg (Ron Choularton) and his nervous, martyred wife, Sarah (Sandy Campbell), arrive to take care of Reg and Annie’s bedridden mother during Annie’s absence. Sarah discovers the true nature of Annie’s getaway and persuades her not to go. Thwarted and exposed, Norman becomes rip-roaring drunk on homemade dandelion and parsnip wine and phones his vain, near-sighted wife, Ruth (Francis Anita Rivera), who is Reg and Annie’s sister. Ruth is widely detested, for reasons made apparent when she arrives. As one becomes better acquainted with these six characters the hilarity compounds.

Seen recently in Cygnet’s “Noises Off,” Dayan is an astonishing physical comedian, possessed of rubber ankles and knees and an ability to make his blissfully amoral character likable. The others are adept comedians as well, delivering Ayckbourn’s descriptive putdowns with relish. They don’t “work” at being funny. The humor comes from Ayckbourn’s genius, their talent and Murray and Gercke’s canny direction. Set designer Sean Fanning, lighting designer Michelle Caron, costume designer Jeanne Reith and sound designer George Ye support the Cygnet production beautifully.

Over a half century Sir Ayckbourn wrote more than 74 full-length plays and musicals for his home theater in Scarborough. More than half moved to London’s West End or the National Theatre, from whence many moved to Broadway. “The Norman Conquests” was revived at London’s Old Vic in 2008 and transferred to Broadway, where it received the 2009 Tony Award for Best Revival. Cygnet is the only theatre in the nation to produce all three parts of “The Norman Conquests” this season.

There are four additional “Conquer Norman Saturdays” (Aug. 28, Sept. 18, Oct. 9 and Oct. 30) on which the three plays are performed at noon and 4 and 8 pm. Special lunch and dinner packages are available at Old Town restaurants.

The Norman Conquests
Wednesdays and Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.
Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.
Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m.

Old Town Stage
4040 Twiggs St.
Old Town San Diego State Historic Park
Tickets: $22-$42
337-1525
cygnettheatre.com