Families are fragile. Children become adults and go their separate ways. Everybody has their own quirks, complaints, successes, and failures.

Paul Stroili’s play My Mother and the Michigan/Ohio War, at the Purple Rose Theatre through May 25, finds just the right blend of family reconciliation and a rediscovered sense of humor, built around two obsessive wars.

Every year it’s a war.

You know the war: the mighty Wolverines versus that school in Columbus, Ohio.

Every other football game takes a back seat to The Game. This past season, the Buckeyes lost to the Wolverines and the coach had to win the national championship to keep his job. 

Fred Campbell was a big fan of The Game. The home he shared with his wife Izzy was a shrine to the University of Michigan Wolverines. It was his passion.

His other passion was the Toledo War of 1835-1836 to determine who got to claim the Toledo Strip. Ohio was already a state and Michigan would only become a state if a compromise could be reached. Michigan finally capitulated after agreeing to accept the Upper Peninsula and Ohio would keep the Toledo strip. Time would show that Michigan got the better deal.

The play opens with Fred’s funeral in autumn and then jumps forward to spring and a house is in disarray, boxes everywhere as Izzy prepares to leave her house of many years. Her daughter Carey and adopted son Josh come to help.

The audience gets up close and personal with Izzy as the fourth wall fades away and Izzy tells her history and shares some laughs and some tears with the audience. She’s blunt, funny, and alternately confused and determined to have a life. She cracks that she doesn’t like her grown children but she loves them dearly.

Carey is the older of the two siblings. She’s always ready with a quip or a nudge. She’s still taking jabs at her “little brother” who isn’t so little. She’s a U-M grad and, as she says, is “making out OK”.

Josh is a strong, smart, sensitive young man. He went to the enemy Ohio State to play football but was injured after three games. He had to settle for going to medical school.

Director Susan Angelo and her three-person cast work through a play that depends on being both laugh-out-loud funny and having a current of family tension that gives Stroili’s play its poignancy. She keeps the humor as the top note.

Caitlin Cavannaugh plays Carey as a tough young woman who is funny and a bit aggrieved about her life. Cavannaugh brings her to life with a mobile face and a droll gift for sarcasm that can convey a wide range of emotions while also dipping back into the young, sharp-tongued girl she was and the happy tormenter of her brother.

Dez Walker plays Josh. He’s the level-headed, compassionate one. But he is easily goaded by his sister and, at times, his mother. Josh has to deal with his status as the younger brother and the Buckeye in a Wolverine house. Walker makes it real and the serious brother finds his sense of humor.

Center stage is Teri Clark Linden as Izzy, a woman determined to lead her own life. Her monologues are delivered with a snap. She’s hilarious and emotional and not tied to the expectations of others. Linden understands that Izzy is the glue that keeps her fragile family in touch. The interactions with her children are based on the idea that a family forms through a process of accumulated responses, shared memories, and, yes, some deeply felt disappointments. Linden is a perfect anchor.

Rhiannon Ragland has choreographed a “tribute” to the deceased Fred and to Izzy by her children at a local festival to commemorate the Toledo War. While war was never like this, it would be great if it was.

The set by Sam Transleau is excellent. It’s the home of a middle-class family with every little touch recalling a story as boxes get filled, pictures come down, and U-M pennants and memorabilia bring back memories.

Hugh Gallagher has written theater and film reviews over a 40-year newspaper career and was most recently the managing editor of the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers in suburban Detroit. 

Paul Stroili’s "My Mother and the Michigan/Ohio War" will continue at the Purple Rose Theatre, 137 Park Street, Chelsea. Performances are at 3 pm on Wednesdays, 3 and 7:30 pm on Thursdays, 8 pm on Fridays, 3 and 8 pm on Saturdays, and 2 pm on Sundays. For tickets, purplerosetheatre.org or call 734-433-7782.