Blue Surge

At Studio 16 until Sept. 5

Tickets: 604.684.2787

www.ticketstonight.ca

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If Doug and Curt, a couple of cops in Rebecca Gilman's Blue Surge, were typical of our own men in blue, we would be in deep trouble. Curt (Jeremy Leroux) is well-intentioned but not sharp. Given the opportunity, he might have gone to college, but his family was dysfunctional and he spent years looking after his ailing mother. Now he just wants to be promoted in the force. Apparently, all that Doug, Curt's partner on the vice squad, wants is anal sex.

And this makes it difficult to care much about Curt, Gilman's main character, or to appreciate the happiness that comes to Doug. He gets a hot babe, a baby and yes, that other thing he wants, too.

Two female characters--Sandy and Heather, who are both hookers working out of a massage parlour--present similar obstacles to us giving a fig about them: Sandy (Megan McGeough) is sweet, but most of us would feel she settles for less; Heather (Tara Pratt) is a hottie. The third woman, Beth (Claire Lindsay) is engaged to Curt, and she's one cold fish. So who do we care about?

After a bungled raid on the massage parlour, Curt strikes up a friendship with Sandy. Beth is furious, Curt is bewildered, and Doug and Heather hook up.

Sabrina Evertt, director and artistic producer of Twenty-Something Theatre, has once again chosen a play with appeal to an audience of 20 or 30-somethings. All five of the characters are youngish and uncertain about meeting their goals--assuming they have any. This is not an uncommon state in which to find oneself--young or old.

But Blue Surge puts the audience in the position of voyeurs, listening in on these characters' sordid childhoods: Sandy's five-times married lesbian mother, Curt's grave-robbing father, drug abuse, poverty. And then there are some gratuitous details of the sex trade--most of the johns are fat or ugly, says Sandy, and "usually fat guys come really fast."

Beth, Curt's completely unlikeable fiancé, comes from an upper middle class family where, as Curt's says, "They have rooms in the house they don't even use"--his limited definition, it seems, of affluence. But she's cool, calculating and her reasons for being with Curt highly suspect. Is she simply slumming? (It's a nice brittle performance, however, by Lindsay in this thankless role.)

Evertt gets good work from all five actors although it might have been better to portray Curt as slightly less clueless. However, Leroux (as Curt) has some charming moments--especially the scene in which he eagerly identifies trees by a set of flashcards that Sandy tests him with.

Pratt, as Heather, has a couple of good drunk scenes, and it's pretty funny when buck naked Doug flashes his badge at her in the massage parlour.

Jonathan Tsang's set is good looking and functional: several brick walls are set at angles to each other and contain several recessed, brightly lit compartments. Change of scenes was accomplished with what seemed like an excessive arrangements and rearrangement of small tables. While Jergus Oprsal's lighting is effective, there were several occasions when the actors--especially when there were two in conversation together--couldn't find their light.

A study guide to Blue Surge states the obvious: "The overall theme of this play is the wide gap between the people of upper-class society, with their wealth and seemingly easy lives of opportunities, and the people of the lower, working classes, with their economic and educational limits (at least in Gilman's portrayal)." This is not late-breaking news and Gilman adds nothing to our understanding or empathy for the less privileged.

What she does do--although not particularly persuasively--is to suggest that hooking is a career choice and not a last resort for some women. That may be true, but it makes for a rather pathetic ending. The best that can be said is that the obvious but saccharine alternative ending--everybody getting married and living happily ever after--would have been worse.

Under Evertt's direction, this is a good production of a not particularly illuminating play.