THIs

At the Playhouse until Jan. 29

Tickets: 604.873.3311

vancouverplayhouse.com

A line mid-play and thrown away by an underdeveloped character in This grabbed me: "This," indicating a file that contains, presumably, details of yet another Third World country in peril, "is upsetting," snarls Jean-Pierre. "This," scornfully indicating his shallow, self-absorbed friends, "is dinky."

But This goes on well after Jean-Pierre (Fabrice Grover), a physician with Doctors Without Borders, delivers that stinger and walks out on his friends. It's only one idea--and not the central one--playwright Melissa James Gibson is working on. Had that been her focus, I would credit her with sucking us all in with crisp, funny dialogue, crackling wordplay, jazzy music and then forcing us to re-examine what's really important: characters Merrell and Tom's baby who only sleeps 15 minutes at a time or babies dying of AIDS in faraway places? Jane and Tom's infidelity or the epidemic of rapes in Rwanda?

But the play goes on to make another, different point about surviving the death of a husband and getting on with serving the needs of the living--in this case, a child. And that's a worthy--if less earth shattering--theme, too.

The play opens with Tom (Todd Thomson) insisting on playing a parlour game. Friend and dinner guest Jane (Megan Follows) reluctantly agrees to leave the room while the rest of them--Tom, Merrell (Karen Holness), Jean-Pierre and another friend Alan (Dmitry Chepovetsky)--make up a story. However, they only pretend to make up a story. Asking questions that can only be answered with "yes" or "no," Jane is supposed to figure it out. Of course, she ends up revealing her own, inner drama and when she catches on, she leaves angrily. It feels like a contrived opener, but the playwright cleverly repeats the game later--only the second time it's for real.

Gibson doesn't make it easy to invest in these characters. Merrell dithers over the condition of the water filter in the kitchen, Tom is a lout and Jane is decent but distant. Follows eventually breaks through her character's carefully built shell when Jane confronts the irrevocability of death; I was deeply moved by Follows' performance at that point, but it comes late.

While we don't especially relate to Alan, he's a clever dramatic device: he has a neurological condition that gives him perfect recall of every conversation he's ever heard. So when Tom and Merrell replay an argument they had in Alan's presence, he corrects them on exactly what was said. Chepovetsky takes the role, does a Woody Allen on it and makes this urban drama extremely funny.

Directed by Amiel Gladstone, these are all strong performances. Grover might have brought more depth--or at least the suggestion of depth--to Jean-Pierre, but to be fair, the playwright doesn't give him much to work with. Holness, as new mother/lounge singer Merrell, really is a jazz singer so it's a treat to see her move over to the grand piano stage left and sing the playwright's lyrics to music written for this production by Peter Eldridge.

Alison Green's set is awkward with Jane's apartment set like a box above Merrell and Tom's living room. In the play's final moments when our hearts should be going out to Jane, Follows is too far away for the moment to be intimate.

This multitude of reservations aside, I liked--and admired--This a lot. I laughed, Chepovetsky is terrific and seeing Follows--after years of seeing her as Anne of Green Gables--is informative and satisfying. She's a mature, consummate actor. And if Gibson didn't write the play I really wanted, that's my problem.

joled@telus.net