The play is written and directed by the same person (Dan James), about a writer who can't seem to put the finishing touches to either his book or the woman he's in love with.  It starts with the writer fighting with his
own inner voice that sounds from a speaker above.  In short: we are afraid that we have entered either a bad student's journal entry or the type of self-conscious and self-reflexive drama that is virtually impossible to do well - or worse, a combination of both.

But it is neither of those things.  The thing one takes away from this play is its simplicity, its ironic and playful tone, with just enough seriousness to keep our attention.  The one thing that the play both succeeds without and falls short of is drama.

It is about a couple, Ross (Ross Burley) and Beth (Sarah Philpott), who are enviably in love.  Their playful banter, loving glances and subtle touching are only briefly interrupted by short little relationship spats.  They are
at that point in a relationship when the things that go wrong, pass over quickly and do not contribute to that swirling, deepening, psychosis of love that one encounters in later stages of a relationship.

That is, until Beth's annoying friend Milly (Jodie Adams, played with a flair for the annoying) comes to live with them, at the very moment Ross is about to propose to Beth.  Milly looks remarkably similar to Ross' old
flame Naomi - his old flame who he never got over, who he promised to meet again ten years after they last said goodbye.  The play bounces back and forth between moments in Ross' past with Naomi and moments in the present with Beth, until the final scene where he goes back to the spot he promised to meet Naomi ten years earlier. You can usually predict where the play ends up going before it gets there.  And with only one major surprise, it goes everywhere we expect it to.

James manages to do the impossible well: not have his directing or his writing undercut the other.  Where the script still needs some work - flower and sunset metaphors that have worn thin, or brief moments of soliloquy that are too self-serious - he compensatesr with direction of the actors' delivery that seems to shift the balance right.

But the real joy of the play comes from peering into the front window of their home.  Ross is so likable, so honest with the audience and his partners, vulnerable and yet too funny to pin down as pathetic.  His character is perhaps best captured by the out of place hairs on his head: he's passionate, but undisciplined.  He recites beautiful poetry one moment and pees in a potted plant the next. Even some of the more hackneyed metaphors come alive in Burley's engaging delivery.  Beth carries a dignity about her that gives her character a bit more complexity than the typical ingénue. Her facial expressions bounce all over the spectrum of emotions,
with the capriciousness and irresistibility of a newborn baby. We can hardly look away from her.

The play works because we fall in love with the characters ourselves and it's easy to see why they're in love with each other.

Oliver Morrison