STAGE REVIEW : ‘Emily’ Falls Short on Substance : Drama: Although the questions posed in Stephen Metcalfe’s play go largely unanswered, the North Coast Repertory Theatre’s production is witty and engaging.

Where, oh where, is yuppie love, and why does it seem to elude the successful, single career woman?

“Whither love?” seems to have knocked out the ever-popular “What do women want?” as a recurring barb posed to the women of the modern era. And the answer is a downer, judging from Heidi in Wendy Wasserstein’s Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “The Heidi Chronicles.”

The theme is also prominent on television.

Take attorney Grace Van Owen, who lost her guy to a Laker Girl on this season’s “L. A. Law.” Or Ellyn, who faced seasons of dreary solitude on “thirtysomething” before wresting her beau from the arms of another, rendering the conquered career woman single.

Stephen Metcalfe poses the question of whether success means singlehood in “Emily,” playing at the North Coast Repertory Theatre through April 14. It doesn’t have any fresh insights, and it has more than its share of inconsistencies. But, thanks to a witty sensibility and an engaging production by the North Coast, it does pose the questions entertainingly.

The script has been slightly revised since the play’s premiere at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986. This time, the man Emily loves and drives away stays away. It’s more realistic, but it still feels like a play in search of an ending. If losing the love of her life means as much as Metcalfe seems to imply, shouldn’t the experience change her in some discernible way? Would she really just continue doing the same old things in the same old way?

Metcalfe’s depiction of Emily--a high-powered New York stockbroker--seems to be that she, at least, is single because she fears commitment.

But Metcalfe doesn’t seem to have thought out the whys.

It’s not really clear whether Emily fears commitment because she needs that edge to succeed in business or

because her parents divorced before she was 3 and, by all appearances here, have not followed up with a model of any successful relationships.

To render the mix even more ambiguous, Metcalfe casts her employer as her father, thereby casting doubt as to whether Emily got to where she is by nepotism or her own skills. He even dangles an Oedipal suggestion that a man competing with her commitment to her business is actually competing with her desire to please Daddy, as evidenced by a scene in which she must decide between running a new company for her father or rushing off to Minnesota to pursue her love.

Or does she have yet another motivation? Does she want to run Daddy’s company into the ground, as her mother asks her to, as revenge for some injuries her mother feels, which are also never clearly explained.

Not once does Emily speak of her feelings for her father or why she works for him or if she has ever considered working elsewhere. Not once do her co-workers rag her about working for her old man. Not once does she even explain what it is that she likes about her job or why it is worth the sacrifices it entails.

Metcalfe throws out suggestions without making a commitment to any one theory as to why Emily chooses to be alone. His Emily is a characterization that stays as relentlessly on the surface as Emily herself does.

But the flaw is almost forgivable because that surface is so charming and bright and self-ironic.

Emily knows how to laugh at herself.

“You know how I eat--out,” she says to the man she loves, a penniless aspiring actor named Jon Stone who waits tables. She walks up to the audience and talks to it directly, making fun of her apartment--still bare after four years--her mother, whose philosophy is summed up by “If you want fulfillment, you go shopping,” and her fear that the introduction of plants into her life translates into obligations and responsibilities.

But Stone loves her anyway. She can’t shake him off by bossing him around, taking him to restaurants where he complains that “the entrees cost more than my rent,” or even by introducing him to her friends who make remarks like “So you wait tables. How incredibly demeaning.”

Stone even fails to run away when she proposes marriage, her usual ploy when she wants to scare a man away. He accepts and thinks they’re engaged. Then Emily’s problem is how to get rid of the man she loves.

Susana Moore has the big job of winning us over as this difficult woman--and she does just that, drawing us in, making us laugh, making us feel some of the pain under the bright smiles.

Andrew Barnicle’s smart direction gets the ensemble cast working in a synchronization that glosses over many of the script’s problems. Particularly fine are Mark Howen, Joe Tavormina, Jonathan Gonzalez and Eric Briner as Emily’s smart-talking colleagues. C. J. Hunt provides charm as the wholesome Minnesota-bred Jon. Sandra Eagye is appropriately brittle as Emily’s mother and Dale Delmege appropriately opaque as her work-obsessed dad.

Susan Scher, a talented actress, seems a bit too attractive for Hallie, the supposedly dumpy friend who can’t get to first base with a man.

The best of the technical support is the minimalist set by Andrew Barnicle; it’s bare, but it works. Terry Price falters with the uncertain, erratic lighting, and Kathryn Gould puzzles with an odd costume for Emily. Would a serious businesswoman really wear something that looks like black lingerie peeking out from a low-cut business suit?

“EMILY”

By Stephen Metcalfe. Director, Andrew Barnicle. Set, Andrew Barnicle. Lighting, Terry Price. Costumes, Kathryn Gould. Sound, Marvin Read. Stage manager, Sharleen Donnelly. With Susana Moore, Bob Himlin, Eric Briner, Mark Howen, Joe Tavormina, Jonathan Gonzalez, Dale Delmege, Susan Scher, C.J. Hunt, Sandra Eagye and Patti Shelton Keyes. At 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays, through April 14. Tickets are $10 to $12. At 987-D Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach. (619) 481-1055.