‘This Girl I Knew’ Has a Muddled Point

Warning: Marcia Wilkie may have been at your slumber party. You just don’t remember.

That’s the kind of nondescript but sly tomboy she is. Or at least that’s who this Chicago performer plays in her “This Girl I Knew” at the Coast Playhouse. And it’s a fairly engaging persona. But the character is much more compelling than the cloying stories she has to tell.

A multicharacter monologue that’s heavily, but not exclusively, autobiographical, “This Girl I Knew” focuses on familiar tribulations ranging from sibling rivalry to envy among girlfriends. Although the identity of the storyteller shifts, there’s only minimal variation between the characters. The result is a whiny sameness--whether Wilkie is posing as the little girl with the spiteful sister or the college gal dumped by her girlfriend. Throughout, Wilkie affects disdain for cutesy things (kitty posters, candy) while simultaneously trying to cash in on her audience’s sentimentality, evoking childhood props from Etch-A-Sketch to ponytailed Chrissy dolls. The attempt to have it both ways, however, cancels out the power these images would have had if they’d been used judiciously.

Ultimately, Wilkie’s yarns about family and love relationships lack a necessary self-critical edge. The line between poking fun at sappiness and sappiness itself is, after all, a thin one. And Wilkie too often lands on the wrong side of that divide.

* “This Girl I Knew,” Coast Playhouse, 8325 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, Friday-Saturday, 10:30 p.m. Ends Jan. 22. $12. (213) 650-8507. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.