THEATER REVIEW : Poignancy of Parental Love Sums Up ‘The Sum’ : North Coast Repertory presents with sensitivity and style the story of a man helping his son find Mr. Right.

North Coast Repertory Theatre, which was staging such works as “Torch Song Trilogy” and “The Normal Heart” when gay themes still took patrons by surprise, is offering “The Sum of Us,” a 1991 Obie-winner by David Stevens.

In this simple, tender and often witty drama about a widowed Australian and his gay son, the conflict is not about sexuality, and no one gets AIDS. What drives the story is the father’s determination that Jeff be happy, and if that means helping him find a “cheerful” mate (Dad dislikes the word “gay”), Dad will do whatever it takes--from cruising gay bars with Jeff to bringing home gay magazines to serving Jeff’s overnight guests tea in bed.

Which really freaks out the overnight guests.

“The Sum of Us” is not a major play with great implications. Its significance derives from the very ordinariness of its skillfully written characters. The gay son is not brilliant, rich, famous or wildly charismatic. He’s a plumber whose big dream is that the nice young gardener he meets in a pub will turn out to be Mr. Right.

Rosina Widdowson-Reynolds directs with sensitivity and style, eliciting a particularly lovely and fluid performance as Jeff from newcomer Kevin Patrick Walls, whose quiet agony as a nice but lonely, less-than-forceful guy touches the heart.

Peter Rose sets down a solid anchor as Harry, the unwaveringly supportive if slightly smothering father, though he clearly is better portraying extremes of love and exasperation than finer shades of feeling. In more simply drawn roles, J.D. Meier makes a credibly confused Greg, Jeff’s unsure gardener, and Wendy Cullum is appropriately stiff and repressed as Joyce, a woman Harry woos only to find that she can’t accept his son’s homosexuality.

The design details, from Marty Burnett’s unfussy working class set to the costumes by Sue Schaffner and Widdowson-Reynolds, fit the piece snugly without adding or taking away very much.

*

While the play is small in scope, more could be plumbed from it. Stevens writes segments during which his characters talk to the audience; these could be more cleanly demarcated. And there is a sub-story about the father’s mother, who took a female lover after her husband died; this floats a suggestion--not fully nailed down in this production--that the father feels guilty about having separated his mother from her true love, a mistake he doesn’t want to repeat with his son.

But these are minor flaws in a show that overall is a pleasurably funny, poignant look at real life in the ‘90s--at once true to its gay subject matter and to the universal issue of parental love, its grand possibilities and its often painful limitations.

* “The Sum of Us,” North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987D Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach. Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Feb. 20. $14-$16. (619) 481-1055. Running time: 2 hours, 8 minutes. Peter Rose: Harry Mitchell

Kevin Patrick: Walls Jeff

J.D. Meier: Greg

Wendy Cullum: Joyce

A North Coast Repertory Theatre production of a play by David Stevens, directed by Rosina Widdowson-Reynolds. Sets: Marty Burnett. Lights: Lisa M. Lane. Sound: Michael Shapiro. Costumes: Sue Schaffner and Rosina Widdowson-Reynolds. Dialect coach: Jenni Prisk. Stage manager: Sue Schaffner.