A kaleidoscope of post-9/11 America

Stationed at her phone, a chipper, sunny-voiced California mom fulfills her duty as room mother by calling other families to remind them that today is a “TAD” on campus -- a “terrorist alert day.” As part of the security drill, all children will be funneled out a single exit to their waiting parents. Just be careful with the traffic, she cautions. “The crossing guards completely enforce the ‘don’t cross on yellow’ rule, terrorists or no terrorists.”

So begins another morning in post-Sept. 11 America, as seen through the cracked kaleidoscope of “The Sleeper,” a comedy/suspense hybrid that riffs on present-day anxieties.

In a crisp staging at Laguna Playhouse, Catherine Butterfield’s 2004 script intrigues and entertains for most of its 85 intermission-less minutes. Yet even as it heads into its wrap-up, it begins to slip, insignificantly, from memory.

Gretchen, the mom at the center of the story, tries to put a smiling face on her life, although her husband is distant and her two unseen children are moody or unfocused. Portraying her, the pert, petite Amy Tribbey frequently lets a quaver slip into her voice to indicate that, although Gretchen may seem cheery and determined, she’s wrestling inside with profound insecurity.

Her husband, Bill (Tim Meinelschmidt), provides little reassurance. His interactions with her amount to little more than distracted, caveman-like grunts, when he isn’t exploding into obscenities over some situation he’s brought home from work. Nor is her sister, Vivien (Clarinda Ross), much comfort. When they exchange sisterly confidences, good-time gal Vivien often ends up half-taunting Gretchen about Bill’s sexual inattentiveness.

Since all of this occurs between March and May 2002, Gretchen, like the rest of America, is trying to push ahead, despite being severely jangled by the recent terrorist attacks.

Then, outside an anthrax awareness seminar, Gretchen strikes up a conversation with an attractive man several years her junior. Matthew (Ray DeJohn) is a tutor, a service her son happens to need. But in their offhanded banter, something deeper and infinitely more primal yearns to express itself.

Matthew quickly becomes a vital part of Gretchen’s life, causing her to glow as brightly as the colors covering the walls of Bruce Goodrich’s suburban home of a set. When odd events begin to occur, however, Gretchen can’t help but wonder who, exactly, she has allowed to get so close to her and her family.

Director Andrew Barnicle builds tensions to a delicious crackle, while letting humor continue to burble through Butterfield’s zippy dialogue. The designers help to sustain this duality. Paulie Jenkins’ lights deepen along with Gretchen’s suspicions, while Julie Keen’s costumes maintain understated whimsy.

Butterfield, whose plays include “Joined at the Head,” in which a serious illness buzzes through people’s lives in much the same way that security concerns do here, introduces other distinctly American viewpoints in such ancillary characters as a disconcertingly military-minded toy store clerk (Eric Curtis Johnson), a live-for-the-moment therapist (Cynthia Beckert) and a comically gung-ho terrorism expert (Jeff Marlow).

Although on its surface a cautionary tale about the strangers we let into our lives, “The Sleeper” also reminds us to keep an eye on those we think we know. It’s clever stuff, but the bids for laughs too often trump everything else. We chuckle while the story is in progress, then head out the exit, without further pausing to mull the pertinent issues Butterfield has raised.

The play doesn’t really take itself seriously -- why should we?

*

“The Sleeper”

Where: Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays. Also 2 p.m. March 2.

Ends: March 19

Price: $20 to $59

Contact: (949) 497-2787 or www.LagunaPlayhouse.com

Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes