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'Baby' scores with poignant, irreverent parts

As musicals go, "Baby" isn't magnificent. Richard Maltby (lyrics) and David Shire (music) are no Ira and George or Oscar and Richard. But that's fine. Directed by the ever-capable Lauren Rawitz for the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre, "Baby" is an entertaining romp toward the world of rompers and onesies. It is also surprisingly and often movingly candid in its unblinking look at the heartbreak (and surprising humor) involved with infertility. With book writer Sybille Pearson, Maltby and Shire shy away from the simple, stereotypical portrayal of pregnancy as a time of non-stop glowing joy.

A musical triptych about the epic journey from conception to birth, "Baby" begins with the ovum and spermatozoa (cheekily depicted by spotlights uniting from opposite sides of the stage) and ends with the unmistakable squall of a newborn. In the roughly 2 1/2 hour stage traffic in between, the audience meets three couples, each approaching pregnancy with markedly different attitudes.

Of the three couples in "Baby," only one pair, Pam and Nick, want a child: And after two years of trying, they're still coming up empty. Meanwhile, 40-somethings Alan and Arlene celebrate their hard-earned freedom and solitude after the departure of their youngest from the family nest when they realize -- uh-oh! -- in nine months, they'll be starting all over again with a brand new infant.

Finally, college juniors Danny and Lizzie can barely be counted as adults when they learn they're expecting. Lizzie blissfully tells her mother she hardly notices she's pregnant, and breezily makes plans to get a baby backpack so that the child won't disrupt her routine.

"Baby" really takes off when the three women meet in the gynecologist's waiting room. Rawitz keeps the humor popping as the enforced camaraderie of waiting for a session in the stirrups gets the ladies opening up to each other.

Pam (Leslie Ann Sheppard), is bursting with enthusiasm that borders on irrationality and bouncing around like Tigger on an espresso jag. In contrast, Arlene (Elizabeth Haley, delivering comic gold with her deadpan diction and world-weary wryness) offers a voice of been-there-done-that Martini-dry wisdom. And Lizzie (Katie Siri) pertly displays the kind of confidence that's only possible when you don't know what you're in for.

The men aren't as well-written as the women. Alan (David Tibble), Nick (Aaron Graham) and Danny (Peter Schwartz) primarily serve as support systems for their women.

Rawitz succeeds in bringing out both the constant, often irreverent humor of "Baby" as well as the musical's poignant, provocative moments. Spending two entire scenes (and songs) in a red negligee with her legs sticking straight up in the air, Sheppard nails the absurdity that entails when Pam and Nick's love life becomes an arduous, romance-free schedule of carefully timed interaction.

Between zingers about pregnancy at an age when one's dentist is prescribing toothpaste for "older gums," Haley's Arlene speaks movingly about the inevitable loss that comes with giving up part of one's life for one's child.

"We've been good parents. But it cost us something and I don't know that we'll ever get it back," she tells Alan.

Rawitz would do well to tighten the pacing for "Baby" -- losing 10 minutes wouldn't hurt. But that's a quibble. With musical direction by Micky York, "Baby" sounds fantastic. In all, it's a winning collaboration.