An Entomologist's Love Story

The big question going into "An Entomologist's Love Story" at SF Playhouse is, why entomologists?

Playwright Melissa Ross could tell nearly the exact same story about people working any other job, or even without delving into anybody's work life much at all.

The notion driving this play's buggy premise seems to be that whereas science tells us that insects have no emotional lives at all, they're still prone to drastic and elaborate courtship routines, including some that are openly self-destructive.

Presumably, nobody really wants that kind of perspective staring them in the face when trying to sort out their own dating lives. But there's no getting away from it in "An Entomologist's Love Story," as we can see from the towering lab set created by Nina Ball.

Here, case after case of specimens casting judgmental gazes down on the action, a constant reminder of the weird and disquieting nature of, well, nature. In the lab, aloof and brash researcher Betty (Lori Prince) and her self-consciously dorky coworker Jeff (Lucas Verbrugghe) play out the oldest story in the book.

She's hard-eyed and unromantic, he's touchy and sentimental. They're clearly gaga over each other but gave up on the prospect of a relationship back in college and instead make do as co-dependent BFFs.

She would like to appear as uncomplicated and unassuming as the tiny creatures they study. He's eager to prove that he's thoughtful and emotionally complex. Naturally, almost everything they say and do suggests that neither is really what they pretend to be.

Everybody knows this formula. In fact, it's as tested and predictable as the mating dances of fireflies or honeybees or any of the other romantic creepy crawlers that crop up in the dialogue.

Indeed, Ross and director Giovanna Sardelli make it a little hard to tell where this love story is supposed to be going. Are we subverting this formula? Playing into it? Faking one while doing the other? The play gives us mixed signals.

This is complicated by the fact that, frankly, Prince and Verbrugghe don't really seem to hit it off particularly well. Many scenes are spent with the two along together alone together and bantering and obviously meant to seem like their friendship is second nature.

But the liveliness of their back and forth appears feigned and (for lack of a better word) stagy. The inciting incident where Betty half-tricks Jeff into inviting a strange woman into their lab is weird and contrived. And their arguments about what people really want while dating are transparently for the audience's benefit.

Still, they loosen up as the play goes on, and the prospect that perhaps the characters are not actually meant to seem Meant To Be starts to appear both more plausible and more attractive as Sardelli teases out subsequent scenes.

Both leads stumble into separate romances of their own, Jeff first meeting a Manic Pixie Dreamgirl-lite type named Lindsay (Jessica Lynn Carroll). Betty later has a meet-cute moment with a weird but charmingly forthright janitor played by Will Springborn (formerly from "The Toxic Avenger" at San Jose Stage and an utter delight here).

These pairings are awkward, but then, first dates often are. And the humor of these vignettes is frothy and piqued without seeming contrived or manipulative.

The action comes to no particular conclusion and leaves the audience to decide for themselves which of the presented romances may or may not be the real deal, and even whether the advertised love story is actually part of the final package.

Prince's closing monologue about fireflies (they're quite tragic creatures, it turns out) suggests that there might have been more brewing in this play than actually came out onstage.

Frankly, it also hints that maybe she really ought to have been the principal focus all along, as it seems like she could have carried "An Entomologist's Love Story" to greater heights if given more tools.

That said, despite its flaws, the play as it exists now is a fair testament to the idea that sometimes just having a good enough time with a play is good enough. And now and then formulas still add up.

"An Entomologist's Love Story" runs through June 23 at the SF Playhouse, 450 Post Street. For tickets and information visit SFPlayhouse.org