By Norm Foster. Directed by Max Reimer. A Playhouse Theatre Company production. At the Vancouver Playhouse on Thursday, March 25. Continues until April 10

Norm Foster is Canada’s most produced playwright, but that’s not a fact to be celebrated because, as The Love List makes clear, he’s a long, long way from being our best.

In this play, Leo buys a 50th birthday gift for his pal Bill, a membership in a dating service called Got a Match. This is not a computer-driven process. The service is run by an old gypsy, and all Bill has to do is fill out a form listing the 10 characteristics of his ideal mate. No sooner has Bill written up his love list than Justine appears.

She’s got every quality that Bill has requested—including a fondness for performing oral sex. Justine knows all about Bill and she behaves as if they’ve been dating forever. Although he’s initially weirded out, Bill comes to enjoy living with Justine before the arrangement—inevitably—turns sour.

There’s theatricality in the magical nature of the setup, but Foster is mostly dealing in the shallow ideas and stale stereotypes of second-rate TV sitcoms.

Bill and Leo figure out that they can alter Justine’s behaviour by changing the list—by making her enjoy singing, say, as opposed to being unpredictable. But, of course, these Doctors Frankenstein lose control of their experiment. The lesson, as Leo says, is that: “You don’t fall in love with a perfect person. You fall in love by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” But we all know that already, don’t we?

Foster has fun sending up the classic sex-obsessed, emotionally stunted, narcissistic straight guy—Leo thinks that “big breasts” should be on the list—but, to me at least, this stereotype is crude and overworked. I don’t find the mere mention of a blowjob hilarious either—not because I’m a prude but because, for me, there’s nothing transgressive or surprising about it.

I did get one solid, unexpected laugh out of the first act. Bill is a statistician, and is delighted when Justine picks up one of his reports and asks, “Have you done the mean deviations and margins of error yet?” Too often, though, The Love List is predictable. You can see plot points coming miles away.

Peter Anderson is charmingly nerdy as Bill. Anderson is engagingly vulnerable and he’s a gifted physical clown. A bit of stage business in which Anderson’s Bill lip-synchs to his stereo, is the freshest passage of the evening. Cailin Stadnyk, who is developing into a very smooth comedienne, plays Justine with admirable timing and restraint; it would have been easy to go over the top with this role. And Foster embodies Leo with an author’s assured sense of the character’s wisecracking style.

The majority of the opening-night audience howled with laughter throughout The Love List, and most leapt to their feet at the end. In my view, though, this is a solid production of a mediocre play. I expect more challenge and sophistication from the Playhouse.