By Sandi Johnson. Directed by Sarah Rodgers. A Firehall Arts Centre production. At the Firehall Arts Centre on Wednesday, November 6. Continues until November 16

Goals don’t just help in life; they also help in fiction. In People Like Us, playwright Sandi Johnson has failed to give her lone character a goal. As a result, Johnson’s story lacks shape, the actor has little to play, and the audience grasps in vain for a narrative to hang on to.

Johnson’s intention is laudable: she wants to rouse compassion for Canada’s military veterans. Always bellicose, Stephen Harper pays lip service to soldiers, but in a report released this October, Guy Parent, Canada’s veterans’ ombudsman, emphatically decries the Conservative government’s lack of support for our vets, including the most severely disabled.

People Like Us is a monologue for Kate, whose husband, Gerry, a military policeman, returned from the Gulf War with a nightmarish list of symptoms—including genetic mutation and PTSD—that are among the ailments now collectively recognized as Gulf War syndrome. Johnson lays a lot of the blame for Gerry’s ills on the depleted uranium used in weapons deployed by the UN–authorized coalition that repelled Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. It’s important to draw attention to all of this.

It’s also important to frame the information within a compelling story, but People Like Us is just a long, predictable complaint. We know from the start that Gerry is going to be a mess when he comes home and that Kate’s life will be ruined as a result: the first words out of her mouth are, “What happened to Gerry happened to me.” As the evening unfolds, we get more details of just how bad things are, but the essential perspective never changes. Kate refers to her efforts to help Gerry and other vets, but these references are general; no central quest holds Kate’s story together. There’s no significant victory or defeat, just more of the same.

Johnson makes an effort to theatricalize Kate’s experience: Kate mourns her lost sex life in a series of belly-dance scenes, and when she speaks of Gerry’s love for Bach, we hear an excerpt from the Brandenburg concertos, but none of this moves the story forward.

Actor Sarah Louise Turner does a fine job with this impossible material: she delivers the text honestly and with feeling, avoiding the potential trap of sentimentality.

Amanda Larder’s set design—a wood-panelled living room that turns into a military tent a few feet up the wall—is conceptually interesting. And it gives you something to look at while Kate talks in circles.